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The NYC taxpayer, along with local businesses, got royally screwed. They funnel everyone into this "stadium mall" and that's where the money gets spent, not in (my) hood. Local merchants report that their business is down, by like 20%.
They also took over a bunch of parkland that was supposed to be returned someplace else, but hasn't been yet.
The location is terrible. The stadium itself is beautiful. They did a great job.
Well I would understand why. Its simply because they want a venue close and accessible from all around the city yet enough vacant for parking and events. Of course, I guess they want to preseve and keep the culture and history of the Bronx. I remember they one time a year ago, the organization was bidding to fight for the space on the West Side Stadium. Well the West Side stadium never happened for obvious traffic and economics reasons. As you all know, it would have housed the Jets and be the setting stage for Olympics.
That is not Yankee Stadium. The building that's being torn down is Yankee Stadium. I've been a Yankee fan for 50 years and probably been to the stadium over 200 times, but I will never step foot into that new building ever. They can keep their $20 parking, $10 beer, $50 steak etc. I'm stiil a fan but I hope they choke on those seats at $500 plus per. Sorry, this topic gave me a chance to vent.
You can take the bus or train to the stadium. Dont worry about parking. The Yanks have to charge high prices, they need revenue from the new stadium, as time goes on, they costs of things there might go down.
If the Yankees' aim was to recreate Yankee Stadium in the form of a thoroughly modern ballpark that paid homage to the original structure, they succeeded immensely. Comparably, what Walt Disney World does in places like Epcot which is designed to carry the essence of nations around the world through the use of imagination, detail, and scale is extraordinary indeed. And since this is a New York thread, Vegas's ability to encapsilate the essence of the Big Apple in New York, New York is a success.
Unfortunately for the Yankees, Yankee Stadium is neither a theme park or a themed hotel. The problem wasn't the way the architects carried out their charge: it was the mission itself that was at fault.
The current YS is a soulless place and despite the shape of the field, the return of the freize and other elements from the original park that it incorporated, in the current needs of the team for a more bowl like, lower cut structure, many of the features look like little more than add on's.
Personally I believe the Yankees desire to see the old stadium torn down completely without parts of the old structure left in tact is the team did not want anyone making comparisons to the original. That structure, taller and steeper, had a different feel, a more natural grandeur and a style of its own.
The Yankees erred by not breaking new ground (no pun intended) in creating the ballpark. Given the nature of both team and Yankee Stadium, such creativity should have been the expectation.
IMHO, the closest a team came to having a "charge" to set something new and extraordinary into motion was the Dodgers. In moving to LA, they became the powerhouse, gold plated franchise of the National League. And as such, Dodger Stadium was never going to be anything but extraordinary. It earned its role as baseball's Taj Mahal and (again IMHO), DS runs rings around the new YS as a stand apart structure, a place with personality and class, a place modeled on nothing that came before it.
With no aura about the team or the city, the Orioles were true ground breakers at Camden Yards, arguably the most influencial structure ever built in MLB for the number of parks that used it for an example.
Other's who went it unique (once again...hate to repeat myself...IMHO):
• Pittsburgh: for daring to make a modern ballpark small and intimate
• San Francisco: for the ability to avoid cuteness (not counting the add on's of Coke bottle and glove) by building a classically straight forward ballpark that shared with the parks of old a quirkiness that was not forced but came for a reason: a tight space with the bay making right field small.
•*Philadelphia: for creating a sense of place in a new park that didn't have the retro component.
No less and perhaps more should have been expected of the Yankees in creating something of today and tomorrow, of harnessing the power and creativity of NYC for something unique.
Of the two new parks, I think the Mets did a better job at Citifield although the criticism of how it used Ebbets Field as a model mimics the Yankees use of the original stadium as one. But I do think that Citifield did establish something new to the game. Not have the downtown locations and views of parks like Pgh, SF, etc, and no landmark like Baltimore's warehouse (the modern equivalent of the rooftops across from Wrigley), the Mets used interior space and a sense of surrounding within the park to give the impression of structures beyond the borders of the ballpark. My only faults with Citifield: far too much overpowering scoreboard space in the outfield and a totally regrettable lack of deverence to the Polo Grounds. This wouldn't have been needed if the Ebbetts theme hadn't been used, but it was. The Mets played at the PG, not EF. They are "New York" and not "Brooklyn" and truthfully their very birth was generated by more of the old Giant base and the powers associated with it than the Dodgers. I'm not sure that Queens and Brooklyn sharing a location on Long Island makes the type of connection that Citifield gives. Nor does it respect the Mets themselves when another team's old park becomes the model. It was fine at birth for the Mets to be about heritage with Dodger blue and Giant orange and the Giants's intertwining NY....but this team is over a half century old; neither Giants or Dodgers needed to be part of its current persona.
I'm glad I got a chance to go to the "real" Yankee stadium. I may go to the new stadium but it will never have that historic feeling that the old one had.
The old, REAL Yankee Stadium was like walking into an old, elegant, historic Tudor estate. The new one is basically a McMansion - an assembly-line, cookie-cutter design by the same architects who did every other "retro" park since the early 90s. I will go to the new stadium one of these days - when its free. In the meantime, I have the privilege of watching games at home, and the best thing about it? The price.
Just another example of corporate America intruding on the game of baseball. Very sad.
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