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So Brooklyn would be getting an NHL team if Gary Bettman wasn’t determined to ensure that the NHL not exist by 2015. If Sonia Sotomayor can somehow step in and save the league, the move makes sense; a visit this year confirms that Nassau Colosseum should have been demolished about five years ago.
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Is this Trump’s huge game-changing announcement?
Until this moment I didn’t realize Brooklyn and Queens were on Long Island. I fail at geography. Sort of foils my plan to be up in arms about the fact that they were being forced to keep the Islanders name.
Yes. Its one giant island. But most people refer to the counties of nassau and suffolk as “long island” to separate them from their city counterparts.
Yes, please, and please, it was hard enough on this Manhattanite to move across a bridge. I don’t need to be reminded I live in the land of Big Hair.
A prof I had in grad school lived in Brooklyn as a teenager, but refused to believe that Brooklyn was on Long Island. Incidentally, his research involved geographic location of cities.
The new arena, in fact, is very close to where some of the major engagements in the Battle of Long Island took place. Though it’s now more commonly called the Battle of Brooklyn, which gives it more street cred.
Yeah, the Battle of Long Island sounds like something that would take place over a parking spot outside of a mall.
Or a zoning variance.
Only the biggest battle of the Revolution–although not as famous as some others because the US got badly whipped.
Well, Long Island City is in Queens, making it doubly uncool but much more ethnic.
True, but being doubly uncool and ethnic actually make Long Island City cool. Or at least I think it’s cool. But then, I think Queens is the coolest borough anyway.
Do the Bohemian and Jackson Heights cancel out the Mets?
To be fair, the
Rust BowlBarclay’s Center comes ready-made looking like it’s ripe for demolition.Speaking as someone who lives right around the corner, and walks by it every day on my way to work… the rustiness used to kind of bother me, but now it doesn’t. It actually does sort of blend in with its surroundings.
What’s bothering me now is that the cladding on the front section (which goes around the occulus) doesn’t match the cladding on the rest of the building. I assume that as it weathers, it eventually will, but right now the front looks oddly snapped on, which takes away from the swirling sort of effect I think the architects were going for.
Obviously I’ve been thinking far too much about this.
As an architect, I assure you that you’re not. And I’m genuinely heartened to read that you’re paying this much attention.
Thanks! I’ve been worried that it was just going to become one of my pointless NYC pet peeves, like the PSAs on the subway and the recorded instructions on how to ride an escalator.
Those aren’t just NYC pet peeves, FWIW. I think I can recite most of the DC “Hi! Is this your first time riding Metro?”* message by heart.
*To which the correct answer is, “No, shut up, it’s 2AM on a Saturday night at the U St station. There aren’t any damn tourists around anymore…” *shakes fist*
Ha, good to know we aren’t the only ones subjected to that kind of thing.
I used to commute home from the Bowling Green station in Manhattan. Standing on the platform, you could hear the recorded instruction loops from four different elevators, all out of synch – a loud, shrill, inane, sing-songy round. All for the purpose of instructing people in how to use a technology that has existed since the 19th Century.
a visit this year confirms that Nassau Colosseum should have been demolished about five years ago
It would have been gone but for the fact the town of hempstead is the last remaining bastion of the old republican machinery on long island. A major new development was approved by the County when it was under democratic control several years ago, but blocked by the town which had to issue the permits. The town supervisor was right of course, because all of the archie bunkers who vote there understand that building anything other than a one-family home will make nassau county the “sixth borough” and will invite the undesirables.
I had no idea the New York Americans spent the ’41-42 season as the “Brooklyn Americans” — even though their Brooklyn rink was never built, and they had to play at MSG:
http://aol.sportingnews.com/nhl/story/2007-11-21/a-team-moves-brooklyn
Hullo? “19-40″?
Er, what?
19-40 is the chant that the NY Rangers used to get for 54 years since that was the last year they had won the Stanley Cup. 19-94 is probably going to start getting widespread use again as it gets close to 20 years.
Except that the people who chanted that (Islanders fans) could hear 19-82 right back at them.
19-83, surely?
You’re right. Wasn’t sure if the dynasty ran from the 1978-79 season through the 1981-82 season, or from the 1979-80 season through 1982-83 season. Its been a long time either way.
I know the chant. (I’m a Canucks fan — I might possibly have chanted it myself during the ’94 Cup final.) But I’m still not clear what that has to do with the New York Americans spending their final franchise season as the “Brooklyn Americans,” which is a bit of hockey trivia of which I was previously unawares.
I was sad for Nassau to be losing the team, but this is a very happy outcome, IMO.
Now if we could just get a third MLB team in there*….
* metro NY, not Barclay’s
Yeah, it sucks for nassau county, but more so because it lost out on an opportunity for private financing of much needed development, but that shipped sailed a few years back, and the voters were right in my opinion to reject the deal that was presented to them by the republicans.
But its a smart move for the team and its good for Brooklyn. The reality is that islanders were a small market team in a community with big market expectations. They didn’t draw from the city, and they shared the island with the rangers. This should help the franchise, especially if they stop giving out 50-year contracts to goalies.
IIRC, the fan demographics of the Islanders skewed to Nassau County anyway.
The commute will be more difficult as the Barclay’s is not on the border of the county, but there should not be a significant dropoff in attendance from those folks (that happened decades ago, hence the move).
The logic is the same as the Nets had in building the arena (and to a degree, the Mets): offer the city residents another option in a sport, and they’ll attend.
After all, it’s a lot more convenient to get to Brooklyn than to Seacaucus or Garden City.
I haven’t been to a hockey game in years. But I live on the north shore in western suffolk county, and taking the LIRR to atlantic avenue and then just walking upstairs to the arena would not be much more of a hassle than driving to uniondale. When teams first moved to the suburbs, they were moving with the city residents, but the days of urban flight are over. This is a good move I think. The hardcore fans on the island can take the train to the game, and the team can develop a new fan base in the city.
Whereas taking mass transit to the arena in Uniondale from NYC was a nightmare.
Absolutely. Crappy train line ending in a bad neighborhood, and still a ten minute cab ride away (without traffic). But the original plan blocked by the town of hempstead republicans was going to address this problem by extending the hempstead line on the LIRR to the arena.
Yeah, it actually had the potential to be a rare stadium project that actually produced economic development (because it was conceived as part of a transit-oriented development from the start; it was the sizzle, but not actually the steak).
Well, Newark. To which convenience was probably an insufficient lure.
>Now if we could just get a third MLB team in there*….
I like your ideas, and I for one would pay to experience this!
> * metro NY, not Barclay’s
Oh. Never mind, then.
But let me know when the Arena baseball league does get off the ground. I’m sure Brooklyn is a good place for it, if we go for a Roller-Derby vibe, with nicknames, hipster bands playing between innings, and both tiny microbrews and PBR for sale.
Wonder if the Islanders will have to pay a relocation fee to the NJ Devils for moving in on their turf (NJ had to pay the Rangers, Islanders, Flyers back in 82 when they moved).
I would assume not since they were already on their turf.
Someone should tell the writer of that story that there is a big, big difference between having “won the Stanley Cup” and winning a Stanley Cup playoff series. Or, alternately, that it is currently 2012 and not 2002:
Funny. I missed that. But the better point is that there is no true “civic pride” in suburbia beyond whatever school district you live in, which is why the team will do better in Brooklyn.
Funny Islander story — A friend of mine a couple of years ago at a small dinner party hosted by his daughter’s friend’s parents mocked the islanders when they were raised in conversation, without realizing that the gentleman “Clark” he had just been introduced to was Clark Gillies.
Did Gillies run him/her into the sideboard?
No. But a very awkward silence descended upon the dinner table. In my friend’s defense, he was undoubtedly drunk.
And even that is deteriorating in many places, what with the school choice policies and all that.
The funny part is that the Barclay’s Center as finally built isn’t actually designed to accommodate a hockey rink without losing a lot of seating capacity. It goes from ~18k in basketball mode, to ~14.5k in hockey mode with some awkward sightlines. The final design was made when they thought the Islanders weren’t moving, and seating arrangement was designed to be best for basketball, with hockey an afterthought, rather than a true dual-use arena like MSG, where the arrangement is probably biased more towards hockey than basketball. And after all that, the Islanders move anyway!
The Islanders averaged 13,000 in attendance last year.
Presumably a halfway decent team would average a little more than that, though if it does become official that they are moving, I would not be surprised if they average just 10k in their final year, especially if the owners manage to kill this season.
That is funny. Funny-sad, but funny.
I’d be pretty surprised if they don’t consistently outdraw the crowds of the last 5-10 years (well, lousy sightlines could hurt). Assume that most of the diehards make the trek (and there’s hardly anyone left but diehards), and you’ve got a base of 10k per game. Add in a potential, oh, 8 million people a train or two away, and I feel as if they should be able to approach the attendance that the Pittsburgh Penguins achieve in all but their worst seasons.
Actually, here’s my prediction: they will sell every seat for the first season, and most seats for the 2nd season, pretty much regardless of on-ice performance. If they are pathetic, they’ll regress pretty quickly to Coliseum numbers*, but anything but sheer ineptitude will come with consistent sellouts (say 25 sellouts per year, with 13k+ every other game).
* one thing to bear in mind is that NYC is good for expatriate fanbases. A Bostonian living in Manhattan might not go out to the Island for a game, but he’ll surely go to Brooklyn (especially since the Garden is such an overpriced dump). Although, again, if it’s really a crummy hockey venue, that could hurt. PNC Park sells out weekend series against the Phillies and Cubs because the fans will travel as much for the stadium as for the baseball; afaik this isn’t true for the comically bad Great American.
And guys who grew up islanders fans on long island but now live in the city or the other suburbs (westchester or new jersey) will go to more games in Brooklyn. And the new arena should allow then to sell more suites, which was the problem with the old arena even more than just attendance I believe.