Nelson Rockefeller's plan to save the Dodgers

[dodger dynamo]

I thought, It might be interesting to discuss this last attempt by Nelson Rockefeller to save the Dodgers. While I've only been able to find some revisionist slants on the plan, I figured someone here, Possibly some one like "MATHA 531" might have info on the actual plan Rockefeller proposed.
I would like to find out "exactly" What Was proposed and If Rockefeller offered any personal thoughts in later years on it. it was a long time ago and my memory of it is vague, I don't remember seeing it in the papers much. I know it was 57, before "the move" was made official. bb the dd

[penncentralpete]

Rockefeller urged the city to condemn 12 blighted acres in downtown Brooklyn at a cost of about $8 million, essentially as an act of municipal development. Rockefeller would then purchase the land from the city for $2 million (he later raised the ante to $3 million) and in turn lease part of it, rent free, to the Dodgers for the stadium which the club would finance. At the end of 20 years first the Dodgers, then the city, would have the option of repurchasing the land at cost plus 2�% interest. ($3 million plus interest, priced him out of the deal, Brooklyn's Walter O'Malley said sourly.) The remainder of the tract was to be improved by Rockefeller.

New York's Board of Estimate simply saw it as a "giveaway" of the taxpayers' money.

[dodger dynamo]

Thanks pete for the info, After reading it, I would expect though, the property after it's redevelopment and the passage of 20 years would be worth far more than 3 million +20 pct. interest.
In a way it sounds more like he was loaning the city or O'malley 3 million and wanted 20pct. for doing it, To be repaid in 20 years. was the 20 pct. based simply on the 3million and a one time payment of 600 thousand base or 20pct
compounded annually? If it's only the 600,000 it sounds like great terms.
Considering the area was blighted, what would it have cost the city to re-develop? Irregardless if it was worth 8 million, they still would have to come up with redevelopment funds or buyers paying the total and then re-developing themselves, doubtful if it would generate as much revenue for the city as the dodgers. (as we see after 50 years it's still there waiting to be re-developed) The revenue would be the cities short term compensation, after all the Dodgers players, management and the team as an entity paid taxes and fees and a whole host of other things, they brought people from all over the country to the borough who spent money, good for Brooklyn Good for New york as a whole.
Now, let me back up, if he's paying three million that leaves a 5 million dollar difference, when the city or O'malley buys the land back they'd be getting a bargain. I wonder if the deal might have been thought of as more favorable if one other stipulation was added, that stipulation being O'malley (or the dodgers owners if they changed hands) had the option to buy only the land the stadium and the parking was on and the city the rest. Or an arrangement where each pays half and it's dual ownership. If either the city or the dodger owners decline (give each the right of first refusal on their half or the other half) Rockefeller becomes owner of half or all of it with no strings, If one or both parties decide not to buy their half or the other. If the city goes for it, then we know for sure what O'malley's doing and there's no chance for the "revisionist" history we now see. I suppose though he then would have said, after looking at it again I don't have enough space for parking.

[Mattingly]

I don't know how helpful this is, but I found this in the Daily News from a google search:

CARDS ON THE TABLE Brooklyn, 1957 Chapter 119 (http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2003/07/11/2003-07-11_cards_on_the_table__brooklyn.html) (Dated 7/11/2003)

STRICTLY AS a matter of business, the choices were these: 1) The City of Los Angeles was offering Walter O'Malley and the Brooklyn Dodgers the sun and the moon and the stars. 2) Whereas, in New York, there was still nothing but endless talk about the proposed new 50,000-seat domed stadium in downtown Brooklyn despite O'Malley's pledge to stand for more than half the $8.5 million bond issue at the same time he was being taxed to death - and in any case attendance was declining because everybody was moving to the suburbs anyway.

"My roots are in Brooklyn," O'Malley said. "Three generations of my family are buried there. I belong there. The team belongs there.

"But I'm not going to have a loser. I must make money to compete. How many kids can the Dodgers sign up when the Braves' scouts can say: 'Look, I'll get you four times as much'?"

"The danger of New York City losing the Dodgers is quite real," the Daily News' Dick Young had written in February 1957. "It is no bluff. O'Malley has passed the point of no return."

This couldn't be happening. Was Walter O'Malley really going to move the storied Brooklyn Dodgers to California?

"He'd be crazy not to," said Young.

BY APRIL, Robert Moses had offered the Dodgers 78 acres of city property at Flushing Meadow in Queens for the club's new ballpark, and he had seemed both puzzled and irritated when O'Malley said no thanks. The fact was, O'Malley's cards were on the table for all to see. It had not been until May 28, when the National League formally cleared the way for both the Dodgers and Horace Stoneham's New York Giants to shift their franchises to the West Coast if they so desired, that City Hall understood that this was serious.

***

Into this rosy situation now stepped Nelson Rockefeller, son of philanthropist John D. Jr., whose many millions had 11 years earlier bought the United Nations its New York City site at the final desperate hour.

"If it is true that Mr. Rockefeller has entered the picture," worried Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson on Sept. 10, "I'm afraid we haven't much of a chance to get the Dodgers. We can't be Santa Claus like some of these big names."

As the Board of Estimate went into executive session to consider Corporation Counsel Peter Brown's last-minute finding that the city had the right to condemn the Flatbush-Atlantic location and sell it to private interests, Rockefeller announced that he would buy the land and lease it free to the Dodgers for 20 years.

Said Walter O'Malley: No

Pardon the source below (the site of the least desirable name that could be mentioned on this excellent forum), and the photo is only shown to state the accuracy of the record, but:


(L-R) Walter O’Malley, Nelson Rockefeller and
New York Mayor Robert Wagner in 11th hour
discussions at Gracie Mansion in New York
in September 1957

Link (http://www.walteromalley.com/biog_ref_page49.php)

1957

At the 11th hour, financier-philanthropist Nelson Rockefeller made a last-ditch financial aid proposal to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn, which apparently was more of a grandstanding move than one that drew any real interest from New York City officials or O’Malley. By that point in mid-September 1957, the script was almost complete for a move west. However, O’Malley would not make any commitments to Los Angeles until the Board of Estimate had heard Rockefeller’s plan.
Rockefeller originally planned to purchase for $1.5 million the property that the city would then condemn in downtown Brooklyn. Madigan and Hyland engineering firm had placed the cost of condemning the land at $8 million. Later, Rockefeller’s offer grew to $2 million. In effect, the $2 million would be a loan to the Dodgers with interest and the acquisition of 12 acres in order to build a stadium. Rockefeller called his offer “a realistic reflection of today’s real estate values” and “a basis for permanent improvements which would increase values in the entire area and add to the city’s tax revenues so as to offset a temporary loss to the city in the price of the land.”75

[Number 4]

I'm wondering if Rockerfeller's offer for part of the 12 acre track is enough land to build a stadium and provide parking, especially in light of Moses' offer of 78 acres in Flushing Meadow.

[dodger dynamo]

I'm wondering if Rockerfeller's offer for part of the 12 acre track is enough land to build a stadium and provide parking, especially in light of Moses' offer of 78 acres in Flushing Meadow.

Of course Flushing was better in that regard, 78 acres is always better than 12, this though was the land O'malley wanted after all. Ebbets field stood on about 5 1/2 acres. Today they want way more as they want shops, restaurants etc. and room to expand if necessary. Not sure what fenway and wrigley sit on size wise. bb the dd

[VIBaseball]

New York's Board of Estimate simply saw it as a "giveaway" of the taxpayers' money.

As seen in the New York Times, September 20, 1957.

Henry Fetter, in his article "Revising the Revisionists", uses the term "roundly denounced" in noting this article. He spent a paragraph on this plan, and no more, in 21 pages.

[EdTarbusz]

As seen in the New York Times, September 20, 1957.

Henry Fetter, in his article "Revising the Revisionists", .

Where is this article located?