Jetsville: Over the rail yards photo: nyscc.newyorkjets.com Related: Stadium Fear Factor Many builders dislike the West Side stadium. Only one says so out loud. By Tom Robbins more news most popular most commented William Kristol is the Shameless Supervillain: The Propagandist This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow Columbia's Knotty Noose Problem by Graham Rayman NYPD's Busts Get Busted Runnin' Scared by Sean Gardiner The Gentrification Project That Turned into a Rat Castle on Ludlow Runnin' Scared by Maria Luisa Tucker Trash Talking with Harvey Weinstein by Tony Ortega Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein by Tony Ortega Coming and Then Licking It Up. Is This a Gay Thing? Savage Love by Dan Savage At Home With Competitive Swallowers Crazy Legs and Eater X by Andy Kropa Gene Simmons and the Whores He Admires La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto Columbia's Knotty Noose Problem by Graham Rayman The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal' (17) Nat Hentoff Runnin' Scared: From Brooklyn, a Rap Campaign Against Tight Clothes (9) Runnin' Scared: Arcynta Ali Childs Runnin' Scared: The City Pitted Kids Against Artists in the East Village (6) Runnin' Scared: Chloé A. Hilliard Savage Love: My Boyfriend Almost Fathered a Lesbian Couple's Baby?!? (5) Savage Love: Dan Savage Mermaid Parade 2008: Coney Island, Still The Best Place Ever (5) Paul Quitoriano and Rebecca Smeyne

In fact, the recent past of the Hudson rail yards is littered with failed attempts at vast new projects. None other than the former owners of Madison Square Garden proposed in the mid 1980s that they be allowed to construct a "world-class sports and entertainment center" above the yards. The Garden, owned at the time by Gulf+Western Inc., proposed that, using private funds, it would create a new arena there, along with a huge office and apartment complex built by the real estate firm Olympia and York.

Former MTA chairman Richard Ravitch said that legendary New York sports executive (and former Jets owner) Sonny Werblin personally broached the idea to him. The plan fell apart, however, when the City Planning Commission said the proposed zoning was too dense. (Last month the city approved a zoning density at twice that level for most of the rail yards.) Another former suitor for the site, Ravitch said, was the American Stock Exchange.

Thirty years earlier, in 1956, another renowned New Yorker, William Zeckendorf Sr., proposed an even more grandiose plan for the yards: a new convention hall, a merchandise mart, and a "Television City." Proving that there are no new ideas under the sun, the master builder also wanted to erect the world's tallest skyscraper there. He called it "Freedom Tower" and it was to stand 1,750 feet tall—just 26 feet shorter than the Freedom Tower envisioned by architect Daniel Libeskind for the World Trade Center site.