Deja Vu All Over Again

Lar at Wezen-Ball has a fascinating look back at what folks were saying the last time Yankee Stadium was replaced. And it seems like the second verse is the same as the first:

In less than one month now, the new Yankee Stadium will open amidst a sea of publicity and fanfare. Newspapers and television networks and blogs will wax poetic about the “dawn of a new age” and the bittersweet transition of old to new. Some will focus their attentions on the cost overruns and the city’s questionable roll in the construction. Regardless, there will be plenty of discussion and press when the Yankees make their regular-season home-debut this April.

I know, I know… that isn’t the boldest of predictions to make. But I feel more than confident when I say that – and that’s mostly because this isn’t new at all. Back in 1976, the old Yankee Stadium re-opened after having been closed for two years for remodeling. The interior of the stadium was completely rebuilt, including the fences, the seats, the roof, and the original grandstand. When the remodeled Yankee Stadium opened that year, the sportswriters of the time took notice and spent their column space doing exactly what we know today’s sportswriters will do next month: waxing poetic about the “dawn of a new age” and the “bittersweet transition of old to new” and also talking about the cost overruns and the city’s questionable roll in the construction.

As is Lar’s wont, he provides extensive quotations of and great links to contemporaneous accounts, so I highly recommend that you click through and spend some time reading the material he has assembled.


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Tom
15 years ago

“the city’s questionable roll”

In more than one way.