Yankees Come to Brooklyn

The borough that swallowed its major league pride when the Dodgers left 50 years ago will have to do so again: several tons of dirt from the excavation of the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx will be carted (or shipped, perhaps) down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park as soon as this summer.

The arrangement was mentioned--to Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz's mock horror--this morning at a press conference announcing that the Port Authority had given up three-and-a-half piers along the East River which will be used for the $150 mile city and state park. And it explains why the park development corporation at first said the park would be open this summer for "interim uses" and now says people won't be able to do much more than take a walking tour. Wendy Leventer, the president of the Brooklyn Bridge Development Corporation, said the imported dirt would cut millions of dollars off of construction costs but that her agency had not expected it to come as quickly as it will--though she says she is not certain exactly when that is. The dirt will go on the upland portion of the park to create a berm to deaden the sound of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

-Matthew Schuerman