(if you don’t know the history of the city, this will make no sense)

As far as not calling the area a neighborhood, I’ve read that the residential population of Willets Point is precisely one person. It’s not merely industrial, but it’s like a third world country. While I was working on my degree in Metropolitan Studies at NYU a few years ago, I explored a plethora of neighborhoods all over the city because, well, neighborhoods and the differences between them are essentially what fascinates me and made me want to go into Metropolitan Studies in the first place. And it truly amazes me that in this day and age, and in a city that’s so modern (or so well-preserved in the historical areas), there’s still a pocket of Queens that has unpaved roads and no sewers. It’s mind-boggling.

As a Yankees fan, I really appreciate that the few blocks in the Bronx surrounding Yankee Stadium have a lot of bars and restaurants so my friends and I can conveniently meet up nearby before and after games to hang out for a while. It’s not only convenient for us, but our business stimulates the local economy and brings in some revenue for the establishments of the South Bronx. (Stadium Pizza will never want for business as long as we’re around, believe me.) I think it’s very unfortunate that Mets fans don’t have similar options available to them near Citi Field. Nobody can say to a friend, “Hey, let’s get a drink after the Mets game. I’ll meet you at the chop shop across the street. The one with no plumbing. Yeah, let’s just hang out in the area tonight.” So if you and your friend have to head in opposite directions to get home after the game, at least one of you will necessarily be inconvenienced by leaving the neighborhood to hang out.

Of course, I know that urban renewal projects are a complicated issue, because gentrification is essentially a polite term for displacement. I absolutely hope that the people who currently own businesses in Willets Point will be well-compensated for their relocation elsewhere and I hope they find other places to thrive. But ultimately, if the redevelopment project is successful and the neighborhood will eventually have similar dining and drinking options to what is available near Yankee Stadium, I think that will effectively bring in a significant amount of money to the local economy and that part of northern Queens will thrive like never before.

They paid little if anything for the ballpark themselves.

This is absolutely 1000% wrong. The Mets owners are responsible for roughly $50 million in annual debt payments on the bonds that were used to build the stadium. This is totally opposite from situations like Miami where most of the cost of the stadium, was covered by the local/state governments.

It is precisely these annual bond payments, as well as other costs associated with the new stadium, which have helped to make the Mets owners’ financial situation so dicey in recent years. It was more debt than they should have taken on given the economic climate. It should be noted however that the stadium’s financing had been in place prior to 2008 when the Madoff scandal broke.

Whatever motive Craig has or doesn’t have concerning the Mets owners, he is misinformed about their financial situation once again.

And yes, it’s now the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. I have no idea why they decided to name a bridge to Queens after a lifelong Manhattanite. It has not caught on even with traffic reporters, though RFK has started to.

I prefer the 59th Street Bridge, though, because of the Simon and Garfunkel song.

These are all difficult questions.

People have a bad tendency to confuse “industrial” with “dangerous”.

Citi Field was financed with public tax exempt bonds, which basically means the the city borrowed a bunch of money, and the Mets have to pay it back over time like a low interest loan. Part of the deal is that they don’t have to pay property tax on the stadium, which is obviously quite a savings to the team and usually gets people a little worked up.

As far as a major public subsidy goes, thats not a bad deal, as essentially the city is just giving up money that never would have existed without the new stadium.

My ire is not directed at the Wilpons. My ire is directed at the city — and any government — for handing out freebies and breaks and benefits to millionaires and billionaires. If you’ve read what I’ve written about any other ballpark or ballpark-related development you’d know that.

Up until now have any other developers been knocking down the door?

your simply suggesting that the mets will consume a “a zillion dollars of more tax funds” and your “presumption of a healthy municipal investment” just shows that you are biased against the idea, without any real knowledge of it besides a lacking-on-details story you read from your mother’s basement this morning. that conveniently linked homegrown article also fails to mention that sterling equities will be on a hook for a $30 million breakup fee if they do not develop the land. besides the land itself, if there anything really to suggest that healthy municipal investment?

nearly every story you write about this team is biased in some way or another and this was just another example of that. it’s nauseating, but those clowns down the turnpike in Filthadelphia are always keen to agree which i guess only motivates you even more.

by the way, while I’m at it, why not just add that i am 100% for improvement in and around the stadium. who wouldn’t be? who wouldn’t I want to an area similar to Wrigleyville to spend time before and after games rather than the current fix-a-flat or chop shop?

i’m no wilpon apologist and hate them more than you can imagine, but this idea seems like a winner. i’ll shed no tears if you never make it there to see for yourself, however.

As far as the timeline goes, again, I think its a leap of faith to expect any development to start springing up in an area like this at any point before the park is actually open. So its hardly fair to be referencing 2001/2006. As far as from 2008 (or so) until now, I dont think there have been a whole lot of billion dollar private developements happening in many places around the US.

There are legitimate questions about the benefits and drawbacks to building ballparks for billionaires. And I agree that it’s a bad idea most of the time, if not always. But this case is as much about Bloomberg’s vision for the city and struggle between different factions and interest groups. It just happens that one of those factions is the Wilpons.

The unwashed masses get upset when you attack the forum in which they take in their bread and circus.

Yes, free land, even though the city is on track to spend nearly $500 million buying that very land from scores of industries and auto repair firms that operated there for decades, putting in new sewer lines, and erecting new Long Island Expressway ramps.

Free land, even though Queens Development has committed to developing only one-third of the entire 60-acre Willet Points project City Council approved back in 2008.

Queens Development won’t even have to begin construction on a single unit of residential housing — part of the original lure of the project — until 2025.”

From http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/willets-point-land-a-shameful-steal-a-deal-mets-article-1.1096174?localLinksEnabled=false

I still refuse to call the Triboro Bridge the RFK or the Queensboro Bridge the Ed Koch Bridge. And it’s still the Interboro Parkway, not Jackie Robinson. (Nothing against any of these men. Especially Jackie. But I can be stubbornly old school sometimes.)