WestSideStadium.org's First Meeting Draws 127 New Members
Founding WestSideStadium.org member Tom McMorrow chaired the first organizational meeting for new members last night at a location overlooking the fallow west side train yards, and was quite pleased with the results. "We were expecting 40 or 50, but to get 127 New Yorkers to our first event, wow, that's great," Mr. McMorrow said afterwards.
Joe Klecko was the keynote speaker, and made an impassioned plea to bring the Jets to Manhattan. He was particularly enthusiastic about the river setting, noting in jest that it would be a good place to toss the opposition. Joe's speech was interrupted several times by the audience's enthusiastic response. Afterwards, Joe signed autographs, and chatted with the new members.
Below is the text of Tom McMorrow's opening remarks.
Thirty years ago, when I first moved into this area, apartment hunting in New York City was very simple. First, you chose the neighborhood you wanted to live in. Then, you chose the block you wanted to live on. Then you went door to door , and within an hour you had an apartment, at the price you wanted. That sounds great , doesn't it? Easy, affordable housing.
However, there was a catch. The reason why it was so easy to find an apartment back then was because the city was falling apart. Crime was at an all-time high. The trains and buildings were covered in graffiti. Businesses were fleeing the city, women and children did not feel safe on the streets, and the population was leaving. The city had stopped investing in its future, and was using its capital expenditures to pay its operating costs. The 2nd Avenue subway was killed, all development projects ceased. The President of the United States summed it up in that famous Daily News headline: Ford to City: Drop Dead.
But we didn't die. Not only didn't we die, we came back with the greatest thirty years of growth in the city's history. Neighborhoods that had been depressed for generations like Harlem and the Lower East Side were suddenly revitalized. The entire island of Manhattan blossomed with growth- all except for this one area, located right outside the walls of this building. The Hudson River train yards.
Some t wenty-five acres of train tracks. That's what's out there. An area so desolate that not only did it not grow in the '80's and '90's, it actually went backwards. Train tracks and vacant lots. And it's been that way for 100 years.
Now we have a proposal on the table, a proposal of great vision. A plan to invest in the future of the city. To build a stadium as the starting point for growth for this area. A stadium whose structure will not displace one single person in its construction. A stadium that will serve as an extension of this same Convention Center, a stadium that will be the Mecca for sporting events from around the globe. The financing is simple. The New York Jets and the NFL put up $800 Million Dollars, plus a guarantee against any cost over-runs. The state puts up $300 Million. That's $1.1 Billion dollars of private and state money . The city then puts up $ 300 Million .
And what does the city get for its $300 Million? It gets a unique facility, a building that dwarfs the earning potential of any other stadium ever built. A Money-Maker.
Of course, this is New York City , so there is opposition. If you say the sky is blue in New York , there will be opposition. And that is where WestSideStadium.org comes in.
I place the opposition in three different groupings. There are the “ Well-intended but misinformed ”, then there are the “ Not in my backyarders ”, and finally, there are the greedy ones. The individuals who stand to gain millions and millions of dollars by killing this project.
We must not let them succeed.
This stadium, this vision, this dream can be killed if we remain silent. WestSideStadium.org's mission is to inform the misinformed, stand up to the Not in my backyarders, and expose the greedy for what they are.
We have just as much right, you and I, all of us to a voice in this project as the opposition has. Because if we allow the opposition to succeed, if we allow them to kill this dream, it'll be another hundred years before growth is brought to this barren, desolate landscape. Please join us.
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