April 06, 2012

New Bronx ballfields open, six years after old ones razed by Yankees

For those of you who've been wondering when the new public ballfields on the site of the original Yankee Stadium would finally be opening, well, here they are, only 16 months late, and nearly six years after the neighborhood's old ballfields were bulldozed to make way for the Yankees' new $2 billion stadium and parking garages. As the New York Daily News reports, "The new fields are open to local kids, but only when not under maintenance or being used by teams that buy permits."

I haven't been by there yet, but with the promise of such features as "a pair of ticket-shaped granite benches recalling the week in June 1990 when Nelson Mandela declared himself a Yankee and Billy Joel rocked the stadium," you can bet I'll be paying a visit. Full report when available.

UPDATE: I only saw the online version of the Times article linked above, so missed that the celebration of the new ballfields ran above the fold on page one, which is more than any Times coverage of the actual debates over whether the build the Yankees' new stadium ever received. Jordan Moss of Bronx Matters further notes that "in a story regarding a land use issue this big for the Bronx an interview or two with one of the prominent local activists or former community board members who opposed the stadium deal (they were ditched from CB4 by then-BP Adolfo Carrion, Jr.) would have been warranted..."