August 23, 2005
Jets keep finding ways to piss people off
As previously reported, the New York Jets are playing footsie with the borough of Queens about returning to a new stadium near their ancestral home of Shea - but, it turns out, it wouldn't be in the Willets Point junkyard district. Rather, the Jets are looking to build in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a proposal that has divided local political leaders. David Oats of the Queens Olympic Committee, who has previously argued in favor of bringing the Jets to Queens, said the new plan would be "a desecration and rape" of the borough's largest park.
The Times' Charles Bagli notes that the Jets are "taking a cue from the Yankees," who are proposing to take 22.4 acres of Bronx parkland for their new stadium, which the city would replace with scattered athletic fields elsewhere in the neighborhood. Of course, that plan has garnered plenty of local opposition itself - City Limits Weekly has a report on the latest - but the local dailies have paid little notice. We'll see if that changes tomorrow, when neighborhood groups stage a press conference on the steps of the Bronx County Courthouse at 10 am to express their concerns with the project.
