Sunday, May 30, 2010

A moment of silence...

Today, we mourn the loss of a vast and beloved place.

A monument to greatness (the '86 Giants) and all that we love about sports (the Jets' Monday night comeback against the Dolphins.

Today we mourn the loss of Giants Stadium. The picture above is of the old stadium, semi-demolished. Metaphors abound!

Thursday night, I went to the "New Meadowlands Stadium" for the first time. Here are some thoughts.

--The upper deck concourse is not covered. So when it rains or its windy (that never happens during football season, right?) all the commoners in the upper deck will get soaked and windblown.

-- There are special "rich people" only exit lanes. In other words, if you bought a PSL, you leave first. If you didn't, you can wait!

--The upper deck is 40 feet higher than it was at Giants Stadium, owing to the extra two rows of luxury boxes.

--The parking lot is separated by class. Rich people over here, poor people over there. I am going to have to take the George Washington bridge to get to my "assigned" parking area.

--To avoid any appearance of favoring the Jets or Giants, the whole stadium is grey. It looks like one of those computer avatars before you choose a color scheme.

-- THERE IS NOTHING BETTER ABOUT IT, at least for the 30,000 of us in the upper deck.

--To borrow a phrase from Titanic (and, I guess, actual cruise ships) the upper deck is STEERAGE (a place where they cram in as many poor people as possible).

In short, I am as disappointed with NMS as I was impressed by CitiField.

To quote Kramer: I may have to take it, but I don't have to like it!

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