The New York Times, time and time again, has failed to heed the cries of Brooklyn citizens who feel unjustly treated by the "paper of record". The Times has refused to cover the numerous issues surrounding the proposed Brooklyn Nets Arena in the same serious and comprehnesive manner in which it covers the issues surrounding the Manhattan Jets Stadium. Nothing investigative. Nothing analytical. Nothing editorial.

Comparision between the Jets Stadium and the Nets Arena?
Same City.
Same amount of taxpayer money.
Same lack of transparency and government accountability (in fact, far worse in the Brooklyn case, where the State is overriding the City Review Process and associated Public Hearings and denying the citizens their City Council vote for the entire 21 acre project - not just the stadium component).
Same no-bid contract.
Same secret-backroom taxpayer-subsidized deal.
Different Developer - New York Times is business partners with the Developer of the proposed Brooklyn Nets Arena.

The Editorial Board of every major Daily in the city and the Wall Street Journal have met with the Steering Committee of 'Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn'. The New York Times has flatly refused to do the same. Instead, every time a citizen of Brooklyn complains, the Times resends the same letter they've been sending since February, weakly justifying their poor coverage by pointing to various superficial articles they've written on the Nets Arena, (which in no way remotely match the depth of the articles they've written on the Jets Stadium).

To illustrate our point, we have rewritten a Times lead Editorial of December 4, to refer to Brooklyn, instead of Manhattan.

Unfair reporting? Under-reporting? You decide.

ORIGINAL VERSION OF:

The New York Times
December 4, 2004
LEAD EDITORIAL

Stop the Stadiumin Its Tracks

New York City is hurtling toward the construction of a $1.4 billion Jets football stadium in Manhattan. But New Yorkers seem to have little say in this enormous commitment of public money for what would be the most expensive professional football stadium ever, although they have been subjected to a crop of he-said, he-said TV commercials. The approval process is on something beyond a fast track - it's more like a runaway train. And it's time to pull on the brakes.

The stadium is deeply entwined with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's hopes for development on the far West Side of Manhattan. Mr. Bloomberg is right to focus on this large chunk of underused real estate, now sparsely populated by rail yards and light industry. We agree with his conviction that the area should have subway service, parks and the other things that will make developers want to construct splendid buildings where people can live and work and enjoy the riverfront. We admire the vigor with which the mayor has pursued his vision. We just don't believe that a hulking box of a football stadium, built with the help of millions of dollars in public money, is the way to make it happen.

Virtually every big city from Seattle to Miami has been engulfed in a stadium debate at one time or another. Such a debate generally features grand promises for an urban renaissance that never quite comes true and cost projections that very frequently turn out to be wildly optimistic. The backers create a sense of desperate urgency, dredging up the specter of lost opportunity if the city fails to act right away. In New York, however, the threat isn't that a professional sports team will depart, or fail to arrive, if the proper stadium isn't available. For the Jets, leaving the New York metropolitan area would mean abandoning the biggest media market in the nation.

This is about the 2012 Olympic Games. The spades for a giant stadium on the Hudson River must be in the ground by next spring, the advocates say, or the Games - and a long list of desirable public works projects they would entail - will be lost to Paris or Moscow. That means committing to a stadium before the International Olympic Committee decides next July on the host for 2012.

Nice as it would be to have the Games, they don't justify the stadium. Here are some of the reasons we believe it's a bad idea.

THE STADIUM As a piece of architecture, it would be clunky and unattractive. A really bad design can, of course, always be reworked - although the Jets have so far shown no sign of falling out of love with their current plan. But even an inventive proposal, which must account for the luxury boxes that are the economic drivers of any modern football stadium, would lead to a mammoth structure, which would overwhelm anything built nearby. The tract of land along the Hudson River where the Jets want to build is a site of extraordinary potential. We don't believe that a stadium would be its optimal and best use. A study released this week by the nonpartisan Regional Plan Association found that a mixed-use redevelopment of the proposed site, including residential and commercial projects, would provide a better return for the city.

The Bloomberg administration argues that the area needs a jump-start, and that the stadium would provide the right jolt. To us, the stadium seems more likely to thwart what could become one of the city's most glorious neighborhoods.

THE MONEY The Jets are supposed to put in some $800 million toward the stadium and cover cost overruns, with the city and state each pledging $300 million. Both governments are desperately overextended when it comes to borrowing power. So is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the railroad yards where the stadium would be built. Some estimates say the M.T.A. could reap well in excess of a billion dollars for the property and the air rights above it. The Jets are unlikely to pay anywhere near that. The public money would be used to build a platform over the rail yards where the stadium would stand, and to cover the facility with a roof to make it more adaptable for uses other than football. Advocates say it would then provide desperately needed additional space for the Javits Convention Center, which would be expanded and linked by a passageway to the new stadium.

We agree that the convention center needs more space, but we doubt that a football stadium is the right way to provide that, even if it has a roof, a drop ceiling and retractable seating. In one city after another, promoters of huge sports stadiums have promised that they could be used for everything from huge conventions to high school track meets, but the results have almost invariably been disappointing.

THE SUBWAY The No. 7 subway line currently runs from Queens across Midtown Manhattan, stopping at Grand Central Terminal before coming to an abrupt end at Times Square. Logically, the line should continue across the West Side, then ultimately connect to Penn Station. That service is crucial to Mr. Bloomberg's development dreams. But the M.T.A. has other priorities, most notably the expansion of the No. 2 subway line on the East Side. That's the longtime dream of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who happens to represent the Lower East Side. Rather than wait for the No. 2 to be finished or for Mr. Silver to retire, neither of which seems likely to happen in Mr. Bloomberg's political lifetime, the mayor's team has decided that the city should use its own money.

We appreciate the mayor's pragmatism. The extension of the No. 7, more than anything else, would draw developers and tenants. But the M.T.A. should be a partner in this kind of ambitious undertaking. It's time for the public to revisit the whole wish list for public transportation, along with the way the service is financed. Both the city and the state could best serve the area's mass transit needs by providing more support for the M.T.A.'s operating costs and allowing the authority to set priorities for its capital plans along a more rational line.

THE PROCESS There has been an air of inevitability surrounding the stadium, and pitifully few opportunities for genuine public input. The City Council has the power to approve a rezoning of the larger far West Side area - and rezoning is critical for the right kind of redevelopment. The Council could put limits on density to prevent overbuilding, but the Council is shut out of the stadium deal itself. Opponents of construction have, inevitably, threatened legal action. But this is the kind of project that should be decided by the political process, not the courts.

In the end, the only people who can stop this train are at the state level. In New York, that means three men - Mr. Silver, Gov. George Pataki and the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno. There's been a lot of talk lately about reforming the deeply dysfunctional state government. Taking a firm stand on the stadium would be a good way to begin letting in some light.

THE OLYMPICS We have always supported big ventures like the Olympics in New York City, but the great selling point for the Games was that they would encourage the construction of needed public works like parks, housing and smaller athletic sites that could be used later by local schools. To argue that in order to get the Games, the city must use one of its most valuable waterfront sites to build a huge, ugly stadium for eight football games a year turns that rationale backward. We wanted the Games to get good facilities. We don't want to build bad facilities in order to get the Games.