Soccer City! In...Flushing.

 

Congratulations to the U.S. men's soccer team! The other day in Qatar, in the first round of the "FIFA Death Cup," our boys got their first ever, SCORELESS TIE in Cup competition, after 34 straight matches in which someone actually managed to score.

This makes me teary-eyed—almost like a boy being "blooded" after he shoots his first buck. Do they rub the players cheeks into the turf or something? Hey, we're in the big time now: a full ninety minutes-plus with nothing happening. Now that's soccer!

I kid, I kid. (Mostly) seriously, the US holding a highly favored English team to a draw was a good "result," as they say in the world's sport, and actually a pretty exciting game to watch. Kudos to our guys, who will now, no doubt, revert to their 92-year-history of sensational World Cup upsets, followed by dismal fiascos (A final group-game loss to Iran, anyone?).

But hey: as the poet wrote, who cares if teams fail in Qatar, long as we've got our very own soccer (stadium). 

Somehow, even amidst all of his heroic efforts to re-sign Aaron Judge and build a sure-fire World Series champion next year, HAL, the modern superman, managed to finally make his long-sought vision of a "Soccer City" complex a reality.

In Queens.

Ever since NYCFC's creation in 2013, HAL had been looking for a way to build his team-without-a-name a spanking new stadium and surrounding, residential complex, in the Bronx. This year, finally, that quest came to an end. Instead, it was announced that Soccer City will arise next to the Stadium formerly known as Shea.

All concerned were ecstatic—well, nearly all concerned. 

While HAL stayed in the shadows as usual, Mayor Eric Adams burbled over how this is "a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a brand-new neighborhood" on "a blighted, underutilized, and ignored piece of real estate in our city" that "had little infrastructure and was prone to flooding."

Now, Soccer City "will deliver 2,500 affordable homes—New York City's largest fully affordable housing project in decades," and one that comes "with a fully privately financed soccer stadium, a hotel and local retail" that "will create not only homes but also quality jobs, $6 billion in economic activity, and a true pathway to the middle class."

Better still, bragged Adams, the $780-million stadium will be fully financed by NYCFC, and there will be no break on sales taxes or mortgage recordings. 

Hey, what's not to love?  

Well, a lot, actually, beginning with the fact that nearly all of the above is a lie, either of omission or the bald-faced variety.

A "once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a brand-new neighborhood"? I guess Hudson Yards must have happened during the Lost Generation. Also, all those towers near Long Island City, the buildings going up in Jamaica, the High Line, etc., etc. New York creates new neighborhoods about every other week.

The area was blighted and without infrastructure? That's because the city has been actively trying to drive dozens of small businesses out of the area since the days of Robert Moses. 

"Quality jobs, $6 billion in economic activity, and a true pathway to the middle class"?  Hey, it's great that they're going to use union labor—but it's not exactly like NYC construction workers are underemployed. And there are whole libraries written about how the sort of discretionary income spent on things like soccer (or baseball) is just money taken from one entertainment to another. 

I don't know if it's the case here, but usually in New York, "affordable housing" means apartments for couples with combined incomes that can be over $100,000—in other words, starter homes for yuppies.

And a pathway to the middle class? Sorry, that's what all those jobs in the dozens of auto-body shops to be displaced by this complex were—jobs that the city has systematically run out of the area for decades now.

Yes, it's a good thing that NYCFC is supposedly going to pay for the entire, $780-million cost of the new stadium.  

But the city has agreed to throw in an unspecified amount of money in "transportation infrastructure" improvements. And the stadium will pay NOTHING in property taxes for the entirety of its 49-year lease. Which it has an option to renew for another 25 years. Instead, the club will pay all of $4 million a year in rent to New York.

Why? Why should there be ANY tax breaks for a wealthy, privately owned sports franchise? 

NYCFC is valued at $385 million, and owned jointly by the Steinbrenner and the Arab sheikh who also owns Manchester City. (Everyone is silent about tax breaks and subsidies regarding the surrounding residential and commercial developments—which NYCFC is doing in partnership with old friends Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, and another major developer or two.)

I know we say no politics here—I say it as loud as anyone—but permit me to opine that this is no way to develop a city. Wiping out useful, much-needed, working-class jobs and small businesses? In favor of still more giveaways to some of the richest people and corporate entities on this planet?

And—the kicker, no pun intended—in Flushing, a highly prosperous, up-and-coming area. A neighborhood so well off that Fred Wilson was trying to build a marina there a few years ago.

Soccer City isn't my idea of how to bring back the Bronx, either, but it might have done some good in a borough still so full of very real blight, and so short on developers. But for whatever reason, HAL, not getting his way, decided to move on and cash in.

Remember that, please, when Hal Steinbrenner lets Aaron Judge walk, and tells you—again—that he just doesn't have the money to make the Yankees champions.