West Side Railyards Are Worth $300 Million

Yesterday's Daily News story about the plans to foil the proposed Jets stadium, titled "Secret plan aims to foil new stadium" seems a little over the top, especially given news that the MTA is demanding $300 million for the land the Jets organization is eyeing for the new stadium. The $300 million figure is three times what the Jets would be willing to pay, and it seemed like the MTA was agreeable to that figure; Gothamist isn't sure if it was public pressure or actually realizing that the railyards were worth more or recent embarrassment over the way the MTA is run that made the agency reevaluate the appraisal. But back to the "secret plan": Assemblyman Richard Gottfried's office issued a memo "Hot to stop the stadium," including protests (supporting the Olympics bid but not a new stadium), using a number of lawsuits to stop the effort, and noting "We especially should organize a strategy for working with communities of color." Gottfreid's chief of staff said the memo wasn't meant for public distribution and rued, "I wish I had edited this."

Gothamist wants the proposed Jets Stadium stopped, but mostly because it's ugly. The NY Times' Bob Herbert wrote an anti-stadium op-ed that used the how can the city and state spend so much when there's no toilet paper in the schools and the stadium for 75,000 with no parking arguments. And here's the city's website for the Hudson Yards development.