The Curse of the Bambino is a legend revolving around the Boston Red Sox. Seems that after the Sox sold Babe “Bambino” Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920, they were unable to win a world series again until 2004. However they did beat their rivals to in that year to go on and take the Cardinals 4 games to zip. “Reverse the Curse” was the cry in Beantown in 2004, and they did.
Its now 2013 and the Sox are at it again, beating the Yankees at Yankee Stadium 8-2 on opening day. The Yankees had another problem yesterday. The company that built and owns the parking garages surrounding their new ball park missed its bond payment of a tad over $6 million. You can read all about it here.
Bronx Parking, the company set up to supply parking for the Yankees issued $237.6 million in bonds in 2007 and has been struggling ever since. Projections have shown that the garages have to fill at every home game to break even and they don’t come close. Excellent bus service, the fact that the subway and light rail runs adjacent to the Stadium, and a $35 per game parking charge, makes driving by car a poor choice for Yankee fans.
The most recent solution to the problem was to raise the parking rates, which simply drove those who wanted to take their cars to the game to nearby garages up the Grand Concourse that had plenty of free space in in the evenings and on weekends.
I was in one of the garages last fall and took this shot:
I’m sure there are more cars than this during a game, but however many there are, its not enough. (Note that there isn’t’ a lot of oil on the floor.) There has been much criticism of the feasibility studies that were done, as the existing garages (down the street) and the transportation systems have been in place for years.
The Yankees aren’t on the hook for the bonds, but the good citizens of the City of New York are and before this is over, they may have their own curse to worry about, and it won’t be involving the home of the Bronx Bombers, but some white elephant parking structures built nearby.
JVH
One Response
WHAT! $35 a game. I was there last year (Yankees vs Mets – great game) and I sweet taking the train from Coscob to there was under $20 return.
Crazy – someone really needs to look at the numbers. Even if they sold all those spaces for $1……..$5000 (i.e. 5000 parks) > $70 (JVH + one other parking enthusiast).