Bubble Wrap

Baseball stadiums moving quickly

In Two Stadiums. No Waiting. the Village Voice chronicles much of the frustration of groups who have yet to have a chance to provide input into plans for the Mets and Yankess stadiums.

Yet key details of the plans remain unresolved, leaving some neighborhood activists and good-government advocates wondering if the teams’ rush to break ground is trampling on the need for open public debate. “The proposal to build a new Yankee Stadium is moving at warp speed, and nobody can get on this train,” says Bettina Damiani of the subsidy-watch group Good Jobs New York. “The New York Stock Exchange subsidy deal didn’t move this quickly; even some 9-11–related projects didn’t move this quickly. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, how quickly this project is moving, and at the same time completely excluding the input of local community members.”