Norman Einstein's
ISSUE 08 (01/10)
"Farewell To Giants Stadium"
by Jason Clinkscales
[Jason is a staff sportswriter for the New York Beacon, an African-American weekly in New York City. He is also the schizophrenic mind behind a Sports Scribe. Follow him on Twitter to glimpse the rapid-fire method to his madness.]
Two Sundays ago, in a blowout loss to the Carolina Panthers, thousands of New York Giants fans decided to beat the traffic late in the third quarter. Even though it was the Giants last game in Giants Stadium, many fans didn't stick around for personal farewells, didn't hang around the parking lot, didn't attempt to steal a piece from the building as a memento or something to sell on eBay. Most just soldiered home, inebriated and frustrated over a lost season.
Credit: Jason Clinkscales
Perhaps the farewell fared differently for New York Jets fans whose team won yesterday, thereby clinching a spot in the playoffs. Yet even with the victory in their last game in the shared Meadowlands stadium, the Jets compiled a losing regular season record there, 103 wins, 104 losses, and one tie. So maybe Jets fans feel lucky to leave on a high note and be finally shot of the old building.
Since 1992 when the Atlanta Falcons took up residence in the Georgia Dome, seventeen NFL teams left stadiums for newer buildings. Also four expansion franchises were born unto some of the most lavish homes any pro sports team ever enjoyed. On top of renovations to Soldier Field in Chicago, Lambeau Field in Green Bay, and Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, 75% of the league currently plays in facilities opened or modified since The Silence Of the Lambs won the Oscar for Best Picture.
That's a staggering number. Ramping up revenue with more luxury suites, more club seat, more amenities, more enticements for lavish corporate and luxury spending triggered these renovations and relocations. While the best way to make money in sports is to field a consistent winner, every inch of a new stadium is a money making opportunity once it opens.
And, now, old Giants Stadium is being levelled to make way for new Giants Stadium and the opportunities that brings.
Credit: Jason Clinkscales
Between the Giants and the Jets, over five hundred preseason, regular season, and playoff games were played in the old stadium. The Cosmos of the North American Soccer League became something of urban legend on that field long before the MetroStars-turned-Red Bulls attempted again to make the New York area fall in love with soccer. Concerts. State Fairs. Carnivals. Even enormous flea markets. Since its opening in 1976, Giants Stadium stood as the area's premier large-scale venue. Yet to compete with the twenty-four NFL teams with shinier digs, team and state officials decided Giants Stadium needed more than a simple makeover.
For the story of new Giants Stadium, we need to go back in time.
In his final days in office in 1992, New York City Mayor David Dinkins signed a 99-year lease with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) that included building a new facility to host the US Open. At the time, rumors persisted that tennis's fourth major tournament would relocate to San Diego, meaning New York would lose out on its great cash cow. Realizing that more revenues come to the New York during the two weeks of the tournament than from the entirety of the Yankees' and Mets' seasons, Dinkins essentially left the lease in the lap of the incoming mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani wasn't happy with Dinkins's final act. Yet he had no recourse or precedent to break the deal. What became the USTA National Tennis Center was completed by the end of Giuliani's first term in 1997. Little did anyone realize that the signature Arthur Ashe Stadium - a $254 million, 23,000 seat arena which has hosted history with each serve - would jumpstart the New York metropolitan area's construction boom, a boom already underway in the rest of the country.
Some believed that Giuliani was jealous that Dinkins decided to throw a bone to the USTA and not Giuliani's beloved Yankees. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had been stewing over a new stadium since the late 1980s, preferably one out of the Bronx.
In his last year as mayor in 2001, Giuliani made agreements which led to the construction of two taxpayer-funded minor league stadiums for Single-A affliates of both Major League baseball teams; KeySpan Park for the Brooklyn Cyclones and Richmond County Bank Ballpark for the Staten Island Yankees. While New York had two new smaller sports venues, Giuliani added another chapter to his controversial tenure as mayor in his final days. He copied his predecessor by announcing tentative pacts for new stadiums for his Yankees and the Mets (Shea Stadium had been the last of the maligned cookie-cutter stadiums still in use in MLB). Giuliani's successor and current mayor Michael Bloomberg actually backed out of both deals, citing the economic challenges New York faced after the September 11th attacks. Eventually with aid from state officials, Bloomberg's administration oversaw new stadiums for both the Yankees and the Mets, new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Citi Field in Queens, both built in time for the 2009 baseball season.
The stadium boom wasn't just confined to baseball or tennis. The NHL's New Jersey Devils moved from the Izod Center across the way from Giants Staidum to the New Jersey's largest city, Newark, playing at the brand new Prudential Center. The Red Bulls, the area's Major League Soccer franchise, decided to move out of Giants Stadium to their own sport-specific stadium in Harrison, just a train stop away from the Prudential Center.
Nor is the stadium boom over for the foreseeable future. Out in Long Island, the NHL's Islanders continue to fight to replace the Nassau Coliseum with a modern arena. The drama of the NBA's New Jersey Nets has dragged out since the Yankees and Mets agreements were made. The Nets desire a move to Brooklyn, desires thwarted at every turn. Even the famed Madison Square Garden, a clouded gem in the middle of Manhattan compared to the radiant jewel of Newark's Prudential Center, is scheduled a $500 million renovation starting in 2011.
Whether people believe it's true or not, New York City prides itself on the nickname, "The Capital of the World." New York is a place with almost every entertainment option available to satisfy the whims of the 13 million people in the city and surrounding suburbs. Yet, to appear light years behind places such as Kansas City with the sparkling Sprint Center or Glendale, Arizona, with the technological marvel that is the University of Phoenix Stadium is something New York isn't used to. The truth stared the public in the face; that despite the growing number of new housing units and the new tenats to match, New York isn't exactly new. World-class facilities were popping up in Pittsburgh, Denver, Indianapolis, and Boston - BOSTON! - while old Yankee Stadium (1923-2008) had a 500-pound concrete and steel beem come loose and crash into empty seats.
New York may be late to the stadium boom, but its participation is unique. To have all of these new sports cathedrals simultaneously built in such a short period of time only happens after a host city is selected for the Summer Olympics. For this construction to take place in New York is a big deal because it's happening as the city continues to undergo a startling genetrification in residential neighborhoods while construction cranes for new condominiums are littered throughout the Manhattan skyline.
And now the Giants and Jets are on the precipice of their big step into New York's stadium construction boom.
Maybe old Giants Stadium doesn't elicit a defining national moment when compared to the city's other sports cathedrals; Bobby Thompson's pennant clinching home run for the New York Giants at old Ebbets Field, the now demolished former home of the Brooklyn Dodgers; Larry Johnson's famous four-point play and the home crowd's reaction for the Knicks in Madison Square Garden; Lou Gehrig addressing the faithful for the final time at old Yankee Stadium.
Yet old Giants Stadium has its share of moments Giants fans either cherish or wish they could forget. Classic battles with Bill Walsh's San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s. Herm Edwards and the "Miracle at the Meadowlands" in 1978. Shutting out the Washington Redskins in 1986 en route to the Giants' first Super Bowl title. Fans hurling snowballs at the San Diego Chargers in 1995. Every time the hated Philadelphia Eagles came to town.
Credit: Jason Clinkscales
And the memories of Giants Stadium won't simply be revolve around sports. There were famous concerts, too. The Jacksons, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, U2, native sons Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, Summer Jam featuring the biggest names in rap and R&B.
Now the Giants and Jets, however, are focused on the future. But what will happen when they move into their shiny new digs?
The Yankees left old Yankee Stadium without a playoff win in their final season there yet opened their new stadium with a dominating run that ending in World Series victory. On the flipside, the Mets struggled the entire season in new Citi Field, failing to qualify for the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
Fans of both the Giants and the Jets hope there's enough room in the new stadium to fit the oversized expectations the new grounds will bring to the new season in 2010.
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