Occasional mid-afternoon hallucinations aside, I’m fully aware that Shea Stadium is closed for business and there’s no stopping the April unveiling of the Mets’ Citi Field aka The Wilpons’ Monument To Avarice & Greed. But why is it necessary — even in light of consecutive September humiliations —- for Jeff Wilpon to all but whip it out and gloat while pissing on a cherised (to some, anyway) venue? The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir ventured to Flushing and observed Wilpon and assorted hardhat minions engaged in some genuinely creepy bonding.
œThey™re so high, and so close to Mr. Wilpon™s new baby, said Toby Romano, a vice president of Breeze National, the demolition subcontractor, said of the twin light towers™ proximity to the nearly finished Citi Field.
œNice and easy, we™ll pull them down, said Danny Collins, a Breeze foreman.
œIf it were me, said Jeff Wilpon, the team™s chief operating officer, who wants Shea to be gone as soon as possible. œI™d just go in and bring them down.
Collins, a veteran of demolishing skyscrapers, nonchalantly said the Shea razing was œlike any other demolition, but then called it a œgreat challenge to tear down a place where, œI used to spend a lot of time with my uncles.
Wilpon wanted to show the Mets™ clubhouse, now darkened and turned to rubble. But the menacing growl of an approaching Bobcat altered his route. Close by was the rear entrance to the ticket office. A large, ragged gash in a cinderblock wall made it appear that the Incredible Hulk had vented his frustrations over the work of Aaron Heilman.
The old ticket office led, unencumbered by walls, to the stadium™s old main office entrance, and to where the elevator once moved with maddening slowness. It is gone.
œThe shaft makes an excellent garbage chute, said Daryl Mattis, a project supervisor for Hunt-Bovis, the Mets™ construction partner.
J.W. Colucci, an Bobcat operator was asked, what’s it like to be wrecking Shea?
œSometimes, Colucci said, a smile on his dusty face, œit feels better than sex.
Wilpon added: œI™d love to drive a Bobcat, blasting through this place.
Let’s all hope when the day comes to bring down RFK Stadium, that we D.C. sports fans are NOT subjected to such a flippant “fuck you” from construction workers.