A two-parter in honor of state assemblymember Richard Brodsky’s last-second hearings on new public funding for the Yanks and Mets stadium deals, which get voted on this Friday. From part one:

10:57: Levine and Pinsky are finally seated at the witness stand, though Levine’s accompanying attorney still doesn’t have a chair. (Brodsky grudgingly sends someone to find him a chair, but makes clear that only Levine and Pinsky are to testify – lawyers will only be allowed to whisper in their ears, apparently.) Pinsky immediately takes a page from the Zygi Wilf playbook and launches into a defense of the Yankees stadium project as economic stimulus: We now have a “miraculous consensus,” he says, that the only way to reboot the economy is through “priming the pump,” and “the new Yankee Stadium is a textbook example of this.”… [read more]

And from part two:

11:29 am: Brodsky and Yankees president Randy Levine are now squabbling over which documents have and haven’t been provided when. Moments later, city development chief Seth Pinsky calls Brodsky “un-American” for not allowing city attorney Michael Cardozo to reply to questions in his stead. It’s great theater, but we’re a long way here from talking about stadiums and who’s paying for them. (A reporter seated near me just shook his head: “This is like Gossip Girl!”)… [read more]