Some highlights and lowlights from today’s media postmortem of the New York Jets stadium vote:
[Mayor Michael] Bloomberg said on Tuesday that New York had “let America down”.
“The [US Olympic Committee] selected us, New York, to represent the country. Other American cities wanted to have the privilege of competing at the world level,” he added.
ABC News web photo caption:
New York Governor George Pataki puts his hand to his head when asked to switch from English to Spanish during a news conference on the failure of a powerful state board to approve a plan to build a $2 billion stadium on the West side of Manhattan.
City council speaker Giff Miller, quoted in Newsday:
“Right now the Jets control a $1 billion property they got for $250 million. The (city) needs to cancel that contract and put it back out for bid so we can get this money for straphangers and build something positive there, like affordable housing for people who need it.”
Shaun Powell, Newsday sports columnist:
Today is special because New Yorkers no longer must worry about buying something they don’t need, didn’t ask for and wouldn’t belong to them. There’s no fear of giving $600 million of your tax money to the rich boys’ club so they can put cherry wood paneling inside a fancy club restaurant or install 42-inch high-def flat-screen TVs in their luxury suites.
Selena Roberts, New York Times sports columnist:
In Paris, the world is strolling arm in arm with French Olympic volunteers who have sworn to refrain from le sneer or le scoff at uncouth tourists or narcissist athletes for exactly 17 days during the 2012 Summer Games.
In Pottersville, a mom with a stroller is ferrying a 200-pack of Pampers she bought on Wal-Mart credit through a subway turnstile with a $6 swipe of her MetroCard, the cost of which, alas, has ballooned since the M.T.A. lost a $720 million infusion from Woody Johnson on June 6, 2005, the day the Jets’ stadium deal collapsed.
New York Times:
At a founding meeting of the pro-stadium Hudson Yards Coalition four years
ago, Jerry I. Speyer, a developer and a minority owner of the Yankees,
warned the group that building over the West Side railyards was folly
because of community opposition, potential lawsuits and environmental
regulations. He was not the only one. “Everyone in town gave the Olympic
organizers that advice,” [the Regional Plan Association’s Robert] Yaro said.
Juan Gonzalez, Daily News columnist:
John Fisher, one of the many stadium opponents whose concerns were heard by
Silver, was celebrating yesterday’s vote.“We’ve still got to kick it to see if it moves,” Fisher said of the stadium
plan. “Then we need to shoot it a few more times.”
In the end, there was no reasoning with Sheldon Silver, nor was the Assembly speaker open to good-faith negotiations. Dead set on smothering development on Manhattan’s West Side, he voted down the $2.2 billion stadium and convention center planned for the area. His stubborn, high-handed wrong-headedness was breathtaking.
Mike Lupica, Daily News sports columnist:
For this one day yesterday, about as good as a New York politician could have, you wanted it to be Silver running for mayor against Bloomberg and Bloomberg’s money in the fall.
When he was finished with his prepared speech, someone in the crowd of reporters asked Silver if he thought the Jets stadium was dead and Silver allowed himself a smile and said, “It was never alive.”
And finally, Curbed.com:
More on today’s screw-the-stadium press conference: Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver left little wiggle room in announcing his plans to vote no.“Am I supposed to sell out the community I have fought for and I have
represented?” Silver said. “Am I supposed to turn my back on Lower
Manhattan?”He added that he would not support the plan even if the city is award the
2012 Olympics. And then he kicked the Mayor in the ribs.
I think a better comparison for Ms. Roberts would have been Jay Cross as Harold Hill from the Music Man rather than Jim Dolan as Mr. Potter. And someone get her a fact-checker for that $720 million figure!
Meanwhile, on the other coast, Pasadena just told the NFL to drop dead.