Proposed 34,000 seat Cricket stadium for VC Park Parade Grounds

[Peter Ostrander]

There is a proposal by our Mayor Eric Adams for a ‘temporary’ 34,000 seat Cricket stadium to be built by private money on the east side of the Parade Grounds near the Kingsbridge Burial grounds and African Slave burial grounds.

So far not too many locals feel this is a good idea as the Parade Ground seems to be too open of an area not to be filled by some half assed proposals both past and present.  Perhaps GOD has been talking to our mayor and suggested this is as a good location.  We will leave it up to you.  Below is a link to an article from the The City Scoop.  in additional information for a Emergency Meeting by the Community Board 8 on this topic tomorrow evening on a Zoom call. See details below and hope you can participate or at least read the articles to familiarize yourself with this matter.

Broadway Community Alliance

 

Stadium for 34,000 in Van Cortlandt Park?

 

Community Board 8 Emergency Meeting Thursday, June 20th

Dear Neighbor,

Last week, the Broadway Community Alliance learned that the International Cricket Council (ICC) is close to a decision regarding construction of a temporary stadium on the Parade Ground in Van Cortlandt Park for34,000 fans for the World Cup Tournament. It appears they have Mayor Adams blessing.

Because of the extraordinary impacts on the community and Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx Community Board 8 is holding an Emergency Zoom Meeting on Thursday, July 20, at 7:00 PM. See Agenda

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2114033690

Join Zoom Meeting by Phone: +16465588656 Meeting ID: 2114033690#

To do this, the Parade Grounds must be closed to the public and teams for at least seven months in order to construct, take down, and repair damage to the park. Construction would start in January; games will start in May, 2024 and go through approximately 6 games in early June.

Aside from Public Safety issues, this proposal will exacerbate what is already a traffic and parking nightmare, not to mention how 34,000 fans per game will go to the bathroom. There are other sites in NYC with appropriate infrastructure that are not located in a residential neighborhood for this stadium.

Environmental groups and elected officials say that Alienation of Parkland is necessary in order to deprive our community of a public park while a private third-party charges up to $5,000 per ticket.See links below:

Congressman Torres, Assemblyman Dinowitz, and Councilman Dinowitz’s joint letter

Article in The City, “City Hall Pitches 34,000-Seat Cricket Stadium in Van Cortlandt Park”

Please make every effort to attend Thursday night’s Community Board 8 meeting on zoom and share this with your neighbors. We will continue to keep you informed.

Best,

Rob Spalter, Chair

Broadway Community Alliance

See Our Facebook page: Broadway Community Alliance

The link to The City Scoop

https://www.thecity.nyc/bronx/2023/7/15/23795978/cricket-t20-world-cup-stadium-van-cortlandt-park

 

 

 

[ndembowski]

I am curious if the stadium construction will require any digging. If yes, it should trigger a review, which could result in archaeology. In my opinion, it should.

If the depiction in the figure below is accurate, the stadium would sit on the eastern edge of a historic indigenous village site. When J.B. James excavated the site in 1890, he recovered many Native American artifacts, which are now in the Smithsonian. Additionally, he uncovered a dozen human burials there and those remains are in the Museum of Natural History.

Later the field became the planting field of the first European colonist in the area, Adriaen van der Donck. His settlement ended in an apparent massacre in 1655. Then it became the planting field of the Van Cortlandt plantation. During the Revolution, there were structures in the vicinity of the proposed stadium site as indicated by this British intelligence map.

The stadium would seem to sit right where the few buildings are located on the right side of the above map clipping. I believe that could have been the home of Isaac Low, who was one of New York’s delegates to the Continental Congress.  If I am correct, that is where George Washington penned this letter when he was evacuating his troops from NYC in 1776.  If I recall correctly, that is also the approximate location of the Van Cortlandt apple orchard, where the Continental Army encamped in July of 1781. And, as Peter noted, it is very close to the Kingsbridge and Enslaved African Burial Grounds.

So, yeah, it is a very historic area.  I am eager to see what is said at tonight’s community board meeting at 7.

 

[COGGINSS]

I can’t imagine that this construction and installation won’t have a detrimental effect on both the Van Cortlandt House Museum and the Enslaved Persons Burial Ground and the Nature Center, in terms of visitors. Also might this construction have any effect on the physical integrity of the museum structure? I’m not an engineer but there will have to be some pretty serious concrete pylons installed to support a stadium of this magnitude.

This park is also adjacent to wooded area, the wetlands and the Putnam trail which I imagine visitors will not be as motivated to visit with the noise, vibration and general construction site disruption. On so many levels this is a train wreck for the ecological and socio-cultural-historical health of the Park.

 

[anitadutt]

I listened to most of the Community Board meeting.  Did I miss something, or was the board majority very interested in the benefits they could extract from the construction, unlike most of the community people who made strong points against it, including all that Stephanie wrote above.   Amazing that the sketch of the stadium doesn’t show a single car.   Do the community groups represented at the meeting have plans for next steps?

[COGGINSS]

No Anita, you are not wrong. It was definitely a tone deaf response from the Board. Bob Fanuzzi was not there, which was unfortunate. He is the Chair of the Environment and Sanitation Committee
<p style=”text-align: right;”>https://cbbronx.cityofnewyork.us/cb8/committees/environment-sanitation/</p&gt;

[ndembowski]

At this point, there are so many unknowns that it is impossible to understand how the stadium would affect the museum or the park.

[ndembowski]

The New York Times published an article today about the proposed cricket stadium in Van Cortlandt Park: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/nyregion/cricket-stadium-bronx-adams.html

The article mainly dealt with complaints from cricket players but it did attempt to delve into the history of the park.  The journalist was thrown off by a sign in the park and got some facts wrong so I wrote the following request for a correction:

Greetings, New York Times.

I am writing to report an error in this article:  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/08/nyregion/cricket-stadium-bronx-adams.html

The article states: “A historical sign for the park notes that in 1655, a Lenape woman tried to steal a peach from a farm there belonging to Henry Van Dyck. Mr. Van Dyck shot her.”

The historical sign does not state that Henry Van Dyck resided within today’s park and there are no historical records indicating that he did.  Although, admittedly the park sign is confusing.

Secondly, all recent scholarship suggests that the hostilities of 1655 did not result from the theft of a peach.  The attack on New Netherland is largely seen as an act of revenge by the Susquehannock people, who were allies with New Netherland’s rival, New Sweden.  After the Dutch conquered New Sweden, the Susquehannock attacked New Netherland as an act of reprisal.  See Russell Shorto’s “Island at the Center of the World” for more information.

Best regards,

Nick Dembowski

 

[drbobdrake@gmail.com]

A cricket field — not the pitch which is 22 yds by 10.5 ft — is between 150 and 170 yards in diameter. The soccer pitch in Yankee Stadium for MLS is 110 yards long, the smallest in the league, others between 117-120.

So no stadium in NYC can accommodate a true cricket field.

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