Why Did the Neighborhoods Surrounding So Many Parks Become Unsavory?

[bluesky5]

RFK, Connie Mack Stadium, Ebbets Field, Griffith Stadium, Tiger Stadium.. any I'm missing?

[GiambiJuice]

Yankee Stadium.

[bluesky5]

Yankee Stadium.

I thought about that. But thought the area wasn't as bad as the others. I was there in '05 and it didn't seem too bad. I'm a rube tho.

[leewileyfan]

I believe politics, real estate leverage, bond issues and zoning have a great deal to do with it. Yankee Stadium, circa 1942, was a beautiful showcase for a rustic landscape, almost like a museum for the admiration of lawn maintenance and groundskeeping as a backdrop for sports contests.

Just a few blocks away, where the elevated trains took fans who weren't driving or walking to the Park, was Jerome Avenue, darkened by the el and dirty by any standard, having the look of a place you wouldn't want to be after dark.

Many inner cities, for generations, became Jekyll and Hyde places, attracting business and commerce by day ... and commuter flights by night.

[Ubiquitous]

Pretty much every single city in the country hit a severe patch at some point from the 60's through 80's. You had suburbanization, crime, drugs, corruption, city bankruptcies, and so on. It wasn't just neighborhoods around ballparks that were bad huge swaths of all city were in severe trouble. Starting in the 90's and going through the 00's almost all cities experiences a renewal as people moved back in and money poured into the coffers.

[bluesky5]

Pretty much every single city in the country hit a severe patch at some point from the 60's through 80's. You had suburbanization, crime, drugs, corruption, city bankruptcies, and so on. It wasn't just neighborhoods around ballparks that were bad huge swaths of all city were in severe trouble. Starting in the 90's and going through the 00's almost all cities experiences a renewal as people moved back in and money poured into the coffers.

True, when I think back about what I know that makes perfect sense, didn't live thru it. Thanks Ubi.

[leewileyfan]

True, but it was the case MUCH earlier than the '60s. Let's not forget the Depression, the black market settings of the War years, the booze and drugs and the emergence of post-Prohibition gangs.

[bluesky5]

Maybe television has something to do with it. TV puts out a lot of fictional scenarios people often relate to reality and idealize things, base expectations on the impressions they get from it. People before television may have been more in touch with the reality of the neighborhood and not expected a necessarily friendly family atmosphere outside it. People were more rough and tumble then too. Plus more day games = less opportunity for crime.

[Ubiquitous]

True, but it was the case MUCH earlier than the '60s. Let's not forget the Depression, the black market settings of the War years, the booze and drugs and the emergence of post-Prohibition gangs.

Well, you have to start somewhere. If we want to talk about the depression then we can then talk about the Gilded Age and Tammany Hall or move slightly ahead and talk about the The Jungle. What went on in the 60's through 80's is different than what went on in earlier economic hardsip times because unlike other eras people in the 60's through 80's fled the cities.

[leewileyfan]

I wasn't being contentious, simply replying to a thread opener. No, I didn't bring up the Gilded Age [when over 80% of the U.S. and its population were rural]; nor did I mention The Jungle [although that does fit the thread].

My point was that the 1960's were NOT the start. The big migration FROM the inner cities was in the '40s, right after WW II. That echoed and built upon the earlier suburban move in the '30s, when we started being the supplier to warring countries abroad.

Eisenhower's massive highway projects simply tried to meet the demand and the projected future needs of a country whose population was already well on the move.

That's why I started where I did.

[chinese home run]

I'd agree in saying the time after the Second World War accelerated things, especially in the Metropolitan New York area. It seemed like "instant suburbs" went up all over on a daily basis in the late 40's and early 50's- Levittown in Long Island was the most noted one, although developments went up all over Long Island, Westchester, Fairfield County in Connecticut, and of course in New Jersey. The makeup of the areas around the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field changed dramatically, and it sure didn't help things at the Polo Grounds when a spectator was killed by a stray bullet on the 4th of July in 1950. The shot was fired by a kid standing on the rooftop of an apartment building on Edgecombe Ave- about a quarter of a mile from where the man was sitting in the ballpark.

And, sadly, I was driving into work today when I heard there was a fatal shooting in Upper Manhattan. When I heard the address- 2971 Eighth Avenue- I said to myself, "Holy smokes, that's where the Polo Grounds used to be." Sure enough, two seconds later the news reader said it was at the Polo Grounds Towers.

[SHOELESSJOE3]

Not sure if you think it happened more around areas near ballparks, more than other city neighborhoods.
Probably the same reason why it took place in neighborhoods far from ballparks

There were a number of neighborhoods that went downhill in some cities and they were not even near ballparks.

Bottom line, we're just focussing on areas near ballparks on this thread. What took place had nothing to with the ballpark or surrounding area, it took place in many other parts of the city.

[leewileyfan]

I would suggest that the presence of a ballpark in an inner city area would exaggerate any downward trend, with filth, illicit trade, personal assaults and theft on the rise.

It should be counter intuitive, with reason suggesting that a ball park should be an attraction and that common sense would prompt developers to enhance the experience by developing and beautifying areas around the field. However, the politics and economics of real estate and bond markets have historically placed ball parks in centers of population where attendance cam be expected to support the franchise. It doesn't make the situation any prettier when we consider the intensity of land deals in such settings.

It can become a Petri dish for the unsavory. It's an attraction that draws transient fans, who can also be perceived as marks occasionally. I am not saying that the ballpark creates the unsavory activity. What I am saying is that it aggravates a condition that was already in place.

[EdTarbusz]

The same thing happened in Cleveland with the area around League Park, although the area started really getting seedy about 15 years after the Indians stopped playing there. It happened because of white flight and block busting.

[Myankee4life]

I thought about that. But thought the area wasn't as bad as the others. I was there in '05 and it didn't seem too bad. I'm a rube tho.

The area around Yankee Stadium from about 1970-1996 was worse than any of those mentioned above.