WHEN A PARKING GARAGE ISN'T JUST A PARKING GARAGE
[June 8th] -- So what does Ted Lerner and Nikita Khrushchev have in common, I mean, besides looking like brothers?
Well, nothing. I just felt the need to make the inference.
But Lerner could be a communist, I mean, he really could be. I did some research in "The Communist Manifesto," and right there on page 238, is the answer: "Communist doctrine states that underground parking garages are decidedly capitalistic." There you go, proof positive that the Nationals' new owner is a "comrade."
Oh, were it only that easy.
The long hoped for report that the the Lerner family would cover the cost of building those unsightly garages underground will never come. With time having run out, new ownership stated emphatically on Wednesday that building underground parking garages would be too expensive and would create a "timeline problem" in getting the stadium built. So, all those "Ah, the new ownership will pay to have those garages built underground" stories that we bloggers wrote were oh-so-wrong.
When is a parking garage not a parking garage? When it's a metaphor for something else.
The parking garage was the first test of the new ownership group, to see exactly how far they were willing to go in both building and rebuilding this franchise here in Washington. Would they allow the parking garages to blight the sightlines of the new stadium, making our park the antithesis of stadiums in Pittsburgh and St. Louis? Would the pre-cast concrete exterior remain, or would the limestone reappear as a gift from the baseball gods?
And finally, would the roster reflect a mid-size market, or would they invest in "real" ball players, spending "real" money and allow Washington to become a major baseball market after more than a century?
Sadly, the owners have spoken, and it looks like utilitarianism has won out over egalitarianism. No elegance, no uniqueness, no limestone.
In two years, MASN will broadcast that first game at the new park (this is assuming that anyone in D.C. will be able to watch it), and they'll pan their camera over the outfield wall and overlay their graphics on top of the .... parking garages. Pittsburgh has it's bridge, St. Louis has it's arch, and Washington has it's .... parking garages.
Well, it'll be a nice parking garage, right?
I'll repeat here what I wrote on ballpark guys: I don't think the garage issue makes any difference. There was never ANY chance that they were going to just leave those sites empty. It was ALWAYS going to have some kind of structure there. (This was the DC government PLAN). Do I care, as a baseball fan in the seats, that the structures in that spot are going to be garages (almost certainly with ground-level retail) and not condos, offices, or a hotel? Not in the least! I'm sure the architects'll figure out something a little more attractive to do with the ballpark-facing faces of the garages. The garages in the architectural drawings were just place-holders.
: 8:33 PM or even an underground Garage.
Smoke that meat with exhaust!
: 7:23 AM << Home
