Residents, preservationists want park answers

With the new Yankee Stadium gearing up for its second season of baseball, the Daily News checked in on the city’s effort toward replacing the parkland lost in the South Bronx when the city ceded the Macombs Dam Park to the Yanks. As we know, the old stadium is still mostly standing, and residents are unhappy that replacement parks won’t open until 2011. The city says the stadium will be completely dismantled by the end of the summer, but it will still take at least a year to turn the land under old Yankee Stadium into Heritage Park. That project is approximately a year behind schedule, and as some, but not all, replacement parks have opened, Juan Gonzalez is unsurprisingly up in arms.

Meanwhile, our friends at Save the Gate 2 are still trying to save some of the old Yankee Stadium. While the Parks Department hasn’t accepted the group’s plan, it hasn’t been outright rejected yet either, and because the city’s Design Commission continues to ask the Parks Department for a plan that better commemorates Yankee Stadium, the old gate could still avoid the wrecking ball. These issues could come to a head tomorrow night at 6 p.m. when the Parks Department holds a public meeting at 198 E.161st St. on the myriad issues surrounding the parks. As I know from my work on transit issues, city government moves slowly, if at all.