August 27, 2005
Freaky Saturday
About 75 local residents rallied this morning in Mullaly Park - just about where the New York Yankees want to put their new left-field grandstand - to protest the team's plans to tear down Yankee Stadium and build a new facility atop public parkland. Speakers noted that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been critical of a proposal to build a Jets stadium in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens - "If it's good enough for their parkland, why isn't it good enough for us?" asked J.J. Brennan of Save Our Parks - then marched through the park to Yankee Stadium, perplexing dazed tourists emerging from the subway with chants of "Whose park? Our park!"
The surprise of the day was an appearance by city councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo, whose mother, state assemblymember Carmen Arroyo, sponsored the bill to alienate city parkland for a new Yankees stadium. Arroyo the Younger insisted that "these projects are going to be built," and then berated her constituents for not attending planning meetings in their neighborhood. (As several of those present pointed out, people have shown up for meetings when they can find them.) I asked the councilmember whether she thought a new stadium was a good use for $300 million in city money; she replied that she wouldn't take a position until she had all the details, and that anyway, the city council had already voted on the stadium in June.
Actually, Maria, that was the state assembly. You know, the place your mom works? You haven't been eating any of those funny fortune cookies lately, have you?
