Wristbands for Ruth

I got one of these wristbands in the mail this week from a gentleman named Don Burda. If you’d like to wear your pride on your wrist, visit Don’s web site at 1923-2008.com.

What’s Next?

For those of you who have been keeping up — and I know there have been many of you, so thank you for your continued support — I’m sorry to say that there isn’t much good news to report. About 500 requests have been submitted to the New York City Landmarks Commission via email and fax but there has been no action on their part.

One fan emailed me to let me know that he had received a letter from the commission stating that they had no intentions of doing anything for Yankee Stadium, but otherwise we aren’t aware of any other response via email or any other mail.

In the meantime, several visitors have emailed me with their own ideas on how we might save the Stadium… So I’d like to open the floor to the people who have been dedicated to this all along and ask “what would you do to save Yankee Stadium?”

Click the “Ideas?” tab at the top of this page to post your idea on what might be done next to save Yankee Stadium. As always, please keep your comments respectful and your langauge clean

An Update on Our Efforts to Save Yankee Stadium

As those of you that have been to this site before know, we have been encouraging our visitors to reach out to the NYC Landmarks Commission by way of submitting an official “Request for Evaluation” for Yankee Stadium.

Every time, someone fills out this form on our site, a request is sent — via email and fax — to the Landmarks Commission. To date, about 500 people from all over the country (and the world) have used our site to contact the Landmarks Commision.

However, to our knowledge, the Landmarks Commission has not responded to — or even acknowledged — any of those requests. No response emails, no phone calls, not even a form letter.

If anyone has any ideas, please email us as we are open to suggestions on new roads we can explore to keep this fight going!

HELP MAKE YANKEE STADIUM A LANDMARK!

Over the past few weeks, thousands of people have visited this site and many have shared their thoughts with us, dismayed that our “Great Baseball Cathedral” is just months away from demolition…

The media has conceded Yankee Stadium’s destruction as a foregone conclusion as have many fans, misled by New York City’s original promises to preserve at least part of the legendary ballpark.

But what seems most odd is that despite more than a dozen requests over the last decade, the New York CIty Commission charged with PRESERVING New York’s greatest architectural, historical and cultural treasures has NEVER held a public hearing to discuss Yankee Stadium’s potential status as a landmark.

We’d like to see them reverse that position and give The House That Ruth Built the hearing it deserves.

That’s why, through this web site, we have created a form that will send an official Request for Evaluation to the New York City Landmarks Commission in your name. Just fill in your name, contact information and any additional comments, and we will create and send a formal request — by email AND fax — to the Landmarks Commission on your behalf.

We want the Landmarks Commission to know how much Yankee Stadium still means to New York and America. Click here to make yourself heard!

Let the selling begin…

It seems that the Yankee Stadium chop shop is already open for business according to a Daily News article this morning by Greg B. Smith.

“A day after the Yanks played the last game in the House That Ruth Built, items from the storied ballpark were for sale - prompting fears that the taxpayers who own the place were getting stiffed again.

“Whatever value is in the old stadium ought to be retained for the taxpayer,” said Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, whose committee is investigating taxpayer support of the new stadium.

Early this month, the Westchester Democrat asked the city agency in charge of selling off the old stadium what the Yankees were entitled to sell, because the city owns the Stadium.

He has yet to get a reply.

That’s because for the past seven months, the city and the Yankees have been entangled in negotiations over who gets what.

The Mets, who are building a taxpayer-supported stadium, announced last month they would donate their 30% share of proceeds from memorabilia to charity.

Neither the city nor the Yanks will talk about the negotiations.

Meanwhile, the team is selling what they say is theirs.

Steiner Sports, which has partnered with the Yankees to sell team memorabilia, Monday offered a 30-by-18-inch piece of the center field scoreboard for $699 and a 10-by-10-foot hunk of blue carpet with the NY Yankees logo from the clubhouse for $10,000.

Also on the block are five glass 31-by-60-inch shower stall doors from the clubhouse with Yankee logos for $2,000 apiece”

Read the full article here and then sign our petition; we may still be able to save the parts that are “nailed down”.

Preserve Yankee Stadium ground as jewel open to all

The Daily News’ Michael Daly wrote this morning that at least the playing field should be preserved and cautions against false promised, like what fans were told prior to the demolition of Ebbets Field.

“The House That Ruth Built will be leveled, but the field he and the other Yankees immortals consecrated will remain.

The ground will be no less holy even if they take down the Stadium with a wrecking ball painted to look like a baseball, complete with red stitching, like the one used to help level the Brooklyn Dodgers’ home in 1960.

We must make absolutely sure we are not hoodwinked the way we were promised that the Ebbets Field home plate would go into a new Little League diamond on that same holy ground, funded by an auction of the Stadium’s contents.

Instead, Ebbets Field was turned over to real estate developers, who erected high-rise apartments and ghoulishly posted a “No Ball Playing” sign just where home plate had been.”

Read Daly’s full article here.

We believe that the entire Yankee Stadium can be preserved for the benefit of the entire New York City community. It could be made into a year-round attraction as a museum or as a branch of the Hall of Fame. And the playing field would still be there as it is today and it could still find good use. Please sIgn our petition if you feel the same way.

For Love of a Ballpark

In today’s New York Sun, Andy Wolf outlines how the city has ignored requests to save the “Great Cathedral of Baseball,” as it was referred to repeatedly at last night’s ceremony — and how it can still serve the community, even without a Major League franchise.

“The last game of Major League baseball has been played at Yankee Stadium, following an incredible outpouring of nostalgia and reminiscences. Now the vultures are swooping down to sell off the great coliseum, piece by piece. Seats will fetch about a $1,000 each, someone is ready to package the dirt from the field, holy ground to millions of baseball fans throughout the world, and even the urinals will be sold for their “historic” value.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

When the announcement was made that the new Stadium will be built across the street, it was asserted that at least part of the old Stadium would be salvaged.

Somehow, in a town that requires a public hearing if a restaurant wants to put a few tables outside of their establishment, no public hearing was deemed necessary regarding the demolition of this iconic building, one that, by the way, is the public property of the City of New York. The Yankees are merely tenants.”

Read the full article here.

Yankee Stadium a landmark in hearts & minds, but not in fact…

It seems odd when you think about it what buildings in New York City are considered landmarks — and are protected as such — and which are not. A building just around the corner from Yankee Stadium, credited as the birthplace of Hip Hop is being considered for preservation. A factory on the lower east side of Manhattan where Milk Bone dog biscuits were once produced is also considered a landmark as is an entire residential neighborhood in the northwest Bronx. It is neither our place nor our desire to judge the historical relevance of these locations, only to say that Yankee Stadium deserves at least the same consideration given its unique role in our country’s history, known far and wide as our greatest outdoor arena.

As this New York Times article points out, the many requests to have the House That Ruth Built considered for landmark status have never even been granted a public hearing based, it seems, almost solely on the argument that its legacy was tarnished by the renovation in the late ’70s. This incarnation though is also eligible for consideration in that it has stood for over 30 years and has played host to numerous significant events.

Yankee Stadium’s unique role in the days and weeks following the 9/11 attacks alone should warrant consideration, not to mention six World Championships, a three home run World Series performance by Reggie Jackson that inspired New Yorkers after the tumultuous “Summer of Sam”, Papal masses, concerts and other historically and culturally significant events.

As Richard Sandomir writes in Saturday’s New York TImes,

“If historical significance is a measure of a landmark, why has Yankee Stadium never been designated one by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission?

There was plenty of architectural significance in the original version.

More than enough history was made in the Stadium before and after its renovation.

And if the commission was willing to make the old Milk-Bone dog treat factory on the Lower East Side a landmark, as it did last week, what has kept it from seriously considering the House that Ruth Built all these years?

The first request to landmark the renovated Stadium came in 1998 from Jeffrey D. Klein, then a state assemblyman from the Bronx.

“You can just feel the history there,” Klein, a Democrat who is now a state senator, said on Friday. “It certainly has tremendous significance.”

Klein’s pursuit of landmark status for the Stadium was part of a campaign to keep the team from moving to Manhattan, although George Steinbrenner could have left an empty building behind and relocated to the West Side.

But Klein learned, as did 16 others who have filed landmark requests since 2001, that the commission believed the Stadium was no longer worthy of the designation.”

Jim Bouton’s Yankee Stadium Memories

Former pitcher Jim Bouton wrote a commentary for CNN about his memories of Yankee Stadium:

“The Yankee clubhouse in 1962 was like a large subterranean living room. A wall-to-wall grayish green carpet muffled all sound, and the overhead lighting was subdued. Three walls of walk-in wood lockers faced a wall of large frosted windows that cast shafts of light from the street above.

Everything was painted a muted gray green to match the carpet, including the exposed ductwork in the ceiling above.

A cleat-dented wooden stool sat in front of each locker. And hanging in the lockers, with military precision, were the classic Yankee uniforms. “Your locker is right here by the door,” said Pete. I couldn’t help smiling when I saw Whitey Ford’s nameplate just one locker away.”

Read the entire article here and please remember to help save Yankee Stadium by signing our petition.

Yankee Stadium Memories

Another great photo gallery from SI.com, highlighting some of Yankee Stadium’s greatest moments.