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LOCAL EDITION 

American soccer has more things working against than Jim Rome. In Manhattan, the battle is over field space, being that there is an enormous lack of space, not just for soccer, but any sort of recreational activity. Maneuvering through the Parks Department to secure space is as daunting as anything soccer faces in the city, something I learned first hand on a walking tour of possible uptown fields with Irv Smalls, director of the Harlem Football Club, who is in desperate need of field space.

Now, the beloved soccer metropolis that is Pier 40 on Manhattan’s downtown Westside is in jeopardy of becoming what critics are calling Las Vegas on the Hudson. The two proposals were debated last night at a public hearing. The New York Times gaves most of its inches on the first plan, described as a “$626 million plan by the Related Companies to turn sleepy Pier 40 — now the site of the garage and a few sports fields — into a cultural complex attracting 2.7 million visitors annually… In addition to a theater for the Cirque du Soleil and a 12-screen cinema, the plan for the pier calls for an 1,800-seat music hall, a 28,650-square-foot event space and a glass-enclosed winter garden, as well as shops, restaurants, more athletic fields and more than 2,000 parking spaces.”

More than 1500 people attended the hearings, one of which was Ian Walker, Presidnet of Metro Soccer NY, the city’s largest recreational soccer league, and according to Walker, “probably the largest adult user for the pier.” Two of the other larger groups that use the space are soccer club Downtown United and Greenwich Village Little League. All three of these parties, along with the great majority of those in attendance at the hearing, objected to both plans, favoring a status quo, as noted by the leaflets posted throughout the neighborhood.

For starters, I’m real proud that one of the best soccer complexes in Manhattan is simply called “a few sports fields.” I’m sure the 1500 weekly participants in Metro Soccer NY’s leagues (and all those who use the space for athletic pursuits other than soccer) would be much happier with more indoor event space in place of what I would guess is the largest soccer field in all of Manhattan outside of possibly Central Park. “More athletic fields” are part of the new proposal, with a spokesperson for the developer quoted as saying that there will be a 40 percent increase in “space available for recreation,” but I’ve yet to meet a developer excited about losing money to empty space where a ball has room to roll around.

Besides losing field space during the years of construction to build the new complex, he knows, “unless you have the passion and the money, building a soccer complex in New York is a tough proposition. It would have to be some kind of public/private thing, because you know you could build a condo with 30 stories.”

Luckily, getting anything past neighborhood watch groups in New York isn’t easy. DC United’s defense could learn a thing or two. From the Times article:

““I think every strata of the neighborhood is opposed to this: the old guard, who has sought to retain the area’s character, the newcomers who live in the new buildings, the sports leagues who want more recreation space,” said Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “There aren’t many things they all agree on, but this is one.””

I do love me some historic preservation, as long as we’re not talking aging additions to MLS rosters. It looks like there’s a long road ahead before the soccer community begins to consider bum rushing Chinatown or one of the other few field spaces in the city that are able to hold more than a game of futsal, but with increasing competition for open space, whether to build on it, convert it, or keep it, the soccer community might be wise to mobilize. Battles like this are only going to increase as square footage is fought over and market prices are driven skyward. Blame it on building a city on an island.

With MLS corporate offices in the city, not to mention a rich can of energy drink across the river, I’m surprised they haven’t chipped in and used their political willpower to get a modern soccer complex in New York.

What has me worried, is that something - if not this “Pier 40 Performing Arts Center,” as the proposal is being called, than something else - is going to happen to the space hovering over the Hudson River.

The agency that operates the area that surrounds Pier 40, The Hudson River Park Trust, said according to the Times, that “it must develop the pier to generate revenue for the upkeep of the five-mile park, which snakes along the Hudson from Chambers Street to 59th Street and is still under construction.”

Not a good sign, though if the Trust would treat the pier as gently as it has much of that five-mile stretch where I ride my bicycle on a weekly basis, I think it could be better than what we have now, forgetting for a moment years of construction displacement. In recent years along the Westside Highway, an ugly sidewalk has been turned into a lovely space with mixed uses, which so far has put the public and environmental good over that of commercial interests.

The article mentions one competing plan, a $145 million complex to be called the People’s Pier. (so it must be good for us!) Less community opposition has been mobilized against this idea, and indeed Walker would choose this one over the Vegas option if forced. The People’s Plan calls for a new high school, swimming pools, shops and restaurants, as well as additional space for parks and athletic fields. The high school is what makes this proposal very interesting to me. Right there are your daytime users of the fields, no doubt a question now because the fields are seldom used during days during the week.

I still can envision a soccer complex - think My Blue Heaven – supported by RBNY, MLS, and their various commercial partners, which would help defer the screaming for profitability or the crying over market values. But as long as this space is just considered “a garage and a few sports fields,” instead of the reality of its meaning to the soccer community, that kind of passionate vision seems like a pipe dream.

Anybody having similar issues elsewhere? Anybody not want to play on the Pier 40 rooftop field pictured below?