Send Snacks
Feb. 6th, 2016 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreHere at Offhand Manor we have laid out the concertina wire, activated the minefield, and all the M-60 positions are clean and have range cards filled out. The doors are barred and Kirsten and I have laid in provisions for a siege. We have a blue tarp.
For Super Bowl weekend has arrived.
While we don't live that close to Levi's Stadium, we do live in Santa Clara. The police have warned of "unusual levels" of traffic all over the place, and the benefits of going out are outweighed by the probably clusterfuck we'd experience today and tomorrow. So we'll hangout at home, maybe do some cleaning, and watch the game (and the Puppy Bowl at halftime) in the safety and comfort of the Command Papasan.
For all the disruption the game is bringing, it's actually a good thing. Santa Clara and the South Bay gets some national attention, we're getting all costs reimbursed by the NFL, and the city and county stand to make several million dollars in both fees and sales taxes over the weekend. As opposed to San Francisco, who are getting screwed with their pants on.
Therein lies a tale. The San Francisco 49ers played in San Francisco for 67 years, 43 of them at Candlestick Park. The Stick was a miserable place. Situated right on the Bay, next to a large hill, the place was cold and windy as hell. It was also in one of the most crime-ridden areas of the city, the Bayview-Hunters Point district. Getting to or from the stadium required a long drive through a ghetto on tiny residential streets. Add to that the fact that Candlestick sustained pretty severe damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and it became clear that its days were numbered.
As an aside, I will say that some of my best memories of my late father involve going to Niners games at the Stick with him, even though the team sucked back then.
After the 49ers incredible run of five Super Bowl wins between the 1981 and 1994 season, pressure to build a new stadium intensified. Yet the city dragged it's feet. The problem is San Francisco sits on the tip of a peninsula and is a very dense urban area with almost no ability to handle heavy traffic. AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants since 2000, was built to be easily accessible by several forms of public transit. All the proposed 49er Stadium sites were far from the few freeways and would require massive work to link them to the Muni's light rail network. One site, at the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, is an EPA Superfund site that would require millions of dollars and years of work just to clean up before building could even begin!
So after years of wrangling, the 49ers gave up and made a deal to build in Santa Clara. The team's headquarters and practice facility had already been in Santa Clara for years and the new stadium would be literally steps from those existing sites. The work began, and the NFL awarded the 2016 Super Bowl, Super Bow 50, to Santa Clara.
And San Francisco went nuts. Already annoyed by the fact that the team was still the "San Francisco 49ers" (ignoring completely the fact of the "San Francisco Bay Area" and that Santa Clara borders the Bay) the City demanded that the bulk of the week of events that lead up to the game be held in San Francisco. The NFL argued that it couldn't reimburse San Francisco as the game wasn't actually being held there. To which, in a stunning display of political ineptitude, the Board of Supervisors agreed to shoulder all the costs.
Which is why San Francisco has been dealing with horrendous traffic and disrupted commutes for a week, and is looking at paying out over $5 million in costs. Meanwhile, Santa Clara County is looking at fully booked hotels and huge windfalls without the headaches.
But we're still hiding for the weekend. Send snacks.
For Super Bowl weekend has arrived.
While we don't live that close to Levi's Stadium, we do live in Santa Clara. The police have warned of "unusual levels" of traffic all over the place, and the benefits of going out are outweighed by the probably clusterfuck we'd experience today and tomorrow. So we'll hangout at home, maybe do some cleaning, and watch the game (and the Puppy Bowl at halftime) in the safety and comfort of the Command Papasan.
For all the disruption the game is bringing, it's actually a good thing. Santa Clara and the South Bay gets some national attention, we're getting all costs reimbursed by the NFL, and the city and county stand to make several million dollars in both fees and sales taxes over the weekend. As opposed to San Francisco, who are getting screwed with their pants on.
Therein lies a tale. The San Francisco 49ers played in San Francisco for 67 years, 43 of them at Candlestick Park. The Stick was a miserable place. Situated right on the Bay, next to a large hill, the place was cold and windy as hell. It was also in one of the most crime-ridden areas of the city, the Bayview-Hunters Point district. Getting to or from the stadium required a long drive through a ghetto on tiny residential streets. Add to that the fact that Candlestick sustained pretty severe damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and it became clear that its days were numbered.
As an aside, I will say that some of my best memories of my late father involve going to Niners games at the Stick with him, even though the team sucked back then.
After the 49ers incredible run of five Super Bowl wins between the 1981 and 1994 season, pressure to build a new stadium intensified. Yet the city dragged it's feet. The problem is San Francisco sits on the tip of a peninsula and is a very dense urban area with almost no ability to handle heavy traffic. AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants since 2000, was built to be easily accessible by several forms of public transit. All the proposed 49er Stadium sites were far from the few freeways and would require massive work to link them to the Muni's light rail network. One site, at the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, is an EPA Superfund site that would require millions of dollars and years of work just to clean up before building could even begin!
So after years of wrangling, the 49ers gave up and made a deal to build in Santa Clara. The team's headquarters and practice facility had already been in Santa Clara for years and the new stadium would be literally steps from those existing sites. The work began, and the NFL awarded the 2016 Super Bowl, Super Bow 50, to Santa Clara.
And San Francisco went nuts. Already annoyed by the fact that the team was still the "San Francisco 49ers" (ignoring completely the fact of the "San Francisco Bay Area" and that Santa Clara borders the Bay) the City demanded that the bulk of the week of events that lead up to the game be held in San Francisco. The NFL argued that it couldn't reimburse San Francisco as the game wasn't actually being held there. To which, in a stunning display of political ineptitude, the Board of Supervisors agreed to shoulder all the costs.
Which is why San Francisco has been dealing with horrendous traffic and disrupted commutes for a week, and is looking at paying out over $5 million in costs. Meanwhile, Santa Clara County is looking at fully booked hotels and huge windfalls without the headaches.
But we're still hiding for the weekend. Send snacks.
