Example of what happened to the community after the last Yankee Stadium renovation.

“In October 1975, as the bills mounted at Yankee Stadium for such items as VIP boxes with private bars and private bathrooms, air-conditioned dug-outs, and wall-to-wall carpeting in the players clubhouse, the City decided that the one way it could save money was to eliminate funds earmarked to improve the surrounding neighborhood. From the beginning, the renovation of Yankee Stadium had been billed as urban renewal. Now, as the cost of renovation soared to $100 million, the city reneged on the one part of the plan that would serve the local residents. In a dazzling display of indifference and insensitivity, part of this $2 million “savings” was then spent to buy the Yankees three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of equipment – a new tarpaulin, security devices, supports for the scoreboard. Meanwhile, the stadium’s protected closing had contributed to the demise of twelve local businesses, including the Jerome Cafeteria right across from the ballpark.

“When the stadium opened on April 15, in time for the 1976 season, the neighborhood was feeling ill-used. Community groups gathered and marched on the stadium to protest the City’s waste at the ballpark when the South Bronx was virtually dying around the corner. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner tried to assuage the angry natives and local churchmen by announcing Neighborhood Project No. I, a thirty-five-thousand-dollar plan to spruce up the nearby athletic fields of McCombs Dam Park. The fact that the tall lights erected under this project mainly lighted nearby Yankee parking lots is probably coincidence. The Yankees say other work done in the park totaled another thirty thousand dollars. Oh, Steinbrenner himself also gave five thousand dollars to a local athletic organization. It turned out that this five thousand had been raised by selling outdoor advertising space on the surface of the stadium, a stadium owned by New York City.”

See entire quote in the book “South Bronx Rising” by Jill Jonnes on page 287, published 2003 by Fordham University Press ISBN 0-8232-2199-7