And another, even longer review of the Yanks’ new place (BP subscription required). The upshot:
The differences may be subtle—a deck lifted skyward a few feet here, pushed back a couple dozen there—but the overall effect is of a more imposing structure, without any of the close-stacked feel that made the old stadium more intimate, despite having nearly 5,000 more seats. Where in the old park it was perfectly reasonable to prefer the front of the upper deck to the back of the lower, no one will make that mistake here; the $70 “Terrace” seats at the front of the new upper deck feel as far away from the action as the $25 reserved seats were across the street, and the new cheap seats at the stadium’s top are as bad if not worse than the last row at the old place (sorry, Jay). As at many of the new stadiums, the class segregation here feels both deliberate and complete—only further compounded by the obstructed-view bleacher seats (the TV screens set up as a belated fix, I found yesterday, didn’t help much), by the team’s decision to exclude cheap-seats denizens from even eating at field-level concessions stands, and by a sunken walkway behind the “Legends” seats at the field’s edge that gives the odd impression that the Yankees have surrounded their highest-priced seats with a moat… [read more]