This Recording - America

The House That I Built and Other Links To Soothe Hard Feelings

by Alex Carnevale

Sketches of the new Yankee Stadium hit the news yesterday. I felt some satisfaction in knowing that I paid for some of it.

Amazingly Rudy Giuliani, representing the city of New York as a lame duck mayor, agreed to pay half of the stadium's construction tab. For what reason I have no idea. The team wasn't exactly threatening to move. Bloomberg then came in, and to his credit, used an escape clause to back out of the deal. At least one New York politician did one thing right.

I call spaces like the above "nonsense spaces", the Yankees call them luxury suites

Taxpayers will pay some $70 million just for parking garages which the city will operate to gouge the people still further. I really gotta get on the right side of the law, it is extremely lucrative. Were that not enough:

State taxpayers, through money that has accumulated from the MTA's budget since the 1980s, will also pay all of the costs of a train station on the Metro-North commuter railroad.

Just so people from Connecticut can come to the game? This is the world of sports teams and municipalities. For my non-sports readership, this situation is also coming to a head in Seattle with the Supersonics.

nothing like replicating one of the ugliest historic sightlines in baseball in your new stadium. tradition!

In the case of the Sonics I feel a lot more sympathy for the corporation. The NBA isn't as profitable as pro baseball, and the lease the Supersonics got locked into at the Key Arena is a joke.

a luxury suite which I will never see the inside of, food is free, but alcohol ain't

The bill to the taxpayer is thus:

All told, the Yankees and the taxpayers can each expect to pay about $450 million, and the Yankees will cover the remaining costs from diverting revenue sharing payments that would have been paid to the other baseball teams.

$450 million? Shouldn't the recording industry be looking for government subsidies at that price?

this is what accounts for innovation in new york stadium building: escalators

From this verifiable photographic evidence, the new Yankee Stadium looks to be as ugly as the out-of-date behemoth that preceded it. I really don't know why the two best teams in baseball need to have the two biggest shitholes to play in. It boggles the mind.

The Yankee team, fresh off giving a mint to retain Alex Godriguez as their third baseman, are expecting a down year as young pitching matures and a new drill sergeant manager humbles every one by forcing them to eat their own vomit.

Read a saner assessment by my homeboy Neil deMause. Neil's writing in the Village Voice on this subject has been terrific, to the point where when the Voice finally goes bankrupt, he may be the only one with marketable skills.