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Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe confirms plans to level Yankee Stadium

June 24, 2008

The House That Ruth Built will become the House that Bloomberg Demolished after the Yankees leave their city-owned stadium at the end of the season.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe confirmed the city’s plans to level the entire stadium to make way for three community ballfields.

“Preserving the facade would make it difficult to maximize the park space,” said Benepe.

After the city gave about two dozen acres of nearby parkland to the Yankees organization for a new stadium and retail complex, Parks was obligated by law to find the same amount of space in the area to build replacement parks.

In the crowded southwest Bronx, however, Parks has struggled to match the parkland it forfeited to the richest franchise in sports, even resorting to putting new recreation facilities on the roofs of parking garages being built for the stadium.

Even with the entire footprint of the old stadium being converted to parkland, some advocates say the city is still replacing slightly fewer acres in the neighborhood than what was taken from the community.

Hardcore Yankees fans may wail and rend their jerseys at the prospect of any trace of one of the last great ballparks from baseball’s golden age disappearing, but Benepe said that after the stadium’s massive renovation in the 1970s, very little of the original structure remained.

“The steel inside is historic,” he said, “and some of the brick, but not much else.”

The rest, including the stadium’s iconic facade, dates back only to the Age of Disco.

While the details have yet to be worked out, Benepe said that some parts of the old stadium will be sold off to collectors, with the proceeds shared between the Yankees organization and the city’s General Fund.

“Everything that’s sellable will be sold,” Benepe said. “The city’s Economic Development Corporation will be overseeing that.”

Elements destined to go on the block include the seats, lockers, fixtures from the clubhouse and distinctive architectural features, according to the commissioner, but he said it’s unlikely that individual bricks or chunks of cement will end up on eBay.

Bronx Historian Lloyd Ultan was dismayed at the decision to abandon the original preservation plans, but hoped that some part could be kept in place.

“If it were possible, I’d like to take one of the original entrances that wasn’t altered in the 1970s and let it stand as an entryway to the new ballfields,” Ultan said.

Source: NY Daily News

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Written by NY Politics · Filed Under Real-estate 

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