The Roving Runner: Baseball Nostalgia...
14.08.09
This swell of the Greenway ended at an exit ramp that was in the mid-150’s. I made a hairpin turn onto Frederick Douglass Boulevard and arrived at the place of the Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played baseball more than 50 years ago before becoming the San Francisco Giants. The Yankees were tenants here from 1913 to 1922, and the Mets played here too during the 1962 and 1963 seasons while their new ballpark, Shea Arena, was built. Today the site is home to the Polo Grounds Towers, a public casing complex.
I made a right on 155th Street and was deep beneath the viaduct that led onto the Macombs Dam Bridge. I asked a junior couple how to get to the street above me, and they pointed me to a steep set of stairs. I climbed them and, a bit winded, stopped at Edgecombe Avenue to clasp energy a photo and take in a little baseball history.
I was standing on Coogan’s Bluff , which once overlooked the arena where Willie Mays made The Catch and Bobby Thomson hit The Shot Heard ‘Path the World . Across the river, the new and old Yankee Stadiums beckoned.
Source: New York Times