Arthur Ashe stadium to get a roof

From CBS New York:

After years of U.S. Open weather woes, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens is ready to serve up some major changes.

As CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported Wednesday, engineers have finally figured out how to mount a retractable roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium – the main venue for the U.S. Open. It is considered an overhead smash against Mother Nature.

For the last five years, rain has pushed the U.S. Open final from Sunday to Monday.

“The players are very upset about the finals’ being postponed to Monday. They have Davis Cup the next week — that’s interfered there. The fans are unhappy,” said Dan Kaplan of SportsBusinessDaily.com.

The obvious solution is to design and build a retractable roof over center court, but as recently as last summer the United States Tennis Association said putting a roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium was an engineering impossibility and couldn’t be done.

The USTA said the stadium was built on swampland and could sink under the weight of a roof. But Kaplan said the organization has figured out a fix.

“What they’re planning to do is rip out a lot of the very heavy seating in the upper decks,” he said. “That will reduce the weight.

Since they can put a roof on it, why not make it permanent so that the community doesn't have to deal with the noise from re-routed planes?

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Phony park group stands on phony platform

Parks Platform 2013 - White Paper

Note #7:

"Parkland alienation should not occur unless no other land is available to serve an essential public need."

Of course! That's why this partner of the NYC Parks Dept and self-proclaimed "park advocacy" group, New Yorkers for Parks, not only gave their blessing to parkland alienation for a non-essential private need: a walkway at the USTA National Tennis Center, but they also brokered the deal that allows the USTA to dictate where their paltry annual donations to the park will be spent, and also will be looking the other way while cars are parked on grassy parkland that the USTA doesn't lease during their annual tournament, which amounts to a secondary alienation.

And #8:

"State and local laws regulating parkland alienation should be strengthened to require earlier and broader notification of alienation actions, and to mandate acre-for-acre replacement of lost parkland."

Another no brainer! Which is why Holly Leicht, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks, squealed with delight to the newspapers when the USTA pulled some phony baloney and "swapped" tennis courts it was leasing for land that it wants (and will still get to use the land it "gave up").

It's so easy to see through this group's hypocritical bullshit, yet the media takes them seriously. Well their free ride ends here.

These people are not park advocates and do not speak for us. They are nothing more than shills for the City of New York.

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Concerts coming to Forest Hills Tennis Stadium

From the NY Times:

After decades of languishing in obscurity and disrepair, one of the most famous sports and concert sites in New York will again reverberate with the sound of live music.

The Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, which opened in 1923 and has played host to Jimmy Connors and John Lennon, sits next to an expanse of grass and clay tennis courts at the West Side Tennis Club, the stadium’s owner. Club officials and a promoter have an agreement to hold 19 concerts over the next three years.

The stadium is still in shoddy condition, and after an accelerated renovation to make it ready, one concert is planned there this summer — an Aug. 28 show by Mumford & Sons — followed by six in each of the next three summers.

This summer’s concert will serve as something of a pilot, to convince residents of Forest Hills Gardens, the exclusive neighborhood of elegant Tudor homes around the stadium, that the concerts will not be a nuisance, said the club’s president, Roland Meier. Concerts have not been welcomed in the neighborhood in the past.

Mr. Meier said he hoped the concerts — which will begin as the club celebrates its 100th anniversary in Queens, and the stadium turns 90 — would finance the refurbishing of the stadium and lead to the return of tennis and other top events.

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