New Yankee, New Shea

[db44]

Wow, a busy week here in NYC. Both NYC MLB teams announced new ballparks.

With the glorious and deserved collapse of the West Side football/Olympic stadium, the city went ahead with its contingency plans... Plans which should have been their first plans.

Both new stadiums are planned to open up in 2009. Both parks will be footsteps away from the current parks which exist. Both will be based on their storied NY predecessors.

With Yankee Stadium, the template is obvious. It's going to be a modern version of the original design. The outside, the main entrance are going to look like the pre-mid-70's Stadium. The field demensions will be the same. The facade will be back in full, no longer just in the outfield.

This Yankee Stadium will hold about 5,000 less people. They say that the seats will be closer to the field with the removal of these seats (although in many situations Yankee Stadium had some great sitelines). There will be no roof, there will be a big new club area in center field, which will be in the "Batter's Eye" area. Monument Park looks like it will be expanded across all the outfield and accessable thoughout the whole game. In a way, it looks like the current Comiskey Park, which I have said in the past looked like a copy of Yankee Stadium.

From the sounds of it, the current Yankee Stadium will be kept up in some form, to replace some of the parkland around the Stadium now. The diamond will remain and so it seems will be part of the structure.

The New Shea as I said is also being based on an old park... But it will be an updated Ebbett's Field. It is similar to the Mets plan which they have had for seven years. This park will hold only 45,000 people, however, should the ridiculous happen and we win the 2012 Olympic bid, they have a plan on the table to change the design which would allow the park to host 80,000 spectators. If this comes to fruition, the plans make it look like L.A. Colesseum did when the Dodgers played there.

Both parks will be financed by the clubs. New Yankee will cost $800M, Shea $600M. The city/state will pay about $150M for each project, for "infastructure" such as revitalization and parking/transportation. Many New Yorkers (myself included) hada a bitter taste in their mouths from the West Side Stadium and for paying a large chunk of the football stadium which would have been a total waste.

I'm pretty happy with the plan, that it will be so much like the past. I still can already feel the pang in my heart, thinking that my current home now has a limited life ahead of it, but if we're going to have a new Yankee Stadium, they can't do any better than this as far as design, history and certainly location (Bronx Bombers, BABY!!!) As someone who always wished he could have been to Ebbett's, I am eagerly looking forward to going to the Mets park too.

should all work out, 2009 will be an awesome year here in NYC. Only one city in the world probably could pull off building two such facilties at once. Here's to 2009!

Here are the links. The Yankee plan is much more in depth and has a photo gallery:

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050615&content_id=1090587&vkey=news_nyy&fext=.jsp&c_id=nyy

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050612&content_id=1087912&vkey=news_nym&fext=.jsp&c_id=nym

[Miss B]

I remember when the Astros got Enron Field which later became Minute Maid Park. There still trying to figure out what to do with the Astrodome.

[db44]

I was surprised when the Texans didn't move in.

It would be a travesty in NY if they didn't leave Yankee Stadium "up" in some fashion. It is so important to so many and to the game itself... And although I don't have problems there, I can see where others would. Then again, my seats are on an aisle right near a men's restroom and I barely ever go to the consessions stand during a game. As a pub ticket-holder, I'm guessing I'm gonna have dibs on a tickets to one of the clubs in centerfield... That should be awesome. I've sat in the corresponding area in Toronto, and that was cool.

And if some shrewd businessman for the city worked it out, do you realize how much money the city could make over the old Yankee Stadium? Imagine if they leave the original home plate there. Then on gamedays, close the old field down for little leauge an open it for an hour before gametime and offer fans a chance to bat at Yankee Stadium? at $15 a pop...

Shea on the other hand doesn't have anywhere near the history, importance or charm as Yankee Stadium does. Mets fans and maybe some old-time Jets fans will miss it, but not too many others. Shea, depending on the Olympics will either become parking or a warm-up track.

I wonder what they will name both parks. I'm fairly cartain Yankee Stadium will be Yankee Stadium, if New preceeds that or not. Shea, well, that's up in the air.

[Layney]

This may sound like a stupid question but why do the Yankees need a new stadium? That place looks huge compared to some parks *cough* Fenway *cough*

[db44]

Yankee Stadium is huge compared to Fenway, holding over one and-a-half the amount of people. But if you take a look at the loge level for instance, there are four mens rooms each with two toilets and four urinals. Womens rooms I gather are similarly scarce. The level holds at least 3,000 people, not including a number of party suites without their own facilities. Fenway has those troughs in the mens rooms, or at least they used to. Concessions are also tight. The inside walkways are considered small by some, especially when compared to the new stadiums. Parking is tight, only 8,000 spots (for a park which holds 56,000 plus staff, media and players) and where the commuter rail stops a medium-sized walk away from Fenway, Metro North as of now does not stop at Yankee Stadium.

In short, the seating bowl is fabulous at Yankee Stadium, but the supporting services are quite antiquated.

[Layney]

Yankee Stadium is huge compared to Fenway, holding over one and-a-half the amount of people. But if you take a look at the loge level for instance, there are four mens rooms each with two toilets and four urinals. Womens rooms I gather are similarly scarce. The level holds at least 3,000 people, not including a number of party suites without their own facilities. Fenway has those troughs in the mens rooms, or at least they used to. Concessions are also tight. The inside walkways are considered small by some, especially when compared to the new stadiums. Parking is tight, only 8,000 spots (for a park which holds 56,000 plus staff, media and players) and where the commuter rail stops a medium-sized walk away from Fenway, Metro North as of now does not stop at Yankee Stadium.

In short, the seating bowl is fabulous at Yankee Stadium, but the supporting services are quite antiquated.

And they can't just bulid these things into the old stadium? As much as I dislike the Yankees I think it kind of sucks to knock down the old park with all that history.

[db44]

The old stadium is already a renovation, having been closed for two years. Now you want to do it again? We already had a support bam fall out of the upper deck a few years ago. The stadium may not be able to handle it again. Plus that would mean another year or two playing in Shea, as opposed to playing in old Yankee Stadium while the new stadium is built.

Let's also look at politics: George won't let the Mets get a deal from the city/state without the Yankees getting an equal deal. Here both teams are getting parks which they are paying for and they are both getting money from the city.

The real politics though are also largely George taking it back to the other owners. They forced revenue sharing on him - Money he has truthfully contended that doesn't go back into the teams but instead into the owners' pockets - and they wrote all sorts of exemptions into the deal, such as if you use private money to pay for a stadium. Now that a bunch of other owners have cashed in on that, they are complaining because George wants to do the same?

I like that they are expanding Fenway. However having lived in Boston for six years and following the various plans they unveiled for the park, the Yankee Stadium plan is on par with the last new stadium deal I saw on the table up there: Build a park with the same dimensions next door, still with a view towards Kenmore and the Citgo sign, still with the Pesky Pole and the newly-christened Fisk Pole and build old Fenway into a playground and museum. I thought that was a great plan (as opposed to building in Southie or that dumb plan to extend the Hynes all the way to Fenway), just as I think this Yankee Stadium plan is in the same vein and a very good plan. I hope the Tigers are forever cursed for building Comerica without anything to remind people of Tiger Stadium, which in the little time I was there I loved, not seeing anything wrong with it. It was my second-favorite place to watch a game. I may go to Comerica this year, either trying to scalp for the All-Star game maybe or just for a regular game in August.

We heard of plans to move the Yanks to the West Side, or worse yet to New Jersey. We heard of copying the Skydome. This is the best new Stadium plan. I love the old park, and I'd agree that it doesn't need to be changed, at least in my personal view. But I also accept I need a lot less than others to be content. When I was at PNC last year, it was the first new park (and I've been to a number) that made me feel a new park can do good things for the fans.

Oh, and speaking of the various Fenway plans, can I tell you how dumb Menino was? In my last few months there, they were discussing the idea of building the new Fenway in the Fens... I saw a cut of the Mayor saying "we have to see if the people of the neighborhood really want it." Hello! I moved into the Fens to be two blocks away from Fenway. :rolleyes:

[*nsyncablemom]

hhhmmm....5,000 less seats + new stadium = higher ticket prices and less seats available to the general public, wouldn't you say?

[db44]

Probably, but they keep saying "affordable." Who knows.

What day are you gracing our Stadium? ;)

[Layney]

Good luck with that new stadiaum, maybe it will bring you some better luck/players/season??

[Annoyedlistner]

i hate the yankees..but its yankee stadium.....its baseball history....its the meca of all sporting venues....upgrade it....but dont build a new stadium for the yanks...thats a mistake.

[Muddyemms]

I've got mixed feelings on that one, Joey. Yeah, Yankee Stadium should be one of the "Temples of Baseball," for lack of a better phrase (hey, I'm writing this at 3 AM!), along with Fenway (which is being preserved, from what I hear) and Wrigley. But if the new Yankee Stadium is true to the old one, what harm is there in that? And, if the new Mets' stadium is true to Ebbets Field, so much the better. Maybe the Mets' hitters will actually hit some HRs at home!

[db44]

I wish nothing but curses on Detroit for their new stadium. The moved to the other side of town, they redesigned the park and the playing field so that there was no sign of what was my second favorite park in MLB.

Fenway and Wrigley are what can be called open air stadiums. They don't have big, heavy rooves, they have room where they add seats. They have a decent amount of room on the streets around them, considering the size of those parks. Briggs Field/Tiger Stadium didn't have that option, as it was enclosed and they had already pretty much used all the area surrounding the park itself to build new facilities and such (behind home plate was almost a small baseball village, kinda like a strip mall). Yankee Stadium doesn't have that option, considering the size of the crowds and the already overcrowding of the surrounding streets. There is no place to add anything, and considering the original structure can be unsafe (again, remember the crossbeam which fell out of one level and crushed four seats a few years ago). Yankee Stadium can't handle another refit I don't think, without pretty much destroying the original structure anyway (and we're back essentially building a new stadium at that point anyway).

As I said, I would have strongly supported the former Fenway plan to copy the park. Fenway is antiquated and I do love the park, but I can also see the need to expand it. The same is the case with Yankee Stadium. As long as they don't take the Tiger Stadium route and disregard 80 years of history, I'll be able to swallow the bitter but necessary pill of a new stadium.