New York/Stadiums

Shea Stadium -- © Brian Rose

Opening day is not far off for New York's two teams each with new stadiums. Both promise to be more pleasant places to watch baseball, even if some historical patina is lost forever. Yankee Stadium as I wrote before "will, like the old one, remain a building on the street hugging the elevated subway. Not a stadium machine, like so many others. Glimpses of the field will still be possible from the windows of the passing trains, and a replica of the famous frieze will wrap around the upper deck."

Both stadiums follow the fashion of retro ballparks inspired by Camden Yards in Baltimore, and replicated in various forms numerous times since. Yankee Stadium echoes itself--or rather its original self--before renovation. It relates to the neighborhood around it, and will, I think wear well in the Bronx.


Shea Stadium -- © Brian Rose

The Mets new stadium in Queens, named CitiField after the barely breathing mega bank relates to the distant memory of Ebbet's Field, which of course was in Brooklyn, not Queens. It replaces a mostly unloved stadium that had little charm or comfort. It was, however, a very streamlined structure reflecting its time period compared with the new/old rather fussy architecture of Citifield.


CitiField rendering, Queens



Ebbet's Field, Brooklyn

Ebbet's Field stood in the midst of a tightly knit urban neighborhood while the new reincarnation of it stands in the same vacant parking lot that Shea Stadium used to occupy. Wrong history, wrong location. The real history here is the still vivid memory of two world fairs with their visions of modernity and utopian urbanism. Imagine a stadium design that played to those memories rather than a neighborhood in Flatbush, Brooklyn.


1964 World's Fair with Shea Stadium at rear



Alas, the new ballpark evokes only fictitious history, though it will undoubtedly be a nice place to see a game. But it's another lost opportunity for architecture in New York City.