"MLS has been, along with the two other projects proposed for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a gigantic boondoggle that Mayor Bloomberg has pushed to become one of his legacies," stated Paul Graziano, a co-founder of Save Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a coalition of community-based civic and environmental groups opposed to the continued commercial encroachment of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.  
 
"As everyone in Queens - except for most of our elected officials - seems to know, the proposed site was a terrible location for any sort of stadium, as it would have horribly impacted the park as well as sat directly on top of the Flushing River, which the Fountain of the Planets currently is sited.
 
"As advocates specifically for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, we are hopeful that we are seeing the last of this awful proposal and that it will evaporate back into thin air where it came from. All told, this project, along with the USTA expansion and the proposed Willets Point West mall would have allowed over 50 acres of our parkland to be taken from us and handed to private corporations and /or billionaire friends of Mayor Bloomberg's for free, shortchanging the citizens of our city by stealing precious and irreplaceable parkland.
 
"As it stands, this situation potentially removes one of those threats from gobbling up over a dozen acres of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. However, we must remain vigilant to make sure that there will not be another proposal for this site - or any others - and stand strong against the two other proposed projects to make sure they never become a reality."

And it is both huge and hideous!

FIRST LOOK: MLS’s Queens Stadium Renderings [Empire Soccer] 2/25/2013

Visions of that Major League Soccer stadium in Queens [Capital New York] 2/25/2013

First Images Of Massive Soccer Stadium Revealed For Flushing Meadows Park [A Walk in the Park] 2/25/2013

The wide area of the Flushing River in 1951 is where the Pool of Industry was constructed for the 1964-65 World's Fair.

The Pool was drained in 2006, revealing that the Flushing River still runs beneath it.

This is where Major League Soccer wants to build their stadium.  On marshland.

Does this sound like a good idea?

Listen to Save FMCP co-founder Al Centola on the Feuerstein's Fire internet radio program discussing the MLS soccer stadium plan.  Al comes on at around the 60:00 mark.

Dear Editor [of the Queens Chronicle]:

If you believe in the tooth fairy, this soccer stadium is for you.

You had mentioned Harrison, NJ in your Jan. 31 article “MLS to Queens? Visit Harrison, NJ first.” Why are you even looking over there? We have our own Harrison, NJ right here: It’s called Shea Stadium, now Citi Field. We have had Major League Baseball in this very location for approximately 50 years with absolutely no spinoff benefit to the neighborhood at all.

You can also throw in the United States Tennis Association Arthur Ashe tennis complex for good measure — still no development in the surrounding neighborhoods.

This is just a giveaway of public parklands to someone who will take the money and run. If this is such a great idea, try Central Park, Prospect Park, even Pelham Bay Park, or buy land and put it wherever you can. Why should the taxpayers have to finance it if it is such a great money-making deal? This stadium would ruin Flushing Meadows and turn the rest of it into a parking lot, just as we see with the tennis open in the summer.

No more of this beautiful park should be given away, no more!

Robert E. Hartling
Flushing

Dear Editor [Queens Chronicle]:

If small businesses are supporting Major Soccer League’s attempt to construct a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, they must have gotten intoxicated on the snake oil MLS has been pouring on the public (“MLS promotes small biz support,” Jan. 24, multiple editions).

People who watch games go home afterwards. They do not stop at small retail shops on Northern Boulevard to buy a pair of socks.

For years, multimillionaire private for-profit sports club owners have been blindsiding taxpayers in New York City and elsewhere, aided and abetted by inept politicians, claiming their businesses make important contributions to the municipality’s economy. There is no fiscal justification for the claim. Instead there is often a raid on the public treasury, along with enormous subsidies and perks.

Sports activities in New York City do not account for more than seven-tenths of 1 percent of the city’s gross economy, an amount of money that could be equated with the tip one gives the youngster who delivers your groceries. It does not put more police or firefighters on the streets or build more classrooms or affordable housing.

In his article “Play Ball or Else,” in the August 2005 Readers’ Digest, Michael Crowley notes that economist Allen Sanderson of The University of Chicago said, “Instead of attracting new money, stadium events just move money around that was already headed for the city coffers.”

If money is to be made from a stadium, it will go into the pockets of the ballclub owner and not the taxpayers, who in the case of MLS would lose parkland and add to the further desecration of the park.

Landscape architect Charles Birnbaum, the coordinator of the National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative, wrote in Preservation magazine that open space in America’s parks is being wiped out by new structures and parking lots, as municipal officials tend to see such space as a void that must be filled.

But, he said, park users themselves aren’t demanding change. Two decades of surveys say that between 70 and 80 percent of American park users visit them specifically for passive reflective experiences, not for entertainment.

Birnbaum asks, “When was it decided that strolling in dappled shade under a canopy of trees or roaming a sloping lawn is not sufficient experience in its own right? When did we stop valuing the sound of running water, the humanizing scale and tactile marvels of nature? Who still appreciates historic moss-covered walls and paths or a landscape designer’s choice of plants and ornaments?”

His comments should be mandatory reading for all persons seeking public office — particularly people like state Sen. Jose Peralta, who does not view parkland as parkland, but as open space to be sold to the highest bidder, the public be damned. This belief is so obnoxious that in my opinion it makes him unworthy of holding public office.

Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing

Flushing Meadows soccer stadium must be stopped [Queens Chronicle] 1/31/2013

Major League Soccer is doing its best to rush a misguided plan to build a stadium in Queens through all the hurdles it faces before Mayor Bloomberg leaves office. It cannot be allowed to succeed.

League officials have been given every opportunity to be forthcoming about the important details of their proposal and to counter their critics, and they refuse to do so. A similar project they got approved in Harrison, NJ, just over the Hudson River, has failed to live up to its promises and ended up shorting that town’s taxpayers at least $3.6 million.

And, above all, their plan for a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park would severely damage what remains the crown jewel of Queens, without enough benefit to residents.

The deal MLS seeks with the city would be a steal, literally, in all but the legal sense. It wants a $1 a year lease for up to 13 acres of public parkland — the classic deal politicians and private for-profit businesses cook up behind closed doors to take the citizens’ property without compensation.

That deal, which must be stopped, is at the heart of why MLS is in such a rush. If it doesn’t get public land essentially for free, the league will have to buy the 10 to 13 acres it needs for a 25,000 seat arena on the open market.

All that the public would get in exchange is 13 acres of new parkland somewhere else —but not all in one chunk — and the rehab of some existing soccer fields at Flushing Meadows, which should be a city job anyway. MLS also says it would invest tens of millions of dollars in the park, but it’s vague as to how and where, as it is on so many details, even when its president met with us last week.

One of the most frustrating vagaries is the league’s site selection process. MLS is dead set on building a stadium in Flushing Meadows, mostly because the land would be free but also because there are so many Latin Americans in nearby neighborhoods and soccer is such a force in that culture, and because of all the transportation options that get people to the park. But we don’t see why a stadium couldn’t be considered for any number of other locations, such as Aqueduct Race Track or the old Flushing Airport, and MLS has not been forthcoming in what other sites it rejected or why.

We are not against soccer in Queens; in fact we would welcome it. We are against giving away our parkland. Imagine, as crazy as it sounds, that this project had been proposed for Central Park. Of course it would be rejected out of hand. But if the mayor wants a stadium, maybe he should consider putting it there, in his own neighborhood’s crown jewel park.

Another major concern with the proposal is the question of team ownership, one of many issues discussed in this week’s Queens Chronicle story “MLS to Queens? Stop by Harrison, NJ first.” The league has yet to select an owner for the team it would locate here, but that means accountability would be hard to pursue should any problems arise as the stadium is built. And the one possible owner that’s been reported on in the press is an Arab oil sheik, a prospect we find troubling. If a Queens soccer team were to go belly up, as two MLS teams have in recent years, what would he care about an empty stadium nearly half a world away?

Standard political practice means there is one person who could stop this project today if she wants to: City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras, whose district includes the northern section of the park. She should see this proposal for the land grab that it is. If she says no to it, the rest of the Council will follow suit, and the plan will be denied — if MLS doesn’t just give up on its own first. We urge you to call Ferreras at (718) 651-1917 or (212) 788-6862, or email her at jferreras@council.nyc.gov, and tell her to keep our park in our hands. MLS can come back with a better site any time.