The U.S. Open is exempt from city vaccine mandate and federal face mask guidelines

  

NY Post

Usually the U.S. Open is just about super tennis. Now it’s trying to avoid being a super spreader.

When the two-week tourney starts Monday in Flushing Meadows, health is going to be the priority, both mental and physical.

Players will get COVID-19 tests upon arrival, and again every four days with a positive result forcing a withdrawal.

Whereas Wimbledon required proof of negative tests and asked fans to wear masks around the grounds, the U.S. Open will do neither. Despite cases spiking due to the Delta variant, fans won’t have to be vaccinated or wear masks outdoors at Flushing Meadows.

With local vaccination rates around 70 percent, they’re banking on their protocols and common sense to keep the tourney from becoming a super-spreader.

“This is not a USTA decision or a U.S. Open decision, this is a decision made with New York City. Of course, we’ve been tracking what’s been happening at the baseball games and other events,” said Dr. Brian Hainline, a U.S. Tennis Association first vice president. “The goal is not to prevent a single infection: The goal is to prevent an outbreak and an uptick.

“We’re still relying on the goodwill of people. The unvaccinated, although it’s not going to be enforced, really should be wearing masks. … It’s like any other aspect of New York City, going to the baseball game, you make an informed decision. But based on all the data we have — we believe the current policy makes good sense in terms of avoiding any sort of a regional outbreak as a result of this event.”

Fans won’t have to wear masks in Arthur Ashe or Louis Armstrong even when the roofs are closed, because both are considered outdoor venues. Players won’t be sequestered like last year (although 75 percent will be at one of the two designated hotels) and the USTA had no figures on how many were vaccinated.

U.S. Open are deadbeat renters

THE CITY
 

Visitors are already starting to descend on Queens to attend the U.S. Open tennis tournament, which holds court in Flushing Meadows Corona Park next week.

Last year, a record of nearly 830,000 spectators passed through the United States Tennis Association’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

But according to a new audit by city Comptroller Scott Stringer, the USTA has not been playing fair with the city.

The comptroller’s probe found that from 2014 to 2017, the USTA failed to report $31 million in revenue, which would mean it owes more than $311,000 in additional rent to the city. In 2016 and 2017, USTA paid $6.6 million each year in rent to the city.

The audit finds USTA underreported benefits received from other companies and fees and took inappropriate deductions.

The USTA may also owe an additional $82,000 because of discrepancies in financial reports, Stringer’s office found.

The comptroller’s review also determined the lease’s restrictions on access to records hinders closer city oversight of the USTA’s finances.

“Any corporate entity leasing land from the city must pay its fair share of rent – no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The Tennis Center collects more than $300 million annually, and yet, it shortchanges city taxpayers,” Stringer said in a statement. “This arrangement should be a win-win, not just ‘advantage’ USTA.”

Some Queens residents said that the park doesn’t feel like theirs during the U S. Open, calling the Grand Slam tournament a complete takeover of the 1,255-acre park.

David Pastor, 29, a member of grassroots group Queens Neighborhoods United, said that the park is usually a safe haven for immigrant families and contended that this community character gets “overridden” around tournament time.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never even thought to go. It’s super expensive,” Pastor said. “You have to question who it’s for.”

Plane noise is killing us

From PIX11:

For years, the Federal Aviation Administration gave tennis fans first-class treatment.

During the U.S. Open, the FAA diverted planes from nearby LaGuardia Airport, away from Arthur Ashe Stadium during the tournament. But in 2012, the tennis climb, as the flight path is known, stuck.

The decision permanently sent airplanes over the densely populated areas of northern Queens during takeoff.

"It's pretty loud, sometimes you think it's just a few meters above your roof," said Daniel Vasquez, who lives in Bayside.

Vasquez said he's constantly woken up by the rumbling of planes flying overhead. Now, according to a new study out of Columbia University, it turns out that turbulence may be causing more damage than anyone realized.

"I think the most damaging and shocking is the fact that given the noise impact, the air pollution impact, the noise from the planes, you could lose one year off your life," Sen. Tony Avella said.

Avella represents the impacted neighborhoods and said the FAA committed a classic double fault when it made the switch permanent. Not only was there no environmental impact study, but he said, the FAA didn't even bother to let the community know about the switch.

Kissena Park tennis courts need better maintenance

From CBS 2:

They claim the city has left their local tennis courts in disarray.

The Har-Tru clay courts require a lot of water to stay solid and safe. When they dry out, holes develop in the clay and nails start to surface.

Residents said the sprinkler’s timer system lasted only one season. Now someone from the parks department manually turns the sprinklers on, but the water doesn’t even reach the entire court.

CBS2 asked a parks employee to explain, but he wouldn’t say much.

“The people who put it in, they were supposed to – well, I don’t want to say,” he said.

Yes, we know

The NY Times is obsessed with the new US Open facilities:

Things were noticeably coming together. Promotional banners with big fuzzy tennis balls were hung on every post along the wooden-planked bridge from the subway stop to the tennis center. Construction workers were putting together a baggage-check area, and inside the grounds, larger banners, featuring tennis champions, past and present, had gone up. (It takes eight people to install the banners, Mr. Zausner said.)

Inside Ashe Stadium, Ashley Devolder, 26, from nearby Astoria, painted a fresh coat of blue on a wall near the players’ entrance and media center. Before this task, she said, she had been part of a team of 20 who freshened up the 34,000 armrests on the stadium’s seats. “We had to sand them, clean them, and paint them,” she said. “It took a week.”

Outside Ashe, rubble was removed and replaced by either grass or smooth asphalt. Lights were strung at the patio of Mojito, one of the Open’s sit-down restaurants, and a new bar had been built around one of eight hard-to-miss bright blue bases that support the new roof structure (Mr. Zausner’s idea). The main plaza was cleaned up, trees were replanted and colorful flowers were in place at the entrance.

Fewer people playing tennis

From New York Magazine:

The number of tennis players that pay fees to play on the city’s tennis courts has dropped by nearly 30 percent in recent years, city records show, a decrease so severe and unexpected that city officials are struggling to find a way to get all the lost players back.

According to Parks Department financial records, obtained by New York, the most significant drop in participation has been among players who purchase seasonal permits. Over the past four years the number of adults who purchase these passes has decreased by 43 percent. The primary reason for the drop, officials believe, is a controversial price increase in 2010. Back then, city officials felt that $100 for seasonal permits was too low. Instead of raising prices incrementally, they doubled the cost of a seasonal permit to $200. The next year, the number of seasonal permits sold dropped from 12,416 to 7,411, and since then the number has hovered around 7,000.

The second biggest drop was among those purchasing single-play tickets, which are good for an hour’s worth of tennis. In 2010, the price for single-play tickets was $7, a bargain that inspired thousands to stock up on their passes. But after the price of single-play passes increased to $15, there was a 32 percent drop, from roughly 40,778 single passes sold in 2010 to about 27,831 in 2014.

Not all of Alley Pond Park is treated equally

"The part of the park near Union Turnpike and Winchester Blvd is overrun with weeds and hasn't been cared for in months while the tennis courts are fit for kings." - Linda S., Bellerose

Lobbyist salivating over DeBlasio victory

From the Daily News:

Joe Lhota is so very right about Bill de Blasio taking us back to the bad old days of the David Dinkins era.

He is just wrong about why we should worry.

The biggest threat to the city in potential slippage is not a spike in crime or renewed riots that leave police cars spinning upside down like tops on the street, as Lhota’s ads suggest. No, the threat comes from the return of lobbyists like Sid Davidoff, who, with the rise of de Blasio, are returning like Freddy Krueger on Halloween.

If you do not recall the dalliance between Davidoff and the Dinkins administration, count yourself lucky. It went something like this:

Dinkins was a tennis fanatic. He played many mornings and had a good backhand. Naturally, there were many people looking to bounce a ball back and forth with the mayor.

Among them was Davidoff, another fine tennis player whose deep interest in city government began with his days in the John Lindsay administration and continued as head of a prosperous firm of lobbyists and lawyers.

Davidoff made an excellent living making sure that contracts, leases and variances for his clients won approvals. In those years, he was a regular fixture in the west wing of City Hall, where he was also close with the first deputy mayor, Norman Steisel, and closer still with Steisel’s chief of staff.

These ties served Davidoff well. With clients ranging from Donald Trump to water meter suppliers, his firm was the league champion among city lobbyists throughout the Dinkins years . It helped that every time the press reported that one of Davidoff’s clients had scored an unseemly gain from the public coffers, more clients appeared at his door.

Davidoff is now an honored senior citizen in the lobbying ranks. And he is also among the excited army of advocates-for-hire who, thanks to de Blasio’s rise, are already beating on the doors of City Hall, somewhat like those ravenous tribes of the undead that populate all the best television shows.

Tennis fees cause drop in permits

From A Walk in the Park:

As expected the Bloomberg Administration's dramatic fee increases implemented last year saw a precipitous drop in tennis permit purchases and memberships to recreation centers while projected revenue increases fell far below expectations.

Tennis permits declined 43 percent, single-play permits fell 46 percent and revenue fell $1.3 million short of the projected increase. The number of recreation center memberships sold in 2012 declined by 52 percent with the doubling of membership fees for adults and seniors while revenue came in about $4.0 million below the Bloomberg Administration’s expectations.

"The failure to achieve the expected revenue gains was the result of a greater-than-projected fall-off in the number of permits sold for tennis and memberships for recreation centers following the price rise," according to the City Independent Budget Office.