In the News: Pier 40 Soccer Plans

April 15, 2012 Community News, People, Restaurant/Bar News

••• More from the Villager on the possibility of Pier 40 turning into a soccer facility: “Major League Soccer has expressed strong interest in building a soccer stadium with up to 25,000 seats, along with a “youth soccer facility,” on the popular Lower West Side sports pier. The pro soccer team would use the stadium for 20 to 30 home games per year, many of these on Saturday evenings. This number could potentially include playoff and exhibition games. […] If Pier 40 falls through, Flushing is reportedly high on the list. […] A source close to M.L.S. who requested anonymity, described the project, actually not so much as a professional soccer stadium, but as ‘a community recreation facility devoted to youth soccer on Pier 40. The goal is to support the existing [Pier 40 youth sports] program and give them better fields, with more playing time.’ Asked if the pier would be exclusively for soccer, he said it would continue to be for the various types of sports it has now.” I had never actually explored Pier 40 till the other day, and naturally I loved it for the hulking, rusted mess it was. If you’ve never gone up to the top level and walked around, you should.

••• More changes in Bouleyville, this time at Brushstroke: “What had been a liquor bar on the right side of the restaurant has now been turned into an eight-seat sushi bar, offering two seatings per night for omakase sushi menus starting at $150, by reservation only. There are also two tables; a couple more will be added soon, along with a glass door that will separate the sushi area from the rest of the restaurant.” If this means the shiso cocktail won’t be available anymore, I’m going to be ticked. —New York Times

••• Meanwhile, David Bouley has sued his neighbor, lawyer W. Robert Curtis (he of the motorcycle in the window), for libel over accusations (and a lawsuit) involving black ooze possibly seeping from the old Bouley Studio restaurant. —Daily News

••• A man was arrested for the Hudson Square groper attacks. He hosted Bible studies in his apartment. —DNAinfo

••• “A worker was seriously hurt after falling at 24 John St., where a hotel is under construction.” —DNAinfo

 
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2 Comments

  1. Bahij
    April 15, 2012 • 10:25 am

    I love the MLS and going to Red Bulls games, but as someone who uses pier 40 as a space to play I’m skeptical about a plan to make it into an MLS stadium. It would be a great location, but I can’t imagine the public fields would remain the same with an MLS stadium on top of it. Right now it exists as some of the best field-space in lower Manhattan and taking that away would be terrible. I wonder if it would be impossible to build another pier for the stadium. It would be nice if the MLS would dedicate funds to creating more pier-40-like public fields in the city though. I’m assuming the stadium would be for the NY Cosmos, but is it actually known which team it would house?

  2. Patrick Shields
    April 15, 2012 • 5:34 pm

    Check out the link of what I wrote in 2010 and strip it to the essentials. The fields stay and are in fact covered and converted to year round use, plus money going into the Trust fund for the parks, park space created, parking left intact. MLS is listening and saying the right things, it seems they need us as much as we need them. This is the right partner for Pier 40 after all of those years of debacles and real estate titan power grab attempts. To lose the opportunity to keep it a sports centric venue like it has become would be a tragedy. Right partner for us, and for them, and seriously good timing. Forget the ongoing “studies”. It’s already been studied and vetted and argued nearly to death, and the atmosphere for corporate takeaway is only going to increase between now and the end of the Bloomberg era. We need to get the partner we need before they make us take the partner they want us to have.