No, what we really need is a new and snazzy Yankee Stadium
So, what's your top fiscal priority? Maybe schools for those thousands of kids in Brooklyn that don't have a seat in one? How about affordable housing? Maybe some infrastructure spending on the increasingly ramshackle MTA network? Or, to leave the City behind, how about we hook up the disadvantaged regions of upstate New York to broadband internet access?
What we don't need is another $350,000,000 in tax-free financing dedicated to the destruction of Yankee Stadium and its replacement by a new and vaster complex littered with VIP skyboxes that ordinary people will never see the inside of. But that's exactly what your mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is pushing for in Washington.
The Working Families Party is saying "Haha, no" to the idea. You can add your voice to theirs by going here. Because, you know, it's not as if George Steinbrenner and his stable of millionaires are panhandling for cash in the subway or anything like that.
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Working Families Party | New York City | George Steinbrenner | Michael Bloomberg
WFP certainly says "HAHAHA"
Submitted by Raulism (not verified) on 19 June 2008 - 3:19pm.
Actually, WFP is supporting corporate welfare by omission. While they are taking a courageous stance at Yankee stadium, they are somehow quiet about Atlantic Yards. While they are officially neutral about giving Ratner millions- or more likely BILLIONS- of taxpayer dollars, they somehow didn't mention that in their recent email.
I guess they do really want that arena and luxury housing complex. What's a couple hundred million dollars among friends?
WFP divided
Submitted by mole333 on 19 June 2008 - 6:07pm.
WFP is divided on the issue. On the one hand, Letisha James, their main person in the city, opposes it. As do many of their members. But they have (and should have) strong union ties, and many unions have bought into Ratner's propoganda. For the unions even the backing out on affordable housing isn't even a deal breaker. They think it is the best way to get some good jobs. I disagree, but I can't blame them for putting that first. I personally think actually building schools, maintaining our infrastructure, building community based development, etc. is a better way to create jobs, but they have a different view. WFP has tried walking the Atlantic Yards tightrope, trying not to piss off either side. I wish they'd take a good stand, but it is a tough issue for them.
Oh, come on.
Submitted by Bouldin on 19 June 2008 - 6:34pm.
Yes, people are unhappy about AY for any number of reasons and any number of very good reasons. No, AY is not the same thing as the Yankee Stadium boondoggle, not even remotely. With the Yards, there's at least a pretense of public benefit, with Steinbrenner's new palace, there's not even a shred of that, plus they're tearing down a genuine national landmark, literally the House that Babe Built, for the sole reason that they can't carve out enough of it at a price high enough to satisfy their shareholders.
These two things are not the same thing.
No longer
Submitted by mole333 on 19 June 2008 - 6:39pm.
The affordable housing part has been put off indefinitely. There is no longer a pretence. You are right that there WAS a pretence, but I always assumed it would be dropped at some point. And now it has. Which has led to many of the original supporters to start siding with the opponants, at least for now. Bill deBlasio offering his support for a DDDB rally would have been unthinkable before. Ratner has by now pushed aside any difference there was with Steinbrenner's new palace, basically saying that for now AY is ONLY the Arena and a handful of luxury buildings withe everything else given no timetable whatsoever.
Of course.
Submitted by Bouldin on 19 June 2008 - 7:32pm.
But even with that, there's still some plausible public benefit in the form of new dwelling units (though it's been fun to watch every prediction made by Yards critics come true). With Yankee stadium, there's not even that - it's a simple play pit for Wall Streeters and ballplayers that earn as much as Wall Streeters.
Bloomberg's boondoggle
"Whenever new stadiums have been built, the promised lavish economic benefits have failed to materialize. Publicly financed ballparks make teams richer and cities poorer."
-- "Baseball Between the Numbers" pub. 2006, by Baseball Prospectus
When the mayor was agitating for a west side stadium, I wrote a paper, and gave a speech at a City Planning Commission hearing, advocating for a combined-use (football & baseball) stadium to be built over the Sunnyside Rail Yard. The advantages were numerous: plenty of mass transit, potential for a new commuter rail hub, and -- most importantly -- not one dime of public funding needed. Since I didn't have a power base, it didn't happen, and we're now stuck with not one, but two new stadiums being built with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars.
Meanwhile, the city's budget is in major distress.
Our schools are still crumbling, our police force is dwindling, our electricity is failing, our jobs are disappearing, and Mike Bloomberg's answer is to go to a ball game. But with ticket prices rising (because those new stadiums are soooooo expensive!), how can we afford it?
When Bloomberg took over as mayor, the ashes of the World Trade Center were still smoldering and the city was facing an enormous deficit. He took the reins and got things done. Not perfectly, but overall he did an excellent job. Unfortunately, that early success seems to have gone to his head; ever since then, most of his initiatives have been incredibly wrongheaded -- from rezoning for overdevelopment to his mania for baseball stadiums to Joel Klein. As time went by, even an initiative that, properly planned and properly handled, could have worked (congestion pricing), fell prey to Bloomberg's impatience and inflated ego.
Meanwhile, thanks to the interest sparked by the new baseball stadiums, as I write this the Yankees are three and a half games behind Tampa Bay and the Mets have a losing record. Great job, Mr. Mayor!