Early History of Ballparks in New York
Washington Park in Brooklyn
The first New York City baseball teams were very mobile geographically. When major league baseball began in the late 19th century, ballparks were cheaply constructed wooden structures. For the first half-century, teams moved often, always seeking better locations. The first enclosed baseball field was the fifteen-hundred-seat Union Grounds, built in 1862 by William Cammeyer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The next major league park in Brooklyn was Washington Park, a 2,500-seat park in Red Hook, built in 1883.(1) It was used by Brooklyn's first two major league teams. In 1890, the city's third team began to play at Eastern Park in Brownsville. When the Brooklyn clubs merged the next season, they continued to play at Eastern Park, where they played until 1897. The park was poorly located, with inadequate transportation and in a neighborhood where most residents, recently arrived immigrants, were not baseball fans. So when the lease expired, the team, now called the Trolley Dodgers, moved back to Red Hook to Washington Park.(2)
In Manhattan, a site at the northern edge of Central Park owned by New York Herald publisher and sports enthusiast James Gordon Bennett Jr., was first used for baseball in 1880 by the Metropolitans. This site was originally used by the Westchester Polo Association and was the original Polo Grounds. The field was also used by the Gothams, who joined the majors in 1883. The Metropolitans used the east diamond, the Gothams the west diamond. In 1885, the Metropolitans built Metropolitan Park, an 8,000-seat field, at 107th Street and First Avenue.(3) However, the field was built on a garbage dump and was of poor quality, so the Metropolitans continued to use the Polo Grounds. In 1886, the Metropolitans moved to Staten Island and played at the St. George's Cricket Club. The Gothams, who became the Giants, were forced to move from the Polo Grounds in 1889 when the city decided to put a street through the site. Despite efforts by people at Tammany Hall, who had been bribed with tickets, the Giants needed to find a new home.(4) They moved to Washington Heights to a site which became the new Polo Grounds.
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1 Riess, p. 107.
2 Ibid, p. 107-8.
3 Ibid, p. 104.
4 Ibid, p. 105.