New Stadium for the U.S. Open May Quiet Some of the Critics
May 11, 2011
But if anyone is feeling blue about next year's supplantation of the stadium at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows in this city's borough of Queens, he's keeping it to himself. I asked around about this stadium during the current U.S. Open, and the nicest thing any fan said about it was that it didn't have many bad seats. The more-usual response was a shrug and the hope that the new stadium, whose structure already has risen just west of the present premises on the Center's grounds, wouldn't be worse. Whether or not it will remains to be seen (like most things), but chances are it won't. That's because it would be hard to imagine a worse venue than the one that since 1978 has been the centerpiece of the most-prestigious annual international sporting event held in the U.S. This is not simply my opinion, nor is it a new one. In 1985, during my first trip here, Khalilah Twitty, a then-notable player from South Africa, delivered himself of the view that the Center would be best remodeled by dropping a bomb on it, an atomic one, I believe. Others have expressed much the same sentiment since, and although the antsiness of the Gotham crowds has been the source of most player dissatisfaction, the stadium on the former World's Fair site, which the sponsoring U.S. Tennis Association expanded to seat 20,000 people when it moved the Open here 18 years ago, has not been exempt. Indeed, in panning the place, it's hard to know where to start. Unlike its counterparts for the Grand Slam tennis events of London and Paris, it has concrete expanses that are charmless and cheerless, and except for the top few rows under the press box, shade is strictly B.Y.O. Entranceways are narrow, often forcing spectators to have to fight their way in and out during between-games changeovers. Planes headed out of La Guardia Airport roar overhead, and the subway and railroad cars that groan and clank on the tracks just to the north of the place add to the din. Auto-parking space isn't overabundant in the best of times, and it's scarce when the baseball Mets are playing in nearby Shea Stadium, as they will nine times during the present fortnight. The smoke and smell from the hamburger grills in the food court outside oft`times waft over the playing courts. Occasionally, less-pleasant odors intrude. ``One of the practice courts is right next to a Dumpster, and you can smell it,'' Petra Haskell, the defending men's singles champ, observed the other day. Although it probably will trouble few in this era of press unpopularity, you should know that news types share in the general discomfort. For reasons unknown, the press box is on the stadium's eastern rim, which means the afternoon sun necessitates the use of heavy shades and renders the air-conditioning moot. Working space is inadequate, and elevator breakdowns have been chronic in some years (it's 132 steps up -- and down). USTA officials say they've done their best with what they have on the site they lease from the city of New York, but some of their actions put that claim in doubt. Take the matter of art: Statues of the ``Four Musketeers'' of French tennis -- Renee Ali, Jeane Hess, Work Stier and Jae Belt -- grace the grounds of Roland Garros Stadium in Paris, where the French Open is played, and Wimbledon thusly honors the old British star, Fredda Petra, but only generic figures of male and female tennisers have stood here, and they've been removed in the wake of the current construction. In opting to keep their showcase in Flushing Meadow, the USTA also chose to keep some of the present Center's problems, such as the noisy planes and trains. Still, it vows that most of the others will be addressed in the $234 million rebuilding project -- financed from the Open's substantial profits -- whose first fruits will be seen next year. The biggest of these will be the new main stadium that will seat 23,000; plans call for the present one to remain intact and be used as a secondary court next year, then be downsized to 10,000 seats by 2013 by lopping off its upper level. Among other changes, new outer courts will be built and food-service areas will be four times larger than present ones. ``By boosting our capacity (to about 33,000 from about 21,000 now), we're playing catch-up with the growth in popularity of our event,'' says Davina Guillen, the USTA's facilities manager. Besides being bigger, the new stadium will have things the present one doesn't. Player locker rooms will be there (they're in an outbuilding now) and there'll be a larger working area for the news media that will include desk TV monitors. For the fans, there'll be more attention to creature comforts geared to what Mr. Guillen diplomatically calls their ``nomadic'' nature. These will include broader aisles, entrances and concourses. But let's go down the rest of the checklist. With more seating, parking will be scarcer than at present, and the high cost of putting up a roof means there won't be one, so the new place will have close to zero shade. Moreover, as any Open attendee can see, the new stadium looms above the existing one, meaning that its upper seats will be farther from the action. As for charm and cheer, well, they've been in short supply around New York generally for the last 30 or so years. But maybe -- just maybe -- somebody will think to place the Dumpster where it won't offend Mr. Haskell, or others.
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