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Good
Riddance, Overrated Rudy
January
4, 2002
by Scott Koziara
Breaking news. Rudy Giuliani has hubris. Giuliani's handling
of the September 11th crisis has given him overwhelming praise
and unlike George W. Bush he doesn't need his aides or the
media to build him up. Initially the events of September brought
out Giuliani's best, but as time passed on his massive ego,
as usual, got in the way.
As September turned into October he seemed to be enjoying
his new-found heroic status a little too much. He never saw
a camera he didn't like and for the past three months he's
been gallivanting around New York smirking like a 16-year-old
kid who has just lost his virginity to Pamela Anderson.
At the height of Giuliani's ever increasing arrogance Hizzoner
hosted a farce of a news conference three days before his
departure, unveiling a lucicrous proposal to finance two new
baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets. Yankee owner
George Steinbrenner and Mets owner Fred Wilpon are two multi-millionaires
who have the audacity to seek public money in a city that
desperately needs funds for, among other things, new school
construction, serious infrastructure improvements, and lest
we forget, economic revitalization for Lower Manhattan.
Giuliani's callous and irresponsible stadium proposal features
some fancy accounting schemes, but there's absolutely no way
to justify $800 million in corporate welfare to guys like
George Steinbrenner. New York City does not, should not, and
damn it better not have a dime to fatten the already overflowing
pockets of greedy George Steinbrenner and his envious competitor
across the East River in Queens. (Keep in mind Yankee President
Randy Levine is a former Deputy Mayor of New York City.)
Steinbrenner desperately wants to leave Yankee Stadium because
America's most famous sports edifice has only 8 full-service
luxury suites. The House That Rudy Built is proposed to have
lots and lots of cozy and lucrative luxury suites, and a 47,000
seating capacity. Yankee Stadium currently seats 57,000. Hmmmm...10,000
less seats for the new stadium?
This means ten-thousand less suburbanites schlepping into
the city on sold-out summer Sunday afternoon and October playoff
games. This means less people paying the tolls on the George
Washington and Triborough Bridges, less people riding the
rails, and less people patronizing the local businesses in
the area around the stadium.
Fred Wilpon on the other hand needs a new stadium. Shea Stadium
is a dilapidated relic of the hideous National League ballparks
of the mid 1960s and early 1970s. However, Queens, among other
things needs money for increased homeland security at Kennedy
and LaGuardia airports a helluva lot more than it needs a
new baseball stadium.
Mayor Bloomberg is a native New Englander who doesn't care
about the Yankees or the Mets. He owes Giuliani big-time,
because without Giuliani's help he never would've been able
to buy the election. But, if Bloomberg has an ounce of integrity,
which is highly debatable, he'll ignore Giuliani's proposal
and and tell George Steinbrenner that New York City isn't
his personal piggy bank.
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