Take The Ballgame Away From Me . . .

When the Mets first played at Shea in the 1960s, the theme song rang "Meet the Mets, greet the Mets, step right up and meet the Mets . . . " But when the Mets newest minor league franchise, the "Queens Kings" opened this week, a group of angry neighbors of the new stadium marched and demonstrated outside the new stadium at St. Johns University singing a different theme that in effect said "Keep the Queens Kings out of our neighborhood."
Despite a decision last week by Queens supreme court Justice Charles Thomas in which he denied a preliminary injunction blocking the June 21st opener, State Senator Frank Padavan and Assemblyman Mark Weprin joined a coalition of community groups in attempting to stop the stadium project. The Community Coalition includes civic associatiations from Jamaica Estates, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest Estates and Flushing Heights. The residents say that they fear that the night lighting, music and sound system, the crowds and the cars will have a severely negative impact on their neighborhood.
The St. Johns site was chosen by the city after a Brooklyn temporary site was rejected by the borough president of that borough. The plan is to eventually construct a permanent stadium for the Mets farm team in Coney Island. A deal was made to build a stadium on the grounds of St. Johns which will inherit the facility for its own use when the Queens Kings move to Brooklyn within the next two years. The community opposition claims that the city chose the St. Johns site to avoid civic scrutiny and city bureaucratic red-tape. The application for an injunction questions the legality of a commercial sports stadium in a Queens residential neighborhood. The hearing on the injunction is now scheduled for June 27.