Good morning. Today’s Morning Matters is dedicated to the Heritage Field opening and the Times’ coverage.
Heritage Field opened yesterday on the site of the old Yankee Stadium. (Photo: J. Moss)
The New York Times is in loooove with Heritage Field, the high-quality three-diamond spread in the footprint of the old Yankee Stadium, so much so that it merited above-the-fold placement on the front page. It is a lovely sight, but it is laden with the recent history of the city prioritizing the Yankee corporation over the kids in Highbridge and other nabes surrounding the stadium. As Juan Gonzalez reported two years ago in the Daily News …
Three and a half years after Mayor Bloomberg closed huge portions of Mullaly and Macombs Dam parks to make way for the Yankees new $1.5 billion stadium, the replacement ballfields the city promised are nowhere to be seen.
It has been nearly 18 months since the last game was played in the old stadium. Yet its concrete hulk still looms like a gray ghost across the street from the Yankees new palace.
I’ll admit, I have a pretty firm point of view on the democracy-ignoring deals regarding the new stadium, its impact on taxpayers and the community around it. I wrote this lengthy editorial in the Norwood News back in 2006. But I think I’m looking at it with fairness and not bias when I say that in a story regarding a land use issue this big for the Bronx an interview or two with one of the prominent local activists or former community board members who opposed the stadium deal (they were ditched from CB4 by then-BP Adolfo Carrion, Jr.) would have been warranted.
Bronx Matters 
Maybe you’ll find this interesting. The Miami Marlins opened their spectacular new ballpark this week, but it appears they had a similar regards for the low-income community that surrounds it that the Yankee Stadium developers had for the South Bronx. And much like when the Yankees opened their mausoleum in the South Bronx, officials had nothing but good things to say about the Marlins stadium, ignoring the community problems it brought.
Here’s a story about the Marlins stadium (by a reporter I much admire!). http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/new-miami-marlins-baseball-stadium-brings-parking-pain