Referendum Will Decide Yankee Stadium Fate

NEW YORK--Invoking the vanished ballparks of the city's past, a judge ruled yesterday that New Yorkers should be allowed to decide the fate of Yankee Stadium.

The decision was a defeat for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in his fight to ban the November referendum from the ballot box.

"I don't think it's a legal decision," Giuliani said. "It's a political decision."

Unless the city wins on appeal, the ruling means voters will decide next month if they want to spend an estimated $1 billion to build a new Yankee Stadium on Manhattan's West Side.

In his 15-page decision, state Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon compared building the new stadium to a family buying a new home and said "each voice in the family must be heard."

"The decision to abandon an athletic stadium involves emotional and economic factors," McKeon said. "Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds--shouldn't the public have the right to say whether Yankee stadium meets that same fate?"

Both Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds were torn down and replaced by housing projects.

Months of name-calling and political wrangling between Giuliani and City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, who is running for governor against Republican incumbent George Pataki, began after Yankees owner George Steinbrenner began talking about moving the team from the Bronx when his lease expires in 2002.