Good article in the Village Voice on new stadium construction. The piece is more about Yankee Stadium and how the surrounding neighborhood is getting the shaft (less park land, more headaches, etc).
Great photo of Shea Stadium and Citi Field, though. The new place is really looking snazzy. Here are a few grafs:
At the time of the two teams' ignominious exits last fall, the new
stadiums were still little more than skeletons. Since then, decorative
arches—granite for the new Yankee Stadium, brick for the Mets' Citi
Field—have mostly taken shape, and the seating bowls are in place.
Sharp-eyed fans will note the wide gap between the outer and inner
structures: As in most modern stadiums (but not relative oldsters like
Shea and Yankee), the façades are mere shells around the actual
ballparks within, the better to fill the space in between with
concession-y goodness.
The similarities, however, stop at the ballpark walls. The Yankees'
project has gotten more attention not just because it's displacing more
hallowed ground—the biggest controversy for Mets fans has been whether
the team will preserve Shea's 1980s-vintage plaster home-run apple—but
because it's far vaster in scale. Where Citi Field is going up in a
parking lot, the new Yankee Stadium is being erected in the former
Macombs Dam and Mullaly parks and, with its accompanying garages, is
already transforming its South Bronx environs. It's one reason why the
Yanks' costs are so much higher: nearly $1.9 billion, compared to the
Mets' comparatively thrifty $850 million. Of that, taxpayers are
covering almost half, mostly via tax rebates and other goodies; the
latest estimates for total public subsidies, according to figures
compiled by the Voice, are $833 million for the Yankees, $449 million for the Mets.
Obviously, Loge13 readers know there's much more controversy around Citi Field than the Apple. I'm surprised
they didn't dig deeper into the Iron Triangle. It has been somehwat quiet on that front since the rezoning hearings were postponed.
