The Queens Side Stadium

So now that the West Side Stadium is dead, Mayor Bloomberg is "scrambling" to make a new plan, which would be using a new Met Stadium as the centerpiece for the 2012 Olympic Games.

I put the word scrambling in sarcastic, sarcastic quotes because this has probably been the back-up plan from the very start, and honestly what I thought was going to happen all along. The West Side Stadium would have been chic and glamorous and an absolute logistical nightmare. I'll bet the Mayor knew this and knew he had Queens in his back pocket, not wanting to show his hand until the West Side was officially blown out of the water.

Flushing is much less sexy, but it's got something going for it that the West Side just ain't got. Seclusion. If you want an arena, you want 50,000+ people in one spot, and if you want 50,000 people in one spot, you really don't want too many people already there. The West Side Highway has enough traffic, thanks. (I say this as if I drive on it ever)

It kinda seems to me that the ones getting screwed a bit are the Mets. The city was prepared to pay a good chunk of the cost of a West Side Stadium. Now the Mets have to pay it ALL. Basically the only thing the Mets get is permission to build a new stadium, which they probably would have gotten anyway...except now they're gonna have to play the 2012 season somewhere else. Like back at Shea. Or maybe Yankee Stadium. Heh. That'd be funny.