CitiField Review

Yesterday I made it out to CitiField (not sure on whether it should be two words or one, will go with one for now). First off the disclosure: I hate the Mets. I do not claim to be unbiased here, I am sure some of that bias is coming through, but I do feel like I would have said the same things if the Yankees had built Citifield. Overall, Citifield is a vast improvement over Shea, but how could it not be? Other good things were the proximity to the Subway, ease in getting out through the copious stairways, the nice beer selection in the outfield food court and the slightly better concession prices than in Yankee Stadium. Kosher food options seemed somewhat limited with three types of sausage, pretzels and knishes at all 3 kosher stands that I encountered, but not that surprising.

Overall, HOK Sport/Populous – Official Architects of Major League Baseball – built a similar stadium here to all of the many others they have been building. Unfortunately, their postmodern style (most likely born of the 1980's when postmodernism was still a current trend) really doesn't work well at all in the wastelands of Flushing Meadows. Literally, you can look out from the building onto the junkyards of Willets Point, the Bridges of Pittsburgh or the Bay of San Francisco this view is not. I think this led to some major problems for the HOK formula, which is meant to incorporate landmarks from the skyline into the stadium experience (other examples include the capital building in Washington DC, the incorporation of old buildings into the structure in Baltimore and San Diego and downtown skylines in several other cities). So instead Citifield has to be closed in to avoid the view of the junk of the Willets Point. This leads to a confusing architectural formula, where the architects attempt to create something by varying every part of the park from another. This becomes distracting rather than beautiful, cute rather than intelligent. It feels like one of the great aspects of the newer stadiums, and HOK's design concept, is the open concourses that run continuously through the building, creating the ability to walk seamlessly everywhere. At Citi though, you will feel hemmed in at many points, most likely because you found a members only bar blocking your path. Also, the elements they add in seem to be counterproductive for effective viewing of the game. The out of town scoreboard blocks seats in several grandstand section. Light fixtures to illuminate advertising cast noticeable shadows on the videoboards and the extremely odd indentation in right field is just hard to explain. Worse still, the primary food court is actually behind the huge scoreboard and thus cut off from any view of the game whatsoever (I hope the line for Shack Shack ain't too long there or you could miss two innings).

In terms of the aforementioned club levels, I think they are more conspicuous here than at Yankee Stadium, because I found myself encountering them at so many points in my stroll through the building, blocking my path. Made it feel even more exclusive. In terms of the seats, I had a ticket for Section 511, and it felt quite high. Climbing the stairs to that level is pretty tiring, as it's the equivalent of 6 stories up. Part of the problem is that even the field level requires a hike up two stories. This explains the need for a huge rotunda with its hokey dedication to Jackie Robinson. Its just a way to filter fans upward. Other seats also left something to be desired. The outfield seats at field level were high enough off the ground to give a good view, but the long distance to the plate was noticeable. Most of these seats are covered by the next level up so it felt a little like being in a cave. I think in general the seats should not have been green in color, they just don't work all that well.

Finally, the worst thing about Citifield (other than the unfortunate sponsorship) is that it could have been so much more. The Mets should have hired someone to create the next generation of new ballpark, the one that will next make teams jealous. Now that there are 22 HOK Sport stadiums, doesn't someone need to come up with the next big thing? That should have been the Mets, because HOK's formula is so poor for the area they were building in anyway. This is a sports complex/wasteland, it would be like building a replica of a Fenway Park in the meadowlands, just would not fit. Ultimately, the Mets will regret this stadium because it could have been an opportunity to be leaders in design and fan comfort and instead the Mets took the relatively cheap and objectively safe route: They continued to chase the Phillies.