Yanking the Bronx's Chain

As we commented on yesterday, the city's obsession with luxury boxes at Yankee Stadium stands in sharp contrast with its utter lack of concern about more important public policy concerns-like the absconded park land in the South Bronx. As the NY Daily News reports this morning, in an article appropriately titled, "The Yankees will play, but for now, kids won't:" "While the Yankees will soon have two baseball stadiums at their disposal, the community whose parks were absorbed for the new stadium could be left without any regulation ballfield in the neighborhood for a year or more."

And this comes after Bronx BP Carrion pledged that there would be no loss of local parkland use-after, that is, he strong armed the approval of the new stadium: "Borough President Adolfo Carrión, a strong backer of the stadium project, made clear from the outset that his support hinged on the city's assurance that the neighborhood would have uninterrupted access to interim park facilities in the area. In October, Carrión wrote to city officials complaining that the construction schedule would also close the interim running track - which now wraps around the interim baseball field - when work begins on Garage C, and it won't be fully replaced until the rooftop park on Garage A is finished in late 2009."

Is this the same guy that PE Obama wants in his cabinet? Perhaps it will be Secretary of the Interior. The bottom line here is that the local neighborhood got shafted-abandoned not only by an elitist mayor, but by its own elected officials who were more eager to toady to the Yankees than simply do the job they were elected to do-protect the public interest.