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?).
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.
Same old bait and switch, same old barge full of bullshit, same old lies and fog and money money money money going to the same few people.
ReplyDeleteI'm so tired of it all.
Same old game.
HC66 - You have a love of movies. I've seen this.
ReplyDeleteSince it appears that no one commented on this post - I wanted to offer the following:
Think for a moment about Frankeneheimer's Manchurian Candidate.
Imagine if you will that Hal has been brainwashed by the braintrust behind this blog.
Tomorrow evening, as everything begins to wind down in HAL'S day - his private cell line rings.
Looking at the screen, HAL sees that a familiar number is calling him.
Flipping his phone open, HAL answers in his carefully concocted, mysterious and secretively stilted way . . .
HAL: "Hal Here - Who's There?"
The voice on the other end of the phone says in their best Bale as Batman way . . .
PHONE VOICE: "The straw that stirs the drinky"
Hal's eyes go glassy-wide as his mouth slacks wide. Saliva pools, then runs down both sides of his mouth. The PHONE VOICE continues:
PHONE VOICE: "Judge Stays. Whatever it takes. Donaldson is traded. Whatever it takes. Torres is traded. Whatever it takes. Sign Correa. Whatever it takes. Bolster the pitching. Whatever it takes. IKF goes to 3rd. Then promote from within. Whatever it takes. Now take an aspirin and go to sleep."
In a staticky pause of silence, HAL blinks a couple of times and swallows.
PHONE VOICE: "And HAL, buy a FUCKING PERSONALITY!"
The call abruptly ends. HAL blinks and shaking off the haze, wipes off his mouth and hangs up. Stumbling into his kitchen, HAL grabs an aspirin, a tall glass of water and chugs it down.
THE END?
whoopsie - I guess that 13Bit sorta beat me to the punch :)
ReplyDeleteAA, I like the cut of your jib!
ReplyDeleteHal will build the Empire in soccer that he has always dreamed of.
ReplyDeleteFinally bests his Old Man because soccer is the world's game and there are literally millions of foreigners in NYC who would not go to a Yankee game but will go to soccer.
We will know the truth of this when Yankee broadcasters starting says, "it's nil to nil after two innings."
"We will be back to the pitch after a word from our sponsor, Qatar Airlines."
It will be interesting to see if that happens, Archangel.
ReplyDeleteYou know the old joke about communism? It's the ideology of the future—and it always will be? Well, the same sort of holds true for soccer in America—it's the sport of the future, and it always will be.
If it were all down to immigrants, the US should've become a huge soccer power by about 1915. It didn't—and I think there are still huge institutional barriers to it reaching the level it has in other countries.
Watching the US play international games, I'm always struck by how small and slow US players are compared to those in other sports. Granted, soccer favors a different body type than, say, football or basketball. But still—the US will never be a true soccer power until the best athletes in this country are playing soccer. And why would they do that, when there is so much more money in four other pro sports?
But...who knows? Maybe things are changing. Maybe the Big Four have now become so dull—and so expensive to see—that the new immigrants will stick with soccer, which has become almost the universal kids' sport.
I wouldn't bet on it, though!
Didn’t they do that same affordable housing dance with the Barclays Center? Did those get built? Didn’t exactly do a lot for that neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteBarclays was a huge scam, Jaraxle.
ReplyDeleteFirst, they did NOT take the highest bid for the property—something that cost the MTA potentially as much as $280 million. We may all be paying higher subway fares because of that nonsense.
Then they completely abused the much-abused "slum clearance" laws, taking out a neighborhood of small businesses and apartment houses that were such "slums" people owned multi-million-dollar coops in them.
Various public figures—such as the "radical" minister, Herb Daugherty—were bought off with free box seats in the arena, in perpetuity. The construction unions signed on with the promise of numerous jobs—only to find that what housing WAS built, was mostly pre-fab stuff from China.
Meanwhile, the general public was sucked in with a huge bait-and-switch game, in which Frank Gehry was hired on to design this magnificent, mixed-used, city-within-a-city. Not an inch of it was actually built, and Gehry pocketed his big fee and walked away without a murmur.
NYC routinely sells the public on projects this way: incredible art mock-ups of what supposedly will be built, combined with price tags that are way too low and promises of "affordable housing" and jobs, jobs, jobs.
At the end of the day, you get a highly subsidized sports arena and maybe a few luxury condo towers. Again—how NOT to develop.