Rep. Ritchie Torres led a group of local elected officials and members of the community on Friday in a stance against a city proposal to build a 34,000-seat cricket stadium in Van Cortlandt Park.  

Torres said he’s never seen something like this during his career in politics, as he says local officials were only notified of the plan to build at the park in late June.

The stadium would be used to host the 2024 Cricket World Cup, which starts in June 2024. While part of that plan calls the stadium “temporary,” members of the community at Friday’s rally say there’s no way that, regardless of how brief, the building and presence stadium wouldn’t create quality of life issues for parkgoers.  

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Councilmember Eric Dinowitz said that if the plan moves forward, they expect litigation to prevent what they are calling the “privatization of a public park.”