Charles Wang did a radio interview yesterday and said he doesn’t want to sell the Islanders and that he’d like the team to stay close enough so he could “commute” and mentioned Suffolk or “Queens.”
Interesting.
Now if you were to combine a Citi Field NHL Winter Classic with an announcement of a new hockey arena on 126th and you might have something.
On the other hand, I was talking about 9/11 with Beloved Daughter this morning and I still find it fascinating that there are two new baseball stadiums (one unnecesary), a completely unnecessary football stadium, one and a half hockey/hoops arenas and yet nothing built downtown. Priorities.
More about this topic over at my newer-site-that-I-haven’t-nailed-the-vibe-for-yet over at Sports Police.
Oh, and I’m having Facebook Friends anxiety again. Like me.
What I find most interesting is that he didn’t use the word “Brooklyn”
I’ve been a proponent, ineffectual citizen tho I am, of championing the Mets not as the suburban team of Robert Moses’ Meet-George-Jetson fantasy, but as a true NYC team.
Cry as some might about it, the Mets were conceived by guys who wanted the Dodgers back. E.g., William Shea.
Bay Ridge used to be the home of many Dodgers. To get from Bay Ridge Brooklyn to Citi Field by public transportation takes longer than going to Y.S. There’s something really wrong with that picture.
The subway is not the LIRR. If you’re going back to Brooklyn especially. It’s slow, it’s noisy, it’s uncomfortable, it’s dangerous. Add night games, and you’ve killed the formula for high school and grade school student interaction.
It’s too late now, they’ve built a new park in Flushing, but I recommend the Mets investing in a fleet of buses to ferry grade school and lower high school kids from Brooklyn to games. A bus for Bay Ridge, one for Bensonhurst, one for Dyker Heights, etc. It’s not the kids’ fault that Robert Moses developed a fantasy for suburbs 60 years ago.
The 9/11 site is all tangled in govt idiocy, with no private interest to push things through. The sports venues you cite all have entrepreneurs as part of the mix. It’s not a matter of “priorities”, it’s ownership, interest and process.