Take Me Out To the Billboards

Both New York City baseball teams started home games this week in brand new stadiums. The New Yankee Stadium is basically the spitting image of the old one, but with more seats, better sight lines, more restrooms, and other improvements. The New Shea Stadium -- I mean Citi Field -- for the Mets, on the other hand, distances itself from the old stadium. It is "inspired by tradition...clad in brick, limestone, granite and cast stone, with the brick closely resembling the masonry used at [the Brooklyn Dodgers'] Ebbets Field, both in color and texture."

Not surprisingly, each field is crammed with ad space -- as these two views testify -- but where Yankee Stadium gives a regal face towards its neighbors, Citi Field takes advantage of the expressway to the north, thereby doubling its ad space. Driving by for the first time a few days ago I was shocked, appalled and yet fascinated by this face of the new stadium. Admittedly this is the stadium's "rear," but it is a view where the architecture takes a backseat to advertising; in effect the architecture is there to prop up the billboards.



The above view seamlessly blends the billboards and painted party walls along the expressway with the Citi Field advertising, though I'm guessing this isn't what the Mets had in mind when they were "inspired by tradition."