Preservationists in New York want to save Gate 2 of the old Yankee Stadium from the wrecking ball so that it may serve as a monument and/or gateway to the park that will be built on the site. The Parks Department is inclined to just smash the thing, however, leading to a fundraising push:
With the Parks Department committed to demolishing the gate, preservation proponents insisted Wednesday that rescuing the towering remnant of the Bronx ballpark was a relatively cheap and easy task.
The total cost could run about $1 million, a 10th of the estimate city officials gave for saving the slice of original Stadium architecture.
Contractors already are volunteering time for the task, and fund-raising could cover the rest, according to a press release from the Save the Yankee Gate 2 Committee.
No one is obligated to do anything in this world no matter how rich they are, but if I were one of Alex Rodriguez’s advisors, this is the sort of thing I’d be telling him to get behind if he was really interested in burnishing his image in Yankeeland.
I’m not saying he should just write a check, but even if the cost is closer to the higher, $10 million estimate by the Parks Department, one would think that A-Rod could raise that kind of money from friends with, like, a morning’s worth of phone calls.
