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| Re: Polo grounds shuttle was to be connected to Lenox Line (1181905) | |||
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Re: Polo grounds shuttle was to be connected to Lenox Line |
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Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Fri Oct 19 14:59:36 2012, in response to Re: Polo grounds shuttle was to be connected to Lenox Line, posted by MATHA531 on Fri Oct 19 14:43:25 2012. Indeed, the Shea Stadium site was perfect for the Dodgers, except for one MAJOR problem: it's not in Brooklyn. They were NOT the New York Dodgers. O'Malley, with some justification, wanted a Brooklyn site. His demands for one in Downtown Brooklyn were probably unrealistic. Had he waited a few years, though the PRR would have probably sold him the Atlantic Yards site for a song, though even this area was not as auto friendly as he wanted. Floyd Bennet Field was also a pretty good location, given that the airfield there closed shortly beforehand, and the land was available. But the area is isolated from mass transit, and the Belt Parkway was not yet built there in the mid 50's, when O'Malley began agitating for a new stadium. It was on the fringes, and the city was pushing Flushing. There was no strong advocate for the FBF option.A couple of other things that get lost in this story. One, being that, outside Brooklyn there was hatred or indifference to the Dodgers' situation. The Yankees enjoyed more widespread support across most of the city. Even the Giants had strong connections to Manhattan and the Bronx. Unification diluted the Dodgers' appeal to a new city government. A lot of people probably didn't give a damn if the Dodgers left. The other was the simmering racism that created bad blood between a lot of baseball fans and the Dodgers. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, bringing black fans into major league parks in huge numbers for the first time, especially as the Negro Leagues began folding in the mid 50's. A lot of people saw that, like inner cities, baseball itself may decline as black fans took over, driving white fans away and leading to the ghetto-ization of the sport. There was a strong desire to build new ballparks AWAY from the inner city to keep the crowds as white as possible. Ironically, by the time Bill Shea made his epic move to get NYC an NL expansion team in 1960, this fear had abated drastically. |
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