Shea Stadium R.I.P.

Shea Stadium, another icon of my childhood, is facing the wrecking ball.

Today was the last day of Shea Stadium. I feel like singing Say Goodbye to Hollywood. In fact, I will. In elegy.

“Movin’ on is a chance
You take any time
you try to stay
together.”

The new Citi Field out past Shea already looms, like a death star near Alderan. Soon it will send out an electric bolt of condemnation and the Stormtroopers of destruction will begin to dismantle the old world I had once known. Yet the team is going to their new digs.

Perhaps Shea put a bit of a whammie on the ol’ Metropolitans today. They lost in the last innings to the Marlins, ending their hopes for the post season 2008. Shea said, “If I’m going down, I’m taking you all with me!” A bit of a Samson-esque twist. The temple took the hero down. Perhaps it was angered after having the grass of the outfield trimmed so low for so long, Delilah.

“Say goodbye my baby.”

I almost made reference first to another old Billy Joel song, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway). It must be coming true. They didn’t even give Shea that long to live. The song talks about how they picked the Yankees up for free.

“They said that Queens could stay
They blew the Bronx away
And sank Manhattan out at sea”

Queens is staying, yet Shea will be gone soon. Like Christie Brinkley splitting with Billy Joel. The Mets are divorcing Shea Stadium. News at 11.

An odd tangent. Christie’s real last name was Hudson, and she attended Palisades High School, but we’re talking Pacific Palisades. Her names were like the River we all knew and grew up by. Yet she was a girl-next-door you really didn’t meet too often next-door in NYC. You can, however, probably catch up with their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, next appearing at the Highline Ballroom, Oct 2, 2008.

She has a lovely song, “Come Home to Me Do.” It reminds me of Shea today.

“Something happened
To a dream
That I had long ago
I can’t say when
And I don’t know why
It ever had to go...”

She’s singing to me “Come home to me do.” Like New York herself. So I am planning on coming home for Christmas and New Years this year. To catch up with “my” city. To see the icons that stand still, and to pay homage to those now past. Now she’s singing “For All My Days.” I’m getting totally nostalgic for New York.

R.I.P.
• My Grandparents & My Father
• The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
• The Concorde heading out of JFK
• Green Bus Lines
• C.B.G.B’s
• The Hedgehogs
• Shea Stadium
• West End Games
• SPI
• The Ram’s Horn Diner

Still Here
• My Family & Friends
• The United Nations
• The IRT
• The Statue of Liberty
• The Frick Collection
• Central Park
• Saturday Night Live
• Beach Channel High School
• Junior High School 180
• Public School 114 Queens
• The Empire State Building
• The Compleat Strategist

New
• My Nephew, Connor