We asked, you answered. Hundreds of responses to our reader poll have left us with a clear New York City FC stadium nickname winner: The Valley of Ashes.
Yes, the name synonymous with the ash dump depicted by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby is also the people's preferred nickname for the $780 million electric soccer stadium coming to Willets Point in 2027.
It beat out The Iron Triangle, The Chop Shop, The Pigeon Coop, and Naming Rights Sponsor Stadium. All of those names have a link to the area or the club — you can read about their backgrounds here.
NYCFC supporters look ready to reclaim and repurpose a phrase connected to the area's polluted past, with 40.6% of the votes we received in favor of dubbing the shiny new soccer facility The Valley of Ashes.
It's an undeniably catchy title that accomplishes a lot of things you need in a good nickname. It's unique, it harkens back to relevant local history, and it sounds somewhat cool and intimidating when stripped of its context.
The pro-pigeon voting contingent cannot be ignored, as The Pigeon Coop placed second in this poll and drew in an impressive 27.1% of votes.
The "pigeon" nickname for New York City FC is always a point of contention and debate, but a good portion of our voters look ready to embrace the avian moniker when the team's permanent home opens.
John Baney did a great exploration of the pigeon-NYCFC connection, which you should read here, as it might make you reconsider whatever stance you hold on pigeons as team mascots, and maybe The Pigeon Coop as a stadium nickname.
Naming Rights Sponsor Stadium coming in third place with 14.5% of votes might indicate an absurdist streak in our readership, or it might be a sign of cold, harsh reality.
Whatever corporate entity ends up with its name emblazoned on the new stadium—everyone's assuming Etihad Airways, for obvious reasons—will likely dictate what most people end up calling the first-ever soccer stadium in New York City.
The building will be marketed far and wide as "Naming Rights Sponsor" Stadium, so plenty of fans will know it by that eventual name. I consider the 14.5% who voted for Naming Rights Sponsor Stadium to be unemotional realists who accept that money talks and know whoever pays to name the stadium will end up the real "winners" of this reader poll.
The Iron Triangle at 10.6% and The Chop Shop at 7.1% rounded out our stadium nickname ballot, two names similar to The Valley of Ashes in already being familiar phrases used when discussing Willets Point and its surroundings.
The Iron Triangle has long been a nickname used for the parcel of land that's now being redeveloped to include New York City FC's stadium, while The Chop Shop would have been nodding to some of the not-entirely-legal activities that are said to have been common at some of the auto body shops that long called Willets Point home.
Instead, the nickname with the literary legacy that has been a frequent reference point for the politicians involved in approving the stadium project won out in a resounding fashion.
Simply being at this stage, where the stadium is done navigating through needed land use approvals and can be a topic of lighthearted nickname debate, is hugely refreshing after over a decade of soccer stadium uncertainty. Now we're on to planning for a life spent inside The Cube come 2027.
See you at The Valley of Ashes when Pep Guardiola leads out his New York City FC side for their first match in the new stadium in 2027 (just kidding about Pep, but hey, you never know).
