New Yankees Stadium

[New Jack City]

There's talk recently of a new Yankees stadium going up, check out this article and some models.

NY POST

Yanks play ball with Mike in new stadium talks

by David Seifman

Baseball executives are meeting with the Bloomberg administration in an attempt to revisit the stadium deals signed by the Giuliani administration.

Sources said the Yankees have offered to pick up a larger share of the tab than they agreed to in 2001 for construction of a new $800 million, retractable-roof arena in The Bronx.

"It's moving ahead," said one source.

The Yankees had originally offered to pay about 60 percent of an estimated $50 million-a-year tab in interest costs.

Jennifer Falk, a spokeswoman for Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, confirmed, "Dan has had meetings on tha subject."

But Falk said the city's position hasn't changed.

"We are only willing to make investments in those projects where we can show significant private investment and incremental tax revenues offsetting the public dollars," she said. "At the very least, it has to be revenue-neutral to the city."

Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Yankees, told The Post that the team is "continuing to plan for a new stadium and is working with the city, elected officials, and the community to try to finalize our plans."

In the waning days of his administration, Mayor Rudy Giuliani granted the Yankees and Mets up to $50 million over five years to plan new ballparks.

The Yankees and Mets reached tentative deals with Giuliani on Dec. 28, 2001, to build a pair of $800 million ballparks, funded through a $1.6 billion city-backed bond offering.

Bloomberg took office four days later and put the contracts on hold, saying they were not affordable in the face of multibillion-dollar budget deficits.

The site and model of the proposed new Yankees stadium.

(scans by NYguy)

http://www.pbase.com/image/26056328/large.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/26056332/large.jpg

http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/future/yankeenew.jpg?

[GVNY]

I had no clue about this proposal. One day and this site has already opened my eyes. I believe Yankee stadium is a landmark, thus cannot be torn down. But I do believe it should be relieved of its duties. We need something new to represent the pride of our city.

[crunch]

"Jets suck, Yankees suck, Knicks suck!"
- Peter Griffin

[New Jack City]

Originally posted by crunch

"Jets suck, Yankees suck, Knicks suck!"
- Peter Griffin

Pure genius quote...:|

I wonder how long it took to come up with that one.


Anyway, the old Yankee stadium wouldn't be torn down since it's a landmark full of years and years of history. I think they could turn it into a museum or something like that.

[james2390]

I really like that design. Very futuristic :cool:

[FerrariEnzo]

Its not futuristic at all. Its Yankee stadium with a clumsy looking top.

[Wu-Gambino]

Yeah, it is terrible.

If you're going to build a new stadium, at least build it in Manhattan.

[brickell]

What do the Yankees need a retractable roof stadium for?


I don't like it.

[FerrariEnzo]

No not Manhattan, the Yankees are the BRONX BOMBERS and anything else would be a disgrace. Totaly mess up the way of things. Thats like saying take the displaced leperchauns from Ireland and putting them in Somalia. No. Leperchauns arent Leperchauns unless there in Ireland OR they are hiding pots of gold. But the yanks should look to the future and build a extremly futuristic stadium like the English Premiere soccer teams are doing. They look awesome while thier old stadiums will remain intact for whatever purpose.

[Ed007Toronto]

Funny how the Yankees can trade for a player with a $200 million dollar contract but needs cash strapped NYC to help pay for a new stadium. Something's wrong with this picture.

[crunch]

Originally posted by Ed007Toronto

Funny how the Yankees can trade for a player with a $200 million dollar contract but needs cash strapped NYC to help pay for a new stadium. Something's wrong with this picture.

AMEN to that!

[phxmania2001]

Originally posted by Ed007Toronto

Funny how the Yankees can trade for a player with a $200 million dollar contract but needs cash strapped NYC to help pay for a new stadium. Something's wrong with this picture.

When you're right, you're right... :bleep:

And agreed with FerrariEnzo - they're the BRONX Bombers.

[Gendo]

I think if its usefulness has been exhausted, and/or the structure has become a liability, than it should be torn down, or radically redesign major parts of it. This thing isn't the Colosseum in Rome, so I refuse to even give it a landmark status in my own mind. It wasn't a first in any way, so who really cares. I agree with Naptown. Build it in Manhattan and implode the old stadium. Maybe we'll be lucky and that will lift the curse of the Bambino.

In my little hometown, we've had two of the oldest multiple story stone buildings from the 1800s torn down recently. One was the very first College Building built, and the other was the original school building. Both were three floors, and uniquely beautiful. The college building was replaced by a new building that resembles the old one, yet looks even better. I don't have much sympathy for a baseball stadium or a 40 year old ugly assed building (2 Columbus Circle). I can understand Sentiment, but the first time you walk into an entirely new stadium, it will probably make you wonder what you ever saw in the old one.

[New Jack City]

NY Times

Early Reaction Is Positive on a New Yankee Stadium

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: September 5, 2004

The New York Yankees' plan for a new $750 million, open-air stadium in the Bronx, which they hope to announce publicly at the end of the month, is winning generally positive reviews so far in meetings with elected officials and city agencies.

Under the proposal, the team would build a 51,000-seat stadium with 50 to 75 luxury boxes designed by Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum to evoke the original 1923 stadium, not the renovated version that exists today. The stadium would go up in Macombs Dam Park, across 161st Street from the team's current home in the Bronx.

City officials and others who have talked to the Yankees say the team has devised a plan to replace the 16.7 acres of parkland as well as four community ball fields, a soccer field, a running track and the tennis and handball courts that would be eliminated by the project. The historic baseball field would remain for use by local teams, but part, if not all, of the existing stadium may be demolished, officials said.

The stadium proposal would dovetail with a broader plan by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr. for the redevelopment of the entire neighborhood, including a rejuvenation of the 161st Street corridor, as well as construction of a hotel and conference center near the stadium.

"It looks fabulous," said Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, who met with team executives a week ago and who has seen the renderings. "At first glance, it's almost too good to be true."

City Councilman José M. Serrano, whose district includes the area around the stadium, said the Yankees "deserve a new stadium." At the same time, he said, it was important that the team become more involved with the community and athletic programs in the South Bronx.

"I think it's important to make sure they do the right thing as far as the neighborhood is concerned," Mr. Serrano said.

The president of the Yankees, Randy Levine, would not provide renderings of the stadium or many details of the project because they remain a work in progress. "We are actively planning the new stadium," Mr. Levine said. "We've been getting input because it's very important that this be a consensus plan. We hope to present a final plan in the next several weeks."

But with Mr. Levine meeting with City Planning, the Parks Department and elected officials in the Bronx, a picture of the Yankees' proposal is emerging, and it is not sparking the same kind of controversy as the proposals for a $1.4 billion stadium for the Jets in Manhattan and a $435 million arena for the Nets in Brooklyn.

The latest proposal represents a remarkable turnaround from the early 1990's, when the Yankees' principal owner, George M. Steinbrenner, threatened to move to New Jersey if the city refused to build a new stadium in Manhattan. He routinely complained that crime, grime and an antiquated stadium kept annual attendance at home games well below two million.

But this year, attendance may top four million, and the Yankees say they will pay the $700 million to $750 million cost of a new stadium if the city issues tax-free bonds for the project. But the team is asking state and city officials for an additional $100 million and $300 million in infrastructure work, including four to six parking garages, a Metro-North rail station, roads and sewers.

One of the most pressing issues, however, is that the stadium project would require taking nearly half of the 28.4 acres in Macombs Dam Park, the site of four hardscrabble ball fields, a running track and a soccer field. In addition, the project would need 2.9 more acres, just to the north of Macombs Dam, in John Mullaly Park, which would eliminate 16 tennis courts and eight handball courts.

Officials say the Yankees have identified city-owned land nearby, including a parcel west of the stadium near the Harlem River, where even more ball fields, a track, a soccer field and basketball courts could be built. At a recent meeting with the team, the Parks Department suggested that some tennis and basketball courts could be built atop a series of three-story parking garages that would be part of the project. Under the team's proposal, the city would build the new parks at an estimated cost of $50 million, with the team providing an annual comprehensive maintenance fund.

The demolition of the old stadium would cost up to $25 million, although some city officials have suggested that the stadium structure could be spared and used for city offices and storage.

According to elected officials, the Yankees intend to ask the state at a meeting later this month to build a series of parking garages on existing lots that would bring the total number of parking spaces in the area to 13,000 from about 7,000, at an estimated cost of $150 million. The team has told officials that the garages could easily generate enough revenue from fans and commuters to justify the cost.

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, who visited Yankee Stadium last Wednesday for a briefing on the project, said he thought the team was "moving in the right direction."

"As a lifelong Yankees fan, it's a priority for the speaker to keep the team in the Bronx," said Steve Sigmund, a spokesman for Mr. Miller. "Now he'd like to see the team commit fully to park and community development in the area."

Mr. Carrión, the Bronx borough president, said his master plan for the neighborhood, which he expects to unveil later this month, would include a new stadium, but would differ with the Yankees' proposal in some other ways, primarily relating to parkland location and design.

"This is not simply about a stadium," Mr. Carrión said. "Everyone has to understand that, especially the Yankees. This is about building a center of gravity for sports, tourism, conferences and conventions."

[NewYorkMantle]

Will aura and mystique be able to make it across the street?

I don't like the idea of a new stadium, but on the bright side:

- Some of the old stadium's features will be incorporated into the new one.
- The new stadium will have the same dimensions (318, 408, 314) as the current one.

It would be great if the new stadium's facade boardered the upper deck, as the old one's did.

http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/al/yankee720.jpg

[STR]

Thats like saying take the displaced leperchauns from Ireland and putting them in Somalia. No. Leperchauns arent Leperchauns unless there in Ireland OR they are hiding pots of gold.
Pardon me, but what the hell are you talking about?

Anyway, they said Comisky Park couldn't be torn down. They did it anyway. They still shouldn't have done it, as the new one was way, way to big considering the size of the Sox's fanbase. They olny time they sellout is when the northsiders come down once a year. While I doubt the Yankees will have this problem, I doubt they still need a new stadium.

BTW Peter Griffon is 100% correct.

[New Jack City]

NY1

Bronx Borough President Supports New Yankee Stadium

http://www.ny1.com/Content/images/live/70/138963.JPG

OCTOBER 19TH, 2004

While the Yankees are hoping a return to the Bronx Tuesday will help get them back on the winning track, the borough's president is looking to build the team a new home.

Adolfo Carrion says he supports plans for a new Yankee Stadium, including building it in Macombs Dam Park, right across from the current stadium. His plan also includes preserving the current stadium for community use, a hotel, improved transportation, a new high school for sports industry careers, a Yankee hall-of-fame and development of public parks.

The seating capacity would be less than the current stadium, but it would have more luxury skyboxes. The estimated cost is $750 million.

“The good thing about this stadium project is that it is completely mortgaged by the Yankees,” Carrion said. “The taxpayer is not lifting a finger on this one. What the taxpayer is lifting the finger on, though, is infrastructure projects that were overdue and needed to be done.”

“[Yankee owner George] Steinbrenner and his crew have worked very hard. So far they have come up with roughly $700 million,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “I don’t know that we are there, but it’s a great design. Now it’s going to have to stand the test of public scrutiny, and we’re going to have to figure out how to come up with money when we have plenty of conflicting things.”

The borough president’s plan compliments the one proposed by the team and the existing redevelopment plans for the Bronx Terminal Market.

[Iggmasta]

Do you know if they are going to tear down the old stadium they should keep it as a tourist attraction or a museum

[New Jack City]

Do you know if they are going to tear down the old stadium they should keep it as a tourist attraction or a museum

Here's the portion of the article about what would happen to the current stadium...

His plan also includes preserving the current stadium for community use, a hotel, improved transportation, a new high school for sports industry careers, a Yankee hall-of-fame and development of public parks.

[Ellatur]

is it approved?

[New Jack City]

New stadium announced today, here's some renderings:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_drawing_groundlevel.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_model_aerial_slide.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_model_aerial_slide.2.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_drawing_crossection.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_drawing_behindhomep.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/nyregion/15cnd-stadium.650.jpg

[NewYorkMantle]

I was never too crazy about the idea of a new stadium, but this plan looks surprisingly nice.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_drawing_groundlevel.jpg

I like how the upper deck concourse is open air on the roof like that - Very interesting.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/nyregion/15cnd-stadium.650.jpg

The only things I don't like is how small the upper deck is and how the stadium appears to be a little too rounded.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_drawing_behindhomep.jpg

As for the outfield, I bet it's going to be:
LC: Away Bullpen (Shaded Blue)
C: Monument Park (Enclosed Box)
RC: Home Bullpen (Shaded Blue)

[ramvid01]

It wasn't a first in any way, so who really cares. I agree with Naptown. Build it in Manhattan and implode the old stadium. Maybe we'll be lucky and that will lift the curse of the Bambino.

completely wrong, it was the first stadium with 3 decks. Not only that, making it in manhattan would costs millions of dollars more, and would also make the name Bronx Bombers pointless. Yankee Staduim has some great history in it, and it has its mystic, so for us New Yorkers, tearing it down would be a complete shame.

[edsg25]

Personally, I like the new design and I am so glad to see there is no roof. Yankee Stadium, even in a new form, should be traditional and open air.

Using the old stadium as a model is far more warranted than trying to recreate Wrigley or Fenway (something Boston was toying with, but happily abandoned) with new parks. Yankee Stadium, by design, is a more logical model for a 21st century ball park than are the other two (who charmingly should be able to stand for eternity).

Here's a question for you New Yorkers:

WHICH STADIUM IS ACTUALLY MORE ALIKE AND CAPTURES THE FEEL, THE SPIRIT, THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE ORIGINAL YANKEE STADIUM?

1. the current stadium that used the original YS framework in its reconstruction

2. the new stadium

I'd vote for the new. The present stadium was refurbished at a time when detail, warmth, intamacy were not factors in architecture. It basically took the orignal YS and turned it into Any Park. In a sense, there is little special about the current YS other than history as it is a far cry from the original.

[NewYorkMantle]

The new stadium will capture more of the feel of the original, which is the main reason why I wouldn't mind seeing it built. The facade on the enclosed upper deck makes it unique - The current stadium has history and whatnot but architecturally, there's nothing too out of the ordinary about it. The new stadium looks like it will have a lot more character (again, architecturally speaking) than the current.

[NewYorkMantle]

I hope they:
Don't alter the dimensions of the facade (looks stretched out in the drawings)
Keep the benches in the bleachers
Keep the AL standings flags in the back
Don't have the dirth path from on-deck circle to batter's box

I also like how they have the lights positioned the same way they were in the old stadium (just noticed that)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/nyregion/15cnd-stadium.650.jpg

[giergel]

Beautiful stadium! It looks a bit old scool which I like! When will they start construction and how does the old Yankees stadium look?

[NewYorkMantle]

http://www.digitalballparks.com/Yanks_-_Outside_Slanted_640T.jpg
http://www.digitalballparks.com/Yanks_-_Outside_New_640T.jpg
http://www.digitalballparks.com/Yanks_-_From_CF_640T.jpg
http://www.digitalballparks.com/Yanks_-_3rd_Base_Line_2_640T.jpg

[NewYorkMantle]

What I'm wondering is which render will be the real thing because there are two conflicting ones:

In the model and one of the drawings, the front of the stadium is rounded and there's no open upper concourse:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_model_aerial_slide.jpg
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/sports/15yanks_drawing_groundlevel.jpg

In the rest of the drawings, the front is more angled and there is the open concourse:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/06/15/nyregion/15cnd-stadium.650.jpg

I'm hoping the first one's real because the facade is exactly like the old stadium (the window arrangement and rounded shape) and it doesn't look like a shell or giant fence like the second one (notice on the left how the facade continues around the street where the stadium ends)

[ramvid01]

i think its the angle of the drawings, they all seem to have the same design, but since there at different angles, it looks different, but it does definitly look better than with a dome.

[NewYorkMantle]

Nope, not the angles. The windows are different too in the first drawing.

[TalB]

For a new stadium, it looks like one that was built before WWII.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/320279p-273925c.html
Far beyond baseball

New stadium means big economic plans

By BILL EGBERT
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/465-stadiuim.JPG
Overhead view of artist's rendition of new Yankee Stadium, alongside the current Yankee Stadium. Plan would turn House that Ruth Built into community asset housing a museum, hotel and conference center, among other things.

The plan unveiled last week for a new Yankee Stadium is pretty nearly a home run for Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión in his effort to turn the area into a year-round tourist destination and economic engine.

Taking up a crusade that began under his predecessor, Fernando Ferrer, Carrión unveiled a stadium plan last October aimed at turning the city-owned landmark into a community asset.

The plan - endorsed by the Yankees and Mayor Bloomberg last Wednesday as part of a deal to build a new $800 million stadium just north of the present one - fulfills his main objectives for a deal, he said.

"First of all, we had to keep the old field, and make it available to the community," Carrión said. "And [Yankees owner] George [Steinbrenner] is going to pay the mortgage - which is great."

Carrión's plans for the old Yankee Stadium include a Yankees Museum, retail shops and a 250-room hotel and conference center inside the historic Yankee venue.

"We were able to carve out a site for the hotel and conference center," Carrión said. "It still has to be processed to see how it will work out, but the site is there."

Seating in the old stadium will be reduced to around 20,000 for local high school, college and league sports, and some of the freed-up space will be used to create a Yankees Hall of Fame.

Carrión's idea for a High School for Sports Industry Careers linked to the historic ballpark is less certain.

"It still needs to be inserted in the Department of Education's five-year capital plan for that to happen," he said.

Transportation improvements included in the plan, like the new Metro-North station, date from then-Borough President Ferrer's original "Yankee Village" plan to keep the Yankees from quitting the Bronx.

Ferrer's plan didn't involve building a new stadium, but it did call for the city to redevelop the nearby Bronx Terminal Market into a new shopping center - something the city already is trying to do in a separate deal sealed last year.

Though that controversial deal is still tied up in court, it could become the key to getting the new Yankee Stadium built in Macombs Dam Park.

Giving that swath of green space to the Yankees will mean the city has to acquire a comparable plot of parkland elsewhere in the area - and that could be carved out of the 32-acre Bronx Terminal Market property, which the city has leased to The Related Co. to develop into a shopping mall.

The deal the city signed with the developer included a land swap offering the empty Bronx House of Detention in exchange for a waterfront portion of the market property where the city could build a velodrome for the 2012 Olympics. With the city's Olympic bid now in doubt, a prison-for-parkland swap could be in the offing.

But whatever that outcome, Carrión called the new development plan "a home run for everyone."

"This plan is not simply about a stadium; it is about bringing jobs to our residents, restoring our neighborhoods, improving the infrastructure and creating opportunities in our community," he said.

Originally published on June 19, 2005

[asohn]

^ That hotel is probably not going to happen

[asohn]

What I'm wondering is which render will be the real thing because there are two conflicting ones:

I think the curving one is the latest design, but personally i like the angled one a bit better.

[NewYorkMantle]

I like the curving one, personally - Looks more like the original:
http://a1259.g.akamai.net/f/1259/5586/1d/images.art.com/images/PRODUCTS/large/10106000/10106915.jpg

[giergel]

But will they demolish the whole stadium and rebuild it or just renovate the facade and rebuild the rest of the stadium?

[bagel]

They will build a whole new one just next door. And then retrofit something into the old stadium.

[PotatoGuy]

whoa, looks cool, i like the one that looks like the old one

[i_am_hydrogen]

Great designs. I like the curved facade, too.

I wonder how much of the old stadium's structure will be retained for the museum/hotel/etc.

[TalB]

I don't see George Steinbrener can't just pay for it especially when he is the richest owner in MLB right now.

[New Jack City]

NY POST

ALBANY STEPS UP TO PLATE FOR YANKEES

June 24, 2005 -- ALBANY — Construction of a new $800 million Yankee Stadium yesterday received an important boost from the state Legislature.

The Assembly unanimously gave final passage to legislation that authorizes the city to enter into the necessary contracts and leases with the Yankees, as well as for the granting of permits needed for parking facilities.

The bill further authorizes the transfer of Macombs Dam Park, across from the current stadium, to the team for building a new stadium. The city is also permitted to take other land for new parks.

"The rebuilding of Yankee Stadium and the associated redevelopment initiatives are exciting and welcome," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx).

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/337097p-287934c.html
Mike goes to bat for All-Star plan

With plans to rebuild Yankee Stadium, Mayor Bloomberg is hoping to give the House That Ruth Built one last blast - by hosting Major League Baseball's All-Star Game in 2008.

City officials yesterday confirmed that economic development officials scouted last month's All-Star Game in Detroit with an eye toward bringing the midseason bonanza to New York in the not-too-distant future.

"There are a lot of big events that New York could host, and the All-Star Game is one of many we are exploring," said Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler.

Both the Mets and the Yankees are due to be play in new stadiums by 2009 - the Bombers in Macombs Dam Park in the Bronx, next door to their current site, and the Mets in Willets Point, Queens.

City officials stressed there were no firm plans and that either of the new stadiums could also be possible sites for the big game in 2009 or beyond.

David Saltonstall

Originally published on August 14, 2005

[VansTripp]

Great project... When it's will under construction?

[TalB]

It hasn't started yet.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/379534p-322297c.html
Bronx beep playing hardball on new Yankee Stadium plan

BY BILL EGBERT
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

As the approval process for the new Yankee Stadium plan winds up, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión made his pitch last week to leverage the project for support of his broader development agenda.

Ten days after a stormy public hearing on a plan the local community board voted down, Carrión signed off on the proposal to build a new stadium on parkland across the street from the House That Ruth Built.

But the approval came attached to a wish list of initiatives long championed by the borough president's office, plus a demand to preserve community access to parks and athletic fields.

"We can't miss this opportunity to get this right," Carrión said.

The centerpiece of Carrión's development plan is conversion of the historic Yankee Stadium into a community ballfield complete with a Yankees Hall of Fame, hotel and convention center, and a High School for Sports Industry Careers across the street from the new Yankee Stadium complex.

Carrión is also demanding that interim park facilities be completed before construction begins on the new stadium. While the current proposal includes replacement for Macombs Dam Park and Mullaly Park, many of those facilities won't be finished until after the stadium and surrounding parking garages are completed.

Carrión's proposed revision would require a new ballfield and running track be completed on Yankee Parking Lot 1 before the city parks are dug up.

"One of the big concerns of the community is that there should be a seamless transition from the old to the new," Carrion said. "Those facilities can't be lost during the interim."

The borough president's stipulations are nonbinding, and most of what Carrión is asking for would have to come from the city and state budgets, such as a new Metro-North station and an expanded ferry terminal.

Many community opponents of the city's and Yankees' current plan felt shut out of a Dec. 12 public hearing Carrión hosted. Seats were packed early with chanting building trades workers shouting down opponents, and some who sought to give testimony felt blackballed.

Lukas Herbert, an urban planner serving on Community Board 4, contends that he and other well-known opponents were not selected to speak while supporters who registered after them were. The borough president's office has denied that there was any effort to prevent opponents from speaking.

"This is an important step in creating a win-win situation for the host community," said Carrión, himself an urban planner, "which has been on the short end of the deal."

Carrión's approval sends the project to the city Planning Commission for consideration, the last step before a vote by the City Council.

Originally published on January 3, 2006

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/381395p-323869c.html
Bottom of 9th for Stadium

BY BILL EGBERT
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The City Planning Commission will play umpire at a public hearing tomorrow as plans for the new Yankee Stadium head into the final innings.

The controversial proposal to build an $800 million stadium and retail complex on city parkland directly north of the House that Ruth Built was voted down by local Community Board 4 but approved by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión with a raft of conditions and pet projects attached.

"This is a real environmental justice issue," said Lukas Herbert, a Board 4 member and an urban planner. "I'm taking the day off work to go down there."

Neither the community board vote nor Carrión's wish list are binding, but the planning commission vote will be when it takes up the issue in late February.

The CPC hearings come after a raucous hearing held by Carrión last month, with the rotunda at the Bronx County Building packed with construction workers chanting, "We want jobs!" and Yankees President Randy Levine denouncing opponents of the new ballpark as "professional protesters."

Many area residents said they couldn't get into Carrión's hearing because the construction workers - most bused in from outside the area - took all the seats.

Several vocal stadium opponents complained they were deliberately passed over during the time allowed for testimony.

The city Parks Department has committed $110 million for new parks in the area, but residents complain the replacement parkland - on smaller, scattered sites or built on top of parking garages - is not a genuine replacement for the 22 acres of greenspace the community is giving up.

To appease opponents, Carrión wants interim parks completed before work begins on the new stadium.

His proposed revision calls for a new ballfield and running track on Yankee Parking Lot 1 before Macombs Dam Park and Mullaly Park are dug up.

The planning commission's hearings will start at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Rector Hall, at 22 Reade St., but the stadium project will not come up until about 11:30 a.m.

Those wishing to testify should sign up at the speaker desk in the lobby before the hearing, said CPC spokeswoman Rachaele Raynoff.

She stressed that everyone who wants to will be given a chance to speak.

"There will be no 'selection' [of speakers]," Raynoff said. "We will be there as long as it takes."

Originally published on January 10, 2006

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/382018p-324368c.html
Stadium foes cry foul ball

They threw us curveball, foes charge

BY BILL EGBERT
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A public hearing on the new Yankee Stadium plan went into extra innings yesterday, as 85 speakers lined up to sound off and gave testimony until late in the evening.

Construction workers and local residents traded dueling chants of "Build it now!" and "Not on the park!" outside the City Planning Commission hearing on the plan to build a new Yankee Stadium complex on top of two city parks across the street from the historic ballpark.

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion opened the hearing with a call for Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to get more involved in what he called "a project of legacy proportions."

To reap the project's full potential, Carrion said, it should include the laundry list of pet projects from his own vision for the area. He called for a new high school for sports careers, a hotel, a convention center and a Metro-North station, among other things.

Later, speakers opposing the stadium plan lauded the borough president's ideas, but pointed out that none of them are actually included in the current Yankee Stadium proposal.

Joshua Laird, director of planning for the city Parks Department, the lead agency on the project, took to the podium to reassure locals that the city will replace all 400 mature trees lost to construction with thousands of young ones to ensure no loss of greenery. He also said the department supports Carrion's idea of interim parks for the community to use until replacement facilities are finished.

Yankees President Randy Levine touted the proposed $800million project as "the largest private investment in the history of sports and in the history of the Bronx."

But opponents such as Michael Levy Trotter of the community group Nos Quedamos, painted the plan as a "backroom, giveaway, sweetheart boondoggle" because the use of park land was arranged in Albany last year before the community was told.

"I'm a member of Community Board 4, and they never told us anything about it," said Pasquale Canale. "We found out about it in the newspaper."

Many, including Greg Bell of Bronx Voices for Equal Inclusion, said they felt sold out and abandoned by elected officials.

"The common denominator is that we recognize that our parks have been taken, and no one asked us," he told the commission. "A project is about to impact our community, and we were not informed. Individuals we have trusted to represent us have disrespected us."

Tony Costa, 44, who can hear game-day crowds cheering from his home five blocks way, couldn't believe the city plans to tear down the House that Ruth Built.

"Who would want to destroy such an icon of sports Americana?" he said. "How can we take a public good away from the poorest congressional district in America and then give it to the richest sports franchise in the country?"

Originally published on January 12, 2006

[FROM LOS ANGELES]

I would hate to see some modernist shit taking Yankee Stadium's place. The stadium should have a lot of postmodernism and lightning. I would love to see 30 feet letters spelling N-E-W Y-O-R-K Y-A-N-K-E-E-S, with red neons. Damn it, only if I had photoshop.

[TalB]

Even though I am not a fan of the Yankees, they shouldn't be building a new stadium, but rather rennovating the existing, which they did in the 70's.

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/387055p-328430c.html
Yankees' pitchman

Business crowd rooting for his stadium plans

BY BILL EGBERT
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Yankees president Randy Levine pitched the team's new stadium plans to a different set of pinstripes yesterday, but the crowd was clearly on his team.

Pledging that seats would remain affordable and that the project would create jobs for Bronx residents, Levine basked in a lovefest from the borough's business community at the New Bronx Chamber of Commerce lunch as he outlined what he called "the largest private investment in the history of the Bronx."

Levine cited several design features of the new stadium that will make it superior to the House That Ruth Built.

Although the current Yankee Stadium has some 20,000 seats on the lower level and 30,000 upper-deck nosebleed seats, the New Yankee Stadium will reverse that ratio.

And in addition to recreating the historical facade of the old stadium, the new ballpark will boast a replica of the original frieze destroyed with other architectural details when the old stadium was renovated in the 1970s.

"The new stadium will actually look more like the original 1923 stadium than the current one does," Levine said.

He also assured Chamber members that the expanded number of luxury boxes will keep other seats at reasonable prices.

"This stadium is going to be affordable," said Levine, "affordable for everyone."

Levine's biggest applause line came as he touted the estimated 1,000 new permanent jobs the expanded facility will create.

"Hear me," he said, "jobs will go to Bronx residents."

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, who is negotiating a community benefit agreement with the ballclub, said he is pressing for a commitment of "at least 25%" of jobs, contracts and purchasing being set aside for Bronx residents - a figure Levine endorsed.

Levine also lent his support for Carrion's other ambitious plans for the stadium neighborhood, including a new high school focused of sports industry careers and a hotel and convention center.

While stressing that the Yankees organization "isn't in the business of developing hotels," Levine said the site plan would accommodate one.

"There's a parcel of land set aside for it," he said.

Levine also cited several changes in the plan that came out of talks with project opponents, like making the parking lots available year-round, and centralizing replacement parkland on the site of the old stadium.

"They really had some good ideas," Levine said."

Carrion drew laughter when he described the sometimes contentious process of hammering out a redevelopment plan.

"It's like making sausage," he said, shaking his head wearily.

"It's not pretty."

Originally published on January 31, 2006

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/63185.htm
$TRIKING OUT AT STADIUM

By BILL SANDERSON
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 8, 2006 -- Opponents of the new Yankee Stadium cried foul yesterday over the ballpark's price tag, claiming it will cost taxpayers nearly a half-billion dollars — about twice as much as the team and public officials have claimed.

While the Yankees plan to foot the $800 million cost of the stadium itself, the organization Good Jobs New York says taxpayers are on the hook in the coming years for over $480 million in other costs.

Those items include $125 million to rebuild South Bronx parks, $70 million for new parking garages, $103 million in lost stadium rent payments and well over $100 million in tax breaks and subsidies.

Yankee President Randy Levine said the complaints about property-tax breaks make no sense. The team pays no property taxes now because it rents, and won't pay property taxes if the new stadium is not built.

The Yankees want to break ground on the project this year, and hope the new stadium will be ready for the 2009 baseball season. The city Planning Commission is to vote on the proposal Feb. 22.

bill.sanderson@nypost.com

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/398315p-337549c.html
Stadium plan stall

Park concerns lead to delay of Council vote

BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/57-protests.jpg
Members of Save Our Parks rally yesterday outside City Hall. The group has protested plans to build new Yankee Stadium on John Mullaly and Macombs Dam parks. Others demonstrated in favor of the new baseball venue (below).

The fast-moving process to win approval of a new Yankee Stadium ran into an unexpected snag yesterday just as it was about to reach the City Council.

The Council's Bronx delegation forced a postponement of a pivotal hearing on the $1.2 billion stadium project by the Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions and Concessions.

The hearing had been expected to pave the way for a vote on the stadium deal by the full Council within weeks. Council approval of related zoning, leases and parkland uses is the final hurdle facing the Yankees' plan to build a $800million stadium just north of the existing "House that Ruth Built."

Another $400 million is to be spent by the city and state for related infrastructure improvements and bonding assistance.

Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, whose South Bronx district includes Yankee Stadium, said the hearing was called off after the Bronx delegation held an inconclusive meeting Wednesday with mayoral representatives.

"There were several issues that came up that we were not given satisfactory answers for," said Arroyo, citing parkland and traffic issues.

A new hearing date was set for March28, and a go-ahead vote from the subcommittee would lead to approval by the Council April 5. The full Council invariably goes along with the decisions of its committees.

The new 53,000-seat stadium is to be built on 22 acres now occupied by John Mullaly and Macombs Dam parks - which has drawn vehement opposition from some community and parks advocates.

Members of Save Our Parks, a coalition of Bronx groups, rallied outside City Hall yesterday and announced the formation of a defense fund to raise money to fight the project in court.

They favor building a new Yankee Stadium on the site of the current one, which would preserve the two parks.

Geneva Causey, an organizer of Save Our Parks, said of the parks arrangement, "We live in the poorest congressional district in the country - we should not have to subsidize the richest sports team in America."

According to Arroyo, the hearing postponement was prompted in part by concern over the fate of a northern slice of John Mullaly Park not included in the stadium project. The Bronx delegation sought "a guarantee" from the Parks Department that it will be upgraded, she said.

The Bloomberg administration "was just not ready to come up with a commitment to address our concerns," said Arroyo.

Parks Department spokesman Warner Johnston would only say, "We hope to address any outstanding concerns as quickly as possible so that this important project can move forward."

Originally published on March 10, 2006

[TalB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/nyregion/22bronx.html?pagewanted=all
$28 Million for the Bronx in the Yankees' Stadium Plan

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: March 22, 2006

As part of the Yankees' proposal to build a new stadium, the team will contribute $28 million to a trust fund and distribute 15,000 free tickets each season to Bronx groups, according to the draft plan of a community benefits program.

The proposal also calls for the team to pay $100,000 a year to maintain parks around the stadium and distribute $100,000 a year in "equipment and promotional merchandise" to schools and youth groups in New York City. There was no requirement, however, that the $28 million, which would be distributed over a 40-year period, be spent in the South Bronx, the site of the stadium and its replacement.

Stadium opponents observed yesterday that the proposal for a 53,000-seat stadium calls for the trust fund to be administered by "an individual of prominence" appointed by an advisory group that would be selected by elected Bronx officials — who are nearly unanimous in their support of the stadium despite intense neighborhood opposition.

"It would be like the fox guarding the henhouse," said City Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster, one of the few Bronx officials opposing the new stadium.

The proposals, which include a pledge that a quarter of stadium construction jobs would go to Bronx residents, are part of the draft benefits program negotiated between the Yankees and Bronx officials.

The agreement is expected to be completed in a few days and will be part of the stadium package presented to the City Council before it votes on the stadium on April 5.

"We are in the process of negotiating and hopefully finalizing a job training, contractor training and community partnership agreement," said Randy Levine, president of the Yankees. "We think it will be very significant, and it would be inappropriate for me to comment until an agreement is finalized."

Plans for an $800 million stadium on two public parks next to the present stadium have drawn antipathy in the neighborhoods around the stadium, where residents say the parks that will be paved over — Mullaly and Macombs Dam Parks — are vital to a community with a high rate of childhood asthma and a lack of green space.

The parks would be replaced by smaller parks scattered throughout the area, including some on the rooftops of garages that would be built for stadium parking.

The stadium's neighbors say the Yankees have done little outreach in the community, which is among the poorest in the nation. Many residents say they are particularly estranged from the team because they cannot afford tickets but have to put up with traffic and noise on game days.

The Yankees want to start construction on the stadium this summer and finish by opening day 2009. The project has been approved by the Department of City Planning.

Borough President Adolfo Carrión, a chief advocate for the stadium, said he had lobbied for a benefits agreement to ensure that residents get well-paying jobs.

"My goal has always been that any development that happens in the Bronx should have benefits, including job creation," he said.

But many of the people who live near the stadium and oppose the project say their elected officials have misled them about the plan and have ignored a nonbinding vote last year by the local community board, which rejected the new stadium.

While the community benefits agreement has been the subject of negotiations for more than six months, Lukas Herbert, a member of the community board and a county planner in Westchester, said the board has not been asked for its opinion.

After he read the eight-page draft yesterday, Mr. Herbert called the $28 million trust fund a "slush fund."

"This thing is disgraceful," he said. "It's going to be controlled by the Bronx political machine — the very people who sold out the community in the first place."

The draft plan calls for the trust fund to be endowed in annual increments of $700,000 over the 40-year life of the Yankees lease.

It also calls for the Yankees to reserve at least 25 percent of the construction contracts for Bronx-based companies, at least half of which would be run by women or members of minorities. At least 25 percent of the construction and post-construction jobs would also go to Bronx residents. An administrator hired by the Yankees will monitor the team to ensure it is compliant, according to the draft agreement.

In 2005, the Yankees donated $291,000 of the $1.5 million distributed nationally by the Yankee Foundation to Bronx groups, the team said.

Councilwoman Foster, who lives a few blocks from the stadium, said she would continue trying to negotiate a better deal for the community.

"Everything we hear is about how this is going to be a better thing for the Yankees and their fans. But I don't care about the Yankees, I care about my constituents," she said.

[TalB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/nyregion/05train.html
Support Grows for Rail Station at New Stadium in the Bronx

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: April 5, 2006

For baseball fans who live in the northern suburbs, the biggest drawback to attending games at Yankee Stadium has long been the trip home.

To catch a train toward Westchester County or Connecticut, fans first have to ride the subway south into Manhattan because there is no commuter rail station near the stadium. Many of them choose to drive to the Bronx instead, clogging up the local streets with lines of honking cars late into the night.

But yesterday, after decades of pleading from fans in the suburbs and community activists in the Bronx, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg called on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to devise a plan for a new Metro-North Railroad station adjacent to the proposed site of a new stadium.

The governor and the mayor weighed in on the eve of a City Council vote to approve the Yankees' plan to build the stadium and parking garages that would hold an additional 3,000 cars. Their support for the station could counteract critics who argued that the Yankees' plan would draw even more traffic to the South Bronx on game days, said Adolfo Carrión Jr., the Bronx borough president.

"It will certainly be used by fans," Mr. Carrión said. But, he added, "It will have a very definite positive impact on the area."

Mr. Carrión said the transportation agency estimated that construction of the station would cost $30 million to $40 million. But it is not clear where the money would come from.

There are no funds in the authority's current five-year plan earmarked for a new station in the Bronx. To make room for one, the authority, which operates New York City's subways and buses as well as Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, would have to shift money away from another capital project.

In its previous five-year plan, the authority allocated $5 million for the design of a Yankee Stadium station, but a complete design was never presented to the public. In August, Representative José E. Serrano, a Democrat from the Bronx, announced that he had secured $2.4 million in federal funds for the station.

Neither the governor, the mayor nor representatives of the authority or Metro-North would comment on the financing yesterday.

"We will undertake a review of the project outlined by the governor and mayor and present a proposal to the M.T.A. board in the coming weeks," said Tim O'Brien, a spokesman for the authority.

James F. Blair, a resident of Ossining, N.Y., who represents Metro-North riders on the authority's board, said the Metro-North Commuters Council had favored a station at Yankee Stadium for many years.

"We think there is a need for it and we hope that appropriate funding can be found," he said. But, he added, "we really need to see what the trade-offs are from a capital perspective in order to judge whether or not this is a sensible thing for the M.T.A. and other agencies to support."

Advocates of mass transit generally favor the idea of building the station, but some are wary about the details. "It's not the congestion-busting move that we would like to see, but it's a huge help," said Teresa Toro, New York City coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. "The real one-two punch would be building the station and scaling back the new parking."

But the proposal already has suburban baseball fans dreaming of joyous train rides home after Yankee victories. "If they put in a new station, I'd probably look at season tickets again," said Kenneth Matinale of White Plains. He said he gave up his seats at Yankee Stadium after the 2000 season because "it's a pain in the neck to get down there from here."

Mr. Matinale, a member of a league of baseball zealots who call themselves the Westchester Baseball Discussion Group, said he had stopped parking in the stadium lots almost 30 years ago because it was more convenient to park on the streets of the South Bronx. But he said his car was burglarized during a World Series game in 1999 and tickets to the next game were stolen.

When Mr. Matinale attends Mets games at Shea Stadium, he said, he rides a Metro-North train to Grand Central, then switches to the No. 7 subway to Queens. He has even taken trains from White Plains to Philadelphia to see the Phillies play, but he said he would not consider the roundabout mass-transit trip to Yankee Stadium.

Even though Metro-North's Hudson Line tracks pass right by Yankee Stadium, suburban fans leaving a game must ride a subway to 125th Street in Harlem or to Grand Central Terminal in Midtown to connect to Metro-North. Fans have to travel to Grand Central or 125th Street, then take the subway up to the Bronx, to get to the stadium. But the trip home is more onerous, they say, because trains are less frequent at night.

"If you work in Midtown and somebody says, 'Hey, I've got tickets to tonight's Yankee game, want to go?' chances are you're going to say no unless that person is going to drive you home," Mr. Matinale said. "You wouldn't get home until 2 o'clock. Unless it's a Friday, that's going to be too late."

With a station at the stadium, Metro-North could provide service directly up and down the Hudson Line before and after games. Trains on its two other main branches, the Harlem and New Haven Lines, could get to and from the new station along a short connector less than a mile south of the stadium.

[Pavlo]

NYC Council Approves New $800 Million Yankee Stadium

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- City Council members approved a package of land use changes for the New York Yankees to build a new $800 million stadium in the South Bronx, across the street from where they've played baseball since 1923.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aoVIjsC11TxY&refer=us

[3tmk]

^Are these the same $800 million that were supposed to go to the Jets stadium? :D

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/426017p-359398c.html
Bx. beep axes Yank plan foes

BY BILL EGBERT
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión continues to show no mercy to opponents of the new Yankee Stadium plan.

Last month, Carrión sacked several members of Community Board 4 who opposed his wishes and voted against the plan for the new stadium, as well as the chairman of the board, presumably for not keeping his members in line.

Carrión's purge continued last week as a critic was ousted as chairwoman of a rebellious committee and other committee members were barred from taking her place.

Mary Blassingame, chairwoman of the housing and land use committee, was demoted for leading opposition to the controversial plan to locate the new stadium on two popular city parks.

Carrión earlier sacked four members of the board, which had voted, 16 to 8, to reject the plan.

Three of the ousted members - Gertrude Lane, Marie Stroud and Louise Williams - voted against the plan, but board Chairman Abe Rasul, who voted for it, was reportedly dumped for failing to deliver the board.

Board members are unpaid volunteers appointed by the borough president for two-year terms. Rasul and the three dissenters were the only members whose terms were up last month who were not reappointed.

Carrión declined to respond, other than to release a statement through a spokesman.

"The borough president, along with his fellow elected officials, oftentimes appoints new people to serve on the community boards in an effort to expand community involvement," it stated.

Bedlam broke out at the board's regular meeting last Tuesday when members rebelled against Blassingame being replaced with a board member who had never served on the land use and housing committee.

The committee had voted unanimously against the stadium plan, and board members charge current committee members were purposely barred from promotion to the committee chairmanship.

Certified city planner, stadium critic and committee member Lukas Herbert blasted Carrión - who often touts his own background in urban planning - for "steamrolling" the community with the stadium plan.

"If [Carrión] was acting like an urban planner, this whole process wouldn't have gone down like this," said Herbert. "Planners are supposed to go out of their way to include the community's views."

Originally published on June 13, 2006

[MasonsInquiries]

Funny how the Yankees can trade for a player with a $200 million dollar contract but needs cash strapped NYC to help pay for a new stadium. Something's wrong with this picture.
oh, you didn't know? money does indeed grow on trees.......lol; especially when you're dealin' with mr. steinbrenner.

[The Urban Politician]

Just curious, where is the parking for the new Yankees Stadium going to be located?

[got pidh?]

it was just officially approved today, it was on the news. Building is expected to end for 2009 season. They 're going to destroy the old stadium i think that will probably become parking space in the future, for now, they can park on the sky for all i care. I'm not for this stadium really, they have an excellent one now

[3tmk]

I saw the site today, it was weird, just a couple of excavator machines around, they seem to have scratched the surface, but haven't dug up anything yet, I think that was part of the groundbreaking ceremonies, and they haven't done anything since.
lazy ass yankees :D

[SaRaJeVo-City]

New stadium looks hella sweet!

[Jackie003]

looks great but i still think wrigley, fenway, camden yards, safeco and pnc park round out the top 5 in MLB.

the current yankee stadium is modern and this will take nyc back to the old old days that ruth built (the current park was redone in the 70's). i hope they dont mess this up with those stupid LED ribbon boards, cuz that contradicts the entire tradition factor.

[3tmk]

You guys have to take the 4 train from 167st to 161st stations
At one point the construction is just a couple of feet from the elevated tracks! The construction workers can jump from the stands they're building onto the tracks lol

[NewYorkMantle]

gimme the loot, gimme the loot

http://www.curbed.com/2007_05_yankee%20stadium1-thumb.JPG
http://www.curbed.com/2007_05_yankee%20stadium2-thumb.JPG
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/images/fan_forum/wallpaper/1024x768_new_stadium_vign.jpg

[TalB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/realestate/20livi.html?ref=realestate
Home of the Bronx Roar

By C. J. HUGHES
Published: May 20, 2007

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/20/realestate/20livi.600.jpg
Ruby Washington/The New York Times
HERE TODAY, THERE TOMORROW Until the new Yankee Stadium, right, is complete in 2009, the old one will have to do. Parkland will replace it.

HIGH BRIDGE, folded into a valley in the southwestern Bronx, welcomed its first wave of Manhattanites in the 1920s; developers promised them more room for less money.

Now history may be coming full circle. Buyers frustrated by high prices in uptown Manhattan neighborhoods like Inwood and Harlem are slowly discovering Art Deco buildings in High Bridge, conveniently near two subway lines and a chain of handsome parks.

For some, the attraction may be the new Yankee Stadium, a billion-dollar multiblock public-private behemoth whose curved bleachers are even now rising across East 161st Street from its older cousin.

It is to be ready in time for the 2009 season; along with it are to come new athletic fields, tennis courts, bicycle and walking paths, stores and restaurants. There will also be a new Metro-North Railroad station — which during baseball season might help ease overcrowding on the subway. Hopes are high that the advent of all these attractions will help generate residential construction.

The project has not been discord-free, however, as a total of 22 acres in Macombs Dam and John Mullaly Parks were sacrificed to build it.

To make amends, developers say, they are creating interim fields in former parking lots and will replace the old stadium — to be razed when the new one is ready for use — with permanent parkland.

“The reconstruction of parkland and adding state-of-the-art amenities point in one direction, and that’s for the benefit of the neighborhood,” said Wilhelm Ronda, the planning director for Adolfo Carrión Jr., the borough president.

Community advocates had sought a more substantial offer, pointing out that the area has grappled with high asthma rates — a problem ascribed in part to urban overcrowding and a lack of green space. The South Bronx generally, according to Menaka Mohan, a coordinator at Sustainable South Bronx, has a half-acre of green space per 1,000 residents, far below the two-and-a-half-acre standard her group and others advocate.

Still, transplants are coming, confident that High Bridge, a neighborhood one and a half square miles in size, is turning a corner.

Elaine Rivera, who two years ago bought a 720-square-foot co-op on the Grand Concourse, says wryly that when she falls prey to doubt on this point, she consults her own residential track record: Almost every place she has lived — the East Village, the meatpacking district — went on to become trendy, after she had turned down opportunities to buy.

“I thought, I’m not going to blow this off and make another mistake again,” said Ms. Rivera of her one-bedroom, one-bath unit with a terrace providing “movie-set views.”

A reporter for the public radio station WNYC, Ms. Rivera paid $150,000 for the place in the fall of 2005, and spent $13,000 more for new floors and a stove (many High Bridge co-ops are sold unrenovated). She said she had been told by at least one broker that it could sell for $250,000 today.

But she, too, acknowledges that before hordes flock here, the Bronx must overcome the perception, cultivated in the hard-luck 1970s and 1980s, that blight and crime persist.

Police statistics bear out the neighborhood’s transformation: Murder rates in the 44th Precinct, which covers High Bridge, dropped 58 percent from 2001 to 2005; robbery was down 29 percent over the same period. (Even so, there were 13 murders in the precinct in 2006, and 495 reported robberies.)

Ray Melendez, who moved to High Bridge in 1985 and once served as a police officer there, remembers when drug users in Joyce Kilmer Park routinely broke into parked cars. Mr. Melendez, who admits to having his own brushes with the law, says that he spent five years behind bars for a restraining-order violation, only to return to a neighborhood invigorated: In Joyce Kilmer Park these days, families come to picnic.

He says he is thinking about buying something new in the neighborhood. Based on his search, he estimated that his 850-square-foot one-bedroom co-op — which cost $20,900 in 1989 — could sell for $140,000.

But with the onset of gentrification, he said, “I worry about where the locals will go to buy a gallon of milk.”

[VikkyD]

are they BUILDING a "historical" facade? cause thats awesome!

[ramvid01]

are they BUILDING a "historical" facade? cause thats awesome!

The facade will mimic the original Yankee Stadium (pre 70s renovation).

[360KidNYC]

Damn ill be 19 years old when the stadium gets completed....

[NewYorkMantle]

^^ I'll be 20

[New Jack City]

Aug 5 07

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1378/1024484328_fd27638f74_o.jpg

source: jcach (http://www.flickr.com/photos/10975509@N03/)

[Don Omar]

Yankee Stadium Is Going Up, but Bronx Still Seeks Benefits

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/07/nyregion/07stadium.span.jpg
The new Yankee Stadium, with a 2009 target date, is being built near the old one in the Bronx.

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: January 7, 2008
nytimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/nyregion/07stadium.html)

Several years ago, as the Yankees negotiated to build a new stadium in the South Bronx, the neighborhood faced the realities of a massive construction project in its midst: parks would be closed and moved, traffic would be horrendous, life would be, for a while, a hassle.

So, as one way to make up for these inconveniences, the Yankees and elected officials signed a community benefits agreement. It required that the team would give roughly $1.2 million a year, starting when the work began, to various community groups through a special panel. The deal was similar to agreements in other major projects, like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.

But nearly 17 months after construction began, as workers race to complete the new Yankee Stadium by opening day 2009, none of that money has been distributed, and the group responsible for administering it has never met.

The seven-member panel also has not chosen a permanent chairman, registered as a charity with either the Internal Revenue Service or the state attorney general’s office, or selected recipients for $800,000 in grants or $450,000 in free tickets, merchandise and athletic equipment.

Elected officials have complained that they are in the dark.

“I feel embarrassed because I don’t know anything about what’s going on,” said City Councilman G. Oliver Koppell, who represents the northwest Bronx. Mr. Koppell had suggested that the Bronx council members meet to discuss the agreement. “I was involved when we negotiated it, but I have not been involved since. I urged that we have a Bronx delegation review, but nothing’s happened.”

The Yankees say the community groups will get all of the money that they agreed to give according to the community benefits agreement, or C.B.A., including the first 17 months’ worth, once the panel meets. Alice T. McGillion, a team spokeswoman, said that the money was in an escrow account and that the club was not responsible for the delays.

“Please ask Bronx Boro President’s office about any delays in the fund and advisory panel being set up,” Ms. McGillion wrote by e-mail. “As the CBA specifically states the fund and its establishment is independent from the New York Yankees.”

The Bronx borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., has been “too busy” for the past three weeks to discuss the stadium fund in an interview, said his spokesman, Michael Murphy. Last month, Mr. Carrión announced his candidacy for city comptroller in 2009. But Mr. Murphy wrote in an e-mail message that the process to release the money to community groups was moving along.

“There were many people deciding who would be the most appropriate candidates for the panel,” Mr. Murphy wrote, in explaining the delays. “It took time for people to look at the list and come to a consensus.”

The fund was part of the agreement and was to be established the day stadium construction started, Aug. 17, 2006, and distributed annually through 2046.

The agreements are enforceable by courts, but officials who normally ensure that the terms of a contract are carried out — such as the city comptroller — have no oversight because municipal money is not involved.

The agreement for Yankee Stadium was unusual, however, because it was not negotiated or signed by community members. It carries only the signatures of four elected officials, who said they were acting on behalf of the community, and a representative of the Yankees.

None of the officials who signed the agreement agreed to be interviewed for this article. The signatories were Mr. Carrión; Randy L. Levine, the president of the Yankees; and Bronx City Council members Maria Baez, Joel Rivera and Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

Mr. Murphy referred most questions related to the fund to the Yankees, or to the panel itself, but he would not disclose the names of its members, with the exception of the group’s acting chairman, Serafin U. Mariel.

Mr. Murphy would not say who had selected Mr. Mariel, 64, a Manhattan resident who is the former president and chief executive of New York National Bank.

Mr. Mariel, who, campaign finance records show, has donated to the candidacies of Mr. Carrión in the past, acknowledged that the group was far behind schedule. “It has taken some time to choose the advisory panel, but while some of that time has been lost, I don’t think any of the funding commitment will be lost,” Mr. Mariel said during a telephone interview last month.

“I am in the process now of arranging a meeting of panel members so they can meet each other and establish guidelines,” Mr. Mariel said.

Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster, who represents the High Bridge neighborhood and who opposed the stadium, said she had neither been briefed nor been asked for an opinion on the board. She said she had sent letters requesting information to Mr. Carrión and to council members Ms. Baez and Ms. del Carmen Arroyo without response. “I have no idea how people were selected to the panel,” she said. “It concerns me, but I’m also wise enough to know that a lot of people are hinging careers on how great this deal is, so I’m not surprised we haven’t had this conversation.”

However, Mr. Carrión’s spokesman, Mr. Murphy, said that the borough president was open to discussing the issue with other elected officials. “This process has been participatory since the beginning,” Mr. Murphy wrote via e-mail. “Every Bronx elected official can at any time address his or her concerns directly to the Borough President. He has an open door policy regarding addressing any concerns his colleagues might have.”

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01142008/news/regionalnews/activists_balk_as_developers_move_in_on__432590.htm
ACTIVISTS BALK AS DEVELOPERS MOVE IN ON STADIUM

By BILL SANDERSON

January 14, 2008 -- A sneaky city land "giveaway" will turn over former Parks Department property to real-estate developers - and further infuriate activists in the park-starved South Bronx neighborhood near Yankee Stadium, The Post has learned.

When the city gave up plans for a parking garage on East 151st Street between River and Gerard avenues last fall, the property was set aside for "neighborhood-oriented mixed use, retail or parking," according to documents.

Whoever wins the right to build on the plots will get a bonus - no zoning OKs needed.

Construction on the site "must be reviewed, but not approved, by the City Planning Department and the Bronx Borough Board," says the 533-page prospectus for the $237.6 million in bonds that will pay for several new parking garages around the stadium.

The property was handed over last month to a city-controlled company that will manage the garages - and lease the land to developers.

While the Parks Department used to manage the East 151st Street site, a spokeswoman said it was not officially parkland.

What's unclear, said Geoffrey Croft, of NYC Park Advocates, is whether a state law allowing South Bronx parkland to be used for the stadium project permits commercial development on the site, south of the stadium and adjacent to the Bronx Terminal Market shopping mall now under construction.

"This is just a giveaway," he said.

bill.sanderson@nypost.com

[InTheValley]

Wow, I have to say that I hope that it turns out better than our "White Sox" stadium here in Chicago. But, after looking at the rendering it is almost identical (on the inside to U.S Cellular field). Damn it, I expected better from a Steinbrenner who will dump money into his players, but this park doesnt look good so far. I am hoping that when it is all done I will be wrong. :ohno:

[NewYorkMantle]

well the problem with the cell is that the upper deck ends really abruptly at the foul lines and doesn't enclose the stadium well, making it feel more sprawled out than it should. the new yankee stadium's upper deck will suck balls compared to the current one, but it will still wrap around the foul poles and keep the field enclosed decently. there should also be a lot less foul territory down the lines compared to us cellular, too. - we'll never know how the inside will really look until all is said and done; all i know is the outside looks SEXY so far. like, REAL SEXY.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080115/capt.ad71f6e9b90940598dafd8df3512a22f.yankee_stadium_construction_baseball_nyr111.jpg

[edward77x]

I'm gonna miss Yankee Stadium I, but all great things must come to an end and Yankee Stadium II will be just as great as the first! :)

[N.Y.Panoman]

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/1378/y4jf2.jpg

[nyrmetros]

count me out with those new ticket prices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/sports/baseball/21tickets.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[NewYorkMantle]

???

25,000 of the seats in the new stadium will be under $45...

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04112008/news/regionalnews/highjinx_hits_yankees_106016.htm
HIGH'JINX' HITS YANKEES

CREW SABOTEUR BURIED RED SOX GEAR UNDER NEW STADIUM

By JOHN DOYLE, CHUCK BENNETT and JEREMY OLSHAN

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04112008/photos/news004.jpg
FOUL FOE: Baseball's hottest rivalry, featuring rhubarbs like this one involving Yankee Jorge Posada and Boston's Kevin Youkilis, just got uglier.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04112008/photos/news005.jpg
Hex marks the spot: A traitorous Boston-rooting construction worker poured concrete over a Sox T-shirt to ensure that it is forever entombed in what will become the visiting clubhouse at the new Yankee Stadium. "It's the curse of the Yankees," said one witness to the evil deed.

April 11, 2008 --

The new Yankee Stadium may be cursed!

A devilish Boston fan working on a concrete crew at the $1.3 billion stadium covertly buried a Red Sox T-shirt under what will become the visiting team's locker room to jinx the Yanks, two construction workers told The Post yesterday.

"In August, a Red Sox T-shirt was poured in a slab in the visitor's clubhouse. It's the curse of the Yankees," one worker said. "Nobody knows about it. It's in the floors, it's buried."

The workers say they now fear that they unwittingly helped hex their beloved Bronx Bombers.

"I don't want to be responsible for sinking the franchise," said a second worker, who witnessed the sabotage. "I respect the stadium."

The Post has withheld their identities because they are not authorized to speak to media.

This latest hex is above and beyond any typical ritual - like wearing a lucky shirt or hat - that fans typically do to boost their luck.

"It sounds a little unprecedented to me," said Tim Wiles, director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown.

"I guess if the Yankees go 86 years in the new ballpark without a win we'll know if we are on to something," he said, referring to Boston's previous infamous losing streak after they sold Babe Ruth.

"If I was a Yankees fan, that is my house. I don't want a Red Sox [T-shirt] under my house," he added.

Chris Wertz, co-owner of the Red Sox bar Professor Thom's in the East Village, laughed at the ingenuity of the worker.

"I won't be surprised in the least bit to see that visiting locker room torn up and relaid right away," he said. "This what makes the game special for baseball fans. It's not a mean thing, but something they will take seriously."

Red Sox fans, he said, will see the buried garment as a good-luck charm, especially after years of seeing the retired numbers of four legendary players displayed in Fenway Park.

It has long displayed "9" for Ted Williams, "4" for Joe Cronin, "1" for Bobby Doerr and "8" for Carl Yastrzemski - which comes out to 9-4-18, the day before the World Series that resulted in the last Red Sox championship until 2004.

Baseball historians said these kinds of superstitions are not something to be scoffed at.

"Curses start off very easily. It's all the power of suggestion and they take on a life of their own," said Dan Gordon, co-author of the 2007 book "Haunted Baseball."

"Even the 'Curse of the Bambino' didn't really take off until the 1980s. Before then it was just hard luck," he said.

Mickey Bradley, co-author of "Haunted Baseball," said a worker is said to have buried an unknown good-luck charm in a water main trench of the current Yankee Stadium back in 1920.

"Prior to that, they never they won a World Series," he said.

Players can also bring curses to their teams.

"Look at the curse of A-Rod. The Yankees haven't won since [Alex Rodriguez] came to their game. There's probably more to that than a T-shirt," said Peter Nash, author of "Boston's Royal Rooters," a history of Red Sox fans.

"This just takes the rivalry to whole new level. If you look at 2004, the Yankees were up three games. If Boston lost that, seriously, the whole franchise would have been decimated," said Nash, who performed with the rap duo Third Bass before writing about baseball.

"I think there is a curse in effect already. Maybe the Red Sox T-shirt is like the icing on the cake, a nice little F-you from Boston," he said.

The year 2004, of course, was the year the Red Sox broke their own curse and won the World Series after beating the Yankees in the playoffs.

Still, stadiums have long had their own curses.

One of them is the 1945 "Billy Goat" curse at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago cubs.

Legend has it that William Sianis placed a curse on the team after stadium staff refused to let him enter with his pet goat. The team hasn't played in the World Series since 1945.

Superstition in stadiums can also cut the other way and help a team.

The Texas Rangers languished in their old stadium from 1972 to 1993, until they moved into a new ballpark the following year. Since then, the team won three division titles. More recently, the Tampa Rays may be cursed by their own new stadium, which was partially built over a cemetery.

Over the past decade, the team had the worst record in all of Major League Baseball four times and finished last place in their division nine times.

As for the buried emblem of hated Boston, the Yankees say they aren't the least bit worried.

"It sounds like a tall tale, and it would take more than a Red Sox T-shirt to put a curse on the Yankees," said team spokesman Howard Rubenstein.

john.doyle@nypost.com

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04132008/news/regionalnews/hammering_the_hex_106315.htm
HAMMERING THE HEX

STADIUM HARDHATS UNCOVER SOX SHIRT

By ANGELA MONTEFINISE, BRAD HAMILTON, ALEX GINSBERG and JAMES FANELLI

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04132008/photos/news003a.jpg
BIG DIG:The jersey is partly uncovered yesterday after workers used jackhammers to root it out.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04132008/photos/news003b.jpg
Workers dug up the Red Sox jersey in a service corridor near the new Legends Club behind home plate.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04132008/photos/news003c.jpg

April 13, 2008 --

The curse has been broken - out of the ground, that is.

A pair of hardhats working at the new Yankee Stadium dropped a dime on the location of a buried Red Sox jersey.

Beantown-loving construction worker Gino Castignoli, who lives in The Bronx, confessed to The Post last week that he buried a Red Sox slugger David Ortiz jersey at the site last summer while working at the stadium.

After reading about the traitorous act in The Post, the two workers approached a construction manager and said they remembered Castignoli, who only worked at the Stadium one day, and thought they knew where he must have placed the shirt.

They led the manager to a service corridor near the site of the planned Legends Club restaurant, behind home plate and toward the third base side.

After the hardhats pointed to the spot, workers brought out jackhammers and dug furiously for five hours, creating a 2-foot- by-3-foot, gravel-filled pit in their search for the tainted threads.

They spotted the jersey at 3:25 p.m. and called Yankee brass. The cursed shirt was about two feet deep in cement.

"They absolutely pinpointed that if it was in the ground, that's where it was," team spokeswoman Alice McGillion said, as she let The Post inspect the now partly buried shirt.

But the team declined to identify its latest heroes.

Said McGillion: "The workers came forward this morning and said that they thought if there was a shirt buried, this is where it was" - on the stadium's lowest level, behind where the field-level seats will be.

Truth be told, the jersey felt like a filthy rag - but the lettering of the word "RED" was plainly visible.

The Post first revealed Castignoli's dirty deed Friday. Then yesterday, the Boston-loving boob said he hid it along the third-base line.

Yankee brass was initially in denial, a spokesman explained, because a quick review of the new Stadium's pouring records determined that it just couldn't be buried in that location.

After the discovery, the team ordered the work stopped - and left the shirt in the cement in preparation for an extraction ceremony today.

"We want to thank The Post for raising the issue," McGillion said. "The [two] workers were terrific in coming forward. They wanted the shirt out of there."

As it turns out, Castignoli, 46, has been in trouble before. The hulking mason once pleaded guilty to involvement in a $40 million illegal gambling operation with ties to the Gambino crime family.

He was busted in February 2002 during a roundup of mob-connected gambling dens, according to the Brooklyn DA's Office.

But it was the betrayal of his borough that elicited Bronx cheers from many Yankee fans - including the new Boss, Hank Steinbrenner.

"I hope his coworkers kick the s- - - out of him," said George's boy, who now runs the team with his brother Hal.

Hank put no stock in talk of curses or in Castignoli's cruel bid to hex the Yankees' new $1.3 billion home.

A buried jersey, he reassured worried fans, means nothing.

"It's a bunch of bull- - - -," Hank said.

But Castignoli scoffed at the top Yankee honcho's ready dismissal.

"So, then, why is he making such a big stink about it?" asked the would-be hexer. "If it's no big deal, why not let it lay? Apparently, it's bothering him.

"Tell Hank he can come meet me if he wants to try - and tell him to bring [catcher Jorge] Posada, because he's the one Yankee I can't stand."

Meanwhile, Yankee fans attending last night's game at Boston's Fenway Park cheered the find.

"Dig it up, and get it out of there," said Norberto Diaz, 35. "They should give the next guy $156 an hour to dig it up."

Additional reporting by Jennifer Fermino in Boston and Matthew Nestel in NY

brad.hamilton@nypost.com

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04142008/news/regionalnews/a_yankee_hexcavation_106446.htm
A YANKEE 'HEX'CAVATION

NEW STADIUM DE'SOX'IFIED IN JERSEY DIG

By C.J. SULLIVAN, JOE MOLLICA and ERIC LENKOWITZ

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04142008/photos/news004a.jpg
GET THE 'RED' OUT! Yankee President Randy Levine, with the team's chief operating officer, Lonn Trost, addresses the media yesterday moments before hardhats pulled out the Sox jersey.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04142008/photos/news004c.jpg
Hardhats pulled out the Sox jersey at Yankees stadium.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04142008/photos/news005a.jpg
GINO CASTIGNOLI

Traitor might be charged

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04142008/photos/news005b.jpg
DIRTY 'UNDER'WEAR: Frank Gramarossa, one of two hero hardhats who led Yankee brass to the site, yesterday shows the mucked-up Red Sox jersey that had been buried by a colleague.

The Yankees officially reversed the jersey curse yesterday - extracting from the new stadium's concrete a David Ortiz shirt planted by a Red Sox-obsessed hardhat hoping to hex his team's arch rivals.

Then they warned the traitorous construction worker, Gino Castignoli, to watch his back, saying criminal and civil charges could be on deck.

"I spoke with a [prosecutor]. There may be criminal issues," Yankee Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost said.

Trost speculated that Castignoli could be on the hook for criminal mischief.

A spokesman for the Bronx district attorney said, "We can't speculate" on possible charges.

Trost said that even if Castignoli ends up safe from charges, "we're thinking of a civil case, looking for money damages."

Yesterday's excavation alone cost the team $50,000, Trost said, even though the actual digging took two workers just 15 minutes.

The jersey was partially unearthed Saturday after five hours of digging at the site near a planned restaurant behind home plate.

It had been buried two feet beneath the surface.

The recovery did double duty - not only taking the hex off the Yankees, but also putting one on Ortiz. The Red Sox kept the slumping slugger out of the starting lineup for last night's game against the Bombers, saying he was taking a "mental day off."

Yankee President Randy Levine yesterday proudly held up the tattered shirt, which he said would be donated to Boston's Jimmy Fund for auction to raise money for cancer treatment and research.

"We turned this dastardly act into a positive one," Levine said. He lavished praise upon The Post for bringing it to the team's attention.

"We want to thank The Post for raising this issue," Levine said. "Two heroic construction workers gave us a tip where the shirt was, and we acted immediately."

One of those workers, Frank Gramarossa, who led the removal, said: "I'm glad we got it out. I was angry and upset and wanted to find the jersey."

Castignoli, a self-professed Yankee hater, yesterday said he had spent just one day on the site, working strictly to plant the jersey. "A lot of my friends work there, and they said it was easy work," he said outside his Bronx home. "I told them I wouldn't work there, but then one day a few months later, I said, 'I could just go and jinx that stadium.' "

Castignoli said workers at the site long knew of his devilish doings.

"Anybody with half a brain knows it was all done in fun," he said.

"I didn't hurt nobody."

Additional reporting

by Denise Buffa

cj.sullivan@nypost.com

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04152008/news/regionalnews/no__1_fan_bar_none_106583.htm
NO. 1 FAN 'BAR' NONE

PUBSTER'S SOX-POX TIP

By JEREMY OLSHAN

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04152008/photos/new09b.jpg
WAY TO GO: Billy DiCristina was at a bar when he tipped The Post to Friday's story that...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04152008/photos/new09a.jpg
resulted in a buried Red Sox jersey being dug out of the concrete at the new Yankee Stadium.

April 15, 2008 --

Were it not for the tale one loyal Yankee fan overheard while downing pints of Guinness at a Bay Ridge bar, that Red Sox jersey would still be embedded in the concrete under the new Stadium.

Billy DiCristina, 27, a carpenter from Bensonhurst, had just watched the Rangers playoff game at the Bean Post Pub early last Thursday morning, when a fellow patron with whom he was vaguely acquainted told the story of a Red Sox jersey that had been buried in an effort to curse the Stadium.

"I asked him about it, and at first I thought he was breaking my chops," DiCristina told The Post. "But when he said he was 'dead serious,' I went crazy. I was furious. I said, 'We have to get that Boston garbage out of our Stadium' "

"Give me The Post," DiCristina shouted to the bartender, and began dialing every number he could find on Page 2, including the circulation and customer service departments.

He ended up leaving a series of slurred, rambling, giggling messages on the voice mail of one reporter who had recently written about the stadium, calling it an "anonymous tip."

"I had had a few too many I guess, and I forgot to leave my phone number," he said yesterday.

The Post was able to find construction workers to confirm the tip, and by Sunday the insidious David Ortiz jersey had been unearthed and would no longer be poisoning the new ballpark.

When DiCristina saw the front page on Friday, then Monday's story about lifting the curse, he was thrilled - even if he didn't get any credit.

"I'm not really a superstitious kind of dude, but I'm just glad it is out of the ground, because it would have been eating me up every time I went to the new stadium," he said.

"I'm sure the people who dug it up felt the same way, and if they hadn't done it soon I might have headed over there and done it myself."

DiCristina was also glad to hear it was a David Ortiz jersey.

"I think all Yankee fans will agree with me that Ted Williams would have been much worse."

As for stadium saboteur Gino Castignole, DiCristina said he hopes "he gets what's coming to him."

The Bronx turncoat will not face criminal charges, a spokesman for the Bronx DA told The Post. But having spent $50,000 to tear up the concrete, Yankee brass say they are considering taking the traitor to court.

Gino Castignole Jr., the culprit's son, said his father would do it all over again if he had the chance.

"I think it's great what my father did," he said. "It feels good to represent the Red Sox in The Bronx, and now everyone knows it."

Meanwhile, the Yanks are planning an out-of-this world ceremony prior to tomorrow's game against the Red Sox.

Astronaut Garrett Reisman, a New Jersey native, will float a zero-gravity ceremonial first pitch from the International Space Station.

Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan and Denise Buffa, with Post Wires

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04172008/news/regionalnews/boston_hex_it_106859.htm
BOSTON HEX-IT

By JEREMY OLSHAN

April 17, 2008 -- The jinxing jersey a Red Sox fan buried under the new Yankee Stadium is now back in Boston where it belongs and will be on display from today at the city's sports museum.

The Yankees spent $50,000 to jackhammer the jersey out of the concrete on Sunday after The Post revealed that Boston-loving saboteur Gino Castignoli buried it in an effort to curse the team for 30 years.

The jersey will be the featured attraction of "Cementing the Rivalry," a new exhibit at the Sports Museum at TD Banknorth Garden.

[3tmk]

so, now that the final game has been played, does anyone know when they'll destroy it?
Or even better, will they blow it up?

[Auxodium]

lol.... gee that is funny stuff regarding the shirt... and who said football was the only sport to invoke hatred? :lol:

[swaugh3]

Found this under Stadiums and Sport Arenas (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=263)
NEW YORK CITY - Yankee Stadium (52,325) (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=580494)

[edsg25]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04112008/photos/news005.jpg
[i]

Am I nuts?

If you squint when you look at this picture of Yankee Stadium, does it actually look a lot like what I think: the Polo Grounds? (with a 45° counterclockwise turn of the diamond necessary)