When the Yankees got permission to build their $1.3 billion stadium complex in a Bronx park, the city promised to provide interim park space for local residents to use until new permanent parks are ready. How’s that working out? About as well as the stadium deal itself:

At the new park, the old parking-lot gates turn out to be padlocked shut; those on foot can walk around them, but anyone in a wheelchair will be out of luck. Inside, a track skirts the edges of a single field shared by soccer players and a softball game. Where Macombs Dam Park was grass (often threadbare from the pounding of soccer cleats), here the turf is an artificial substance called tufted nylon that is a slick, plasticky green—”like dead Christmas trees,” remarks former Community Board 4 member Anita Antonetty… [read more]