The Village Voice: Runnin' Scared

Yankees Build Giant Dustbowl in Bronx

posted: 12:17 PM, November 21, 2006 by Neil deMause

These days, it takes longer than usual to walk to Geneva Hester's apartment at 1001 Jerome Avenue, because you have to maneuver around a pile of burning asphalt. The pyre is being tended by a small phalanx of construction workers hired to erect the new Yankees stadium where Macombs Dam Park stood for the last century, and it completely blocks the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians into the roadway.

"It takes a long time to get across the street," says Hester, who's lived in her building for 35 years. Sometimes, she says, she has to yell to get the attention of the truck drivers who start rolling in at 6 a.m., obstructing sidewalks and crosswalks alike. More often, she and her neighbors in the Highbridge section of the Bronx just cross in the middle of the block, dodging the cars pouring off the nearby Macombs Dam Bridge.

Traffic, though, isn't the biggest complaint of Jerome Avenue's residents about the stadium project, now entering its fourth month and not scheduled for completion until 2009. No, that would be the dust.

(The new view from Geneva Hester's living room window)

"When you walk out of the building, you get hit with the dust," says Donna Johnson, who lives next door to Hester at 1005 Jerome, an Art Deco colossus ornamented with terra cotta bas-reliefs. "If you've washed your car, the next morning, it's covered with mud." The dust comes not just from the former parkland being excavated, she notes, but from the remains of the massive boulder at the park's west end that was pulverized by workers after the Yankees' groundbreaking in August. "There was one point, I felt like I had a shard from the rocks in my eyes—it didn't come out for a couple of days."

Hester, whose 8th-floor window has afforded her a view of Macombs Dam Park and a distant slice of the Yankee Stadium bleachers—"If they hit a home run, I can hear the cheers, but you have to run to the TV to see who hit it," she says—now looks out onto a vast construction pit swarming with workers. The bam-bam-bam of a pile driver punctuates every thought. Since construction began, she's kept her windows shut tight to keep out the swirling dust. Rain helps clear the air, she says, but then backs up from debris-clogged sewers and create enormous puddles.

Touring the north end of the construction site along 164th Street, where a few remnant tennis courts will soon give way to a multi-story parking garage for Yankees players and execs, Hester notes, "I don't walk on that side because the rats are so fat." Since construction began, she says, overflowing trash cans and blowing debris have been the routine. "I'm from the old school, where you teach your kids to pick up your garbage."

(The former Macombs Dam Park, with the Jerome Avenue apartments beyond)

It was just such worries that led Community Board 4 to argue last fall that the city should either rebuild the stadium in place, or move it south and west, away from the residential neighborhoods to the north, where asthma is already at epidemic levels. Those suggestions were summarily dismissed by the Yankees, however—team president Randy Levine insisted the current stadium couldn't be expanded without knocking down the elevated 4 train that runs behind a small stretch of the right-field bleachers—in favor of replacement parks for the old stadium site and at other scattered locations far from where residents are concentrated. Temporary ballfields were promised in the interim, but as Metro New York reported last week, the city has yet to begin soliciting bids to build them.

Also behind schedule are the four parking garages the city intends to build for the Yankees. The state has put up $70 million toward construction, but the balance, now estimated at $250 million, is supposed to come from private developers, and after a year of searching, the city has yet to find anyone willing to take on the project. The Bloomberg administration insists it will select a developer early in 2007, but given that the proceeds from Yankee parking pencil out at a little over $10 million a year, less $3 million a year in rent payments to the city, it's hard to see why any developer would cough up a quarter-billion dollars for garages when you could get a better return by putting the money into savings. This could help explain rumors that one of the garages (possibly Garage C, slated for mapped parkland north of the Macombs Dam Bridge approach currently used by the Yanks as surface parking) will be scrapped. That would make it cheaper for a developer, but also potentially put the city further in the hole if it then can't charge as much for rent.

Add in the $45 million that the MTA now says it will cost to build a new Metro-North station to serve the Yankees, plus the cost of a new pedestrian overpass to span the station (negotiations regarding the cost are "ongoing" between the city and MTA, a Parks Department spokesperson said), and it seems certain the total cost of the Yankees project to city and state taxpayers will be well over $325 million. Not too shabby for a project that Yankees exec Steve Swindel promised last year would be built with "no public subsidies."

categories: Stadium Development

Comments

uhm, don't forget the smell...

This project stinks. Stinks of more of the abuse and manipulation the Bronx has always endure, stinks of corruption, stinks of the disregard of people and the love of the dollar, New York style.

Can't stand that nasty smell...
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Posted by: An Other Greek at November 22, 2006 12:59 AM

Waaaa.....waaaa.....waaaa....there's dust in the air. Waaaa....waaaa...waaa...I just washed my car and it's dirty from all the dust.

Posted by: Brian Cashman at November 22, 2006 12:02 PM

Brian Cashman is obviously an idiot, and on that doesn't live in the Bronx.
the last thing this bloated, over-paid team needs is a new stadium; what a waste of time, money and energy, not to mention a total disregard for the people of this city.

hubris is an epidemic in this country.

Posted by: gg at November 22, 2006 2:17 PM

Dear Blog Manager
I hope that was not the real Brian Cashman. I think there was a translation from Napolean, and it says." Never mistake something as Maliciousness,That can be easily be explained as Incompetance. I also think he said "You dont have to be intelligent to be in Politics". This is an easy answer to supporters of taking the park for a New Yankee Stadium.

Posted by: Dan McCalla at November 22, 2006 3:15 PM

As someone who has been in construction for over 30 years I know that there is no way there is any asphalt burning over there. I also know that if there is a dust problem I promise that there are sections in the the contractors contract that specifically address keeping down the dust and cleaning the streets around the site where trucks have tracked. If this is as bad as Ms. Johnson it would take no more than a phone call to remedy this. The local community board is well aware of this. This sounds to me like the griping of people who did not want this project there is the first place.

Posted by: Michael Fortunato at November 22, 2006 8:58 PM

It's a shame when people force their sporting religion on someone else.

Posted by: strawberry blueberry raspberry at November 23, 2006 11:31 AM

CURSE BEGINS FOR YANKS AND MONEYCHANGER STIENB.

FOR DESTROYING 2 PUBLIC PARKS

AND HISTORY OF HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT.

WE ARE SICK AND TIRED
OF BILLIONARES AND PHONEY POLITICANS
LIKE MIKE MONEYBAGS AND ADOPEO CARRION

TAKING AWAY OUR FREE PARKLAND.

Posted by: HELLS ANGELS FOREVER BX. at November 25, 2006 8:28 AM

Unfortunately, destroying the communities of the Bronx to make money for the rest of the city has a tradition dating back to at least Robert Moses. The decimation of this borough is unfortunately, ironically and inextricably linked to the time the Bronx became a borough of mostly black and brown peoples. In the late fifties (which saw the Bronx receive huge waves of Carribean immigrants and Southern Black migrants), Moses approved the construction of the hideous Cross Bronx Expressway which met the simultaneous destruction of its surrounding neighborhoods completed in 1963. At this time, the highway enabled this Black and Hispanic neighborhood to accommodate trucks from both the North and the South delivering goods directly to NYC. So in 1967, the Hunts Point section of the Bronx became a produce market. Then, in 1974, Hunts Point annexed a massive meat market. In 1980, a fully functional Industrial Park was created. 21 years later, in 2001, Bronx community leaders felt there was something missing in that section of The Bronx.. Ah yes, a fish smell. So, they brought the Fulton Fish Market up there. Can the readership really imagine an entire neighborhood inhabited by human beings becoming a way station for thousands of trucks, millions of tons of solid waste and raw fish?! Obviously, this neighborhood boasts nothing green (unless it's fluorescent :)

All that industry at least created jobs in the Bronx, right? Wrong!! The Bronx boasts some of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and has consistently been at least about 25% higher than the rest of the city. In summary, The Bronx possesses destructive industry that causes inconvenience and actual disease to our citizenry even though it's responsible for billions of dollars in yearly revenue to both private industry and the government. It contains the worst employment figures, the highest rate of disease and one of the worst school systems in the city. So, please explain to me the surprise at the Yankees utter disregard for and destruction of environment, community and the people of The Bronx. Destroying The Bronx to profit NY is a tradition almost as fabled as the NY Yankees sports history..

**To be "fair and balanced," the mayor has announced a $480 million investment plan over the next 10-15 yrs. to create something green (of the non-fluorescent varietal) appear in the Bronx. A copy of the press release for the plan is on www.nyc.gov.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 27, 2006 3:16 PM

What is the story as to the lack of any organized resistance amongst the wealthy and the influential to save the House That Ruth Built?

Posted by: Douglas Willinger at December 13, 2006 2:33 PM

Anyone in that community who is opposed to this project should be ashamed of themselves. The Yankees have been dumping money in that neighborhood for over 80 years now and will continue to do so for years to come with this new stadium. Chances are, the Yankees have been there long before any resident there was. Having said that, there isn't a single resident that could possibly imagine what that neighborhood be like without the Yankees. Years ago, Steinbrenner threatened to move the Yanks to NJ...and any resident there should consider that a "threat". He later agreed to keep them in the Bronx and the Bronx needs to celebrate that. How many teams across the U.S. (in any sport) do you know fund their entire stadiums themselves AND agree to build parkland. You even get a Metro-North Station in the deal!!! oh, and an athletic center for the community. Why don't I hear anyone complaining about that. Look at the big picture folks and stop crying every time you see construction. This is NY. For years, residents complain about that park and it's crime, now they want to keep it as 'precious parkland'...Which is it now? Why would this be considered destroying parkland when it's a crime haven and it's being rebuilt elsewhere anyway?

Posted by: George at December 18, 2006 2:35 PM

George,

Your comments are confusing, partially because of your misguided suppositions that betray ignorance.

The parks are NOT crime havens as you suggest. They are vital community areas.

Also, I am not impressed with your pleas to admire the Yankees for, in your words, "fund their entire stadiums themselves AND agree to build parkland."

Moreover, "dumping money in that neighborhood " stinks of racism, in addition to ignorance. The Yankees only dump money on their own business enterprise.

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Posted by: An Other Greek at January 5, 2007 11:32 PM

I can't stand the fact that two parks in the south Bronx (John Mulley and Macombs Dam) are gone. I would of rather just seen the Yankees renovate the exsisting stadium and leave the parks alone. It's rather annoying driving down Jerome Avenue nowdays past where the new stadium is being built.

Posted by: Andy at January 13, 2007 2:33 AM

I sincerely doubt the people on this board saying that the Yankees have been "pouring" money into the Bronx have ever dared hesitate to walk two blocks away in any direction from the Stadium, if they've even visited this neighborhood at all. And as for you people complaining that we South Bronx residents have the audacity to complain about the dust and construction, LIVE HERE. See what you think then. See that this is CLEARLY designed for billionaires who have no thought to the people that live here the rest of the year that these creeps aren't invading with their idling SUVs and limosines clogging the streets during game season. It sucks! And so does George Steinbrenner and Pataki and Bloomberg and all their cronies and especially Bronx Borough President Adolpho Carrion for busting up Community Board 4 when he didn't like the 5-4 vote against the building of the stadium. This is a complete tragedy. They don't call this neighborhood "Asthma Alley" for just any reason. Shame on all of you for thinking this is a "blessing" for the South Bronx. This is a blight to profit billionaires alone, people who make you think you're actually getting something for nothing when in fact this will rest largely as a burden on the people who actually pay taxes in this city. Thi is also imminent domain, and an completely illegal authorization of it to boot. Imminent domain is only for governmental purposes and NOT TO BE PROVIDED FOR PRIVATE INDUSTRY. The idea that a private corporation like The Yankees can take over a city-owned and run park for profit is not only absurd, but morally reprehensible. The only people who think that this is going to be good for anyone other than a select billionaire few are corporate authoritarian-loving self-deluded gits like the above-mentioned pro-stadium posters.

Posted by: at April 9, 2007 2:27 PM

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