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Staten Island state of mind? Jets could build stadium on world's largest garbage dump
Posted: Saturday January 29, 2000 09:18 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- A city councilman said the Fresh Kills garbage dump on Staten Island is the perfect spot for a stadium for the New York Jets. "Everything falls right into place," Councilman Jay O'Donovan said Friday. "The dump closes in 2001. The Jets' lease [at the Meadowlands Complex] is up in 2008. We get a few years in between to build a state-of-the art stadium. It is the right time and this is the right place." The 3,000-acre landfill -- the world's largest -- is scheduled to close in December 2001. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who had been pushing Manhattan's West Side as the site of a new baseball stadium for the New York Yankees, recently said it would make a great place for the Jets, too. But O'Donovan said the dump idea is a lot more feasible. "This seems like it could go a lot easier," O'Donovan said. "The land is here, it's available. There's good highway access, four bridges. On paper it looks very, very good." Not everyone agrees. A spokesman for the mayor, Ed Skyler, said federal and state regulations prohibits permanent structures to be built on the landfill for at least 20 years. And Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, who lobbied to get a minor league stadium for the Staten Island Yankees, said a professional football stadium that attracts 78,000 fans would create traffic chaos. O'Donovan admitted traffic congestion would be a problem, but urged the mayor and borough president not to immediately rule out his proposal. "If this mayor wanted it," the Democratic councilman said, "it could be done." Getting the Jets back from New Jersey, where they have shared Giants Stadium since 1984, "is something every New Yorker would like to see," O'Donovan said. Offers to help the Jets find a new home have been popping up since the team was bought from the estate of former owner Leon Hess for $635 million by pharmaceutical heir Robert Wood Johnson IV. Johnson made it clear he intends to get the Jets their own stadium. Asked about a stadium in Staten Island, Jets spokesman Doug Miller said, "Mr. Johnson has said the New York Jets will consider all proposals for a new stadium in due time." O'Donovan's proposal was first reported Friday by the Staten Island Advance.
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