April 19, 2010

Yankee Stadium Gate 2 balconies saved, headed somewhere

Yankee Stadium's Gate 2 may be rubble, but the campaign to save it did have one lasting effect: The New York City Parks Department has salvaged three vintage balconies and plans to display them somewhere, possibly in the public park that is supposed to open on the old stadium site late next year.

Apparently, Parks has planned on trying to save the balconies (which are not from the stadium's "1923 opening" as the Daily News claims; the left-field grandstand wasn't built until 1928) all along, but didn't announce it, Parks planning official Josh Laird wrote to preservationist Michael Hagan, "because it was unclear if the balconies would survive the [demolition] process and we did not wish to raise false hopes."

So there will be at least one fragment of the original Yankee Stadium that the public will be able to see and touch. That is, without going to Derek Jeter's house.