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In a post to Mets Refugees, Dan M gives a detailed update on the construction of Citi Field, noting that, “Along the first base line, three of the four light towers have been extended to full height.”
To see Dan’s photos, click play below…
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looks like the facade comes in big premade sections, nieve of me to think it would be real masonry work I guess… probably the only economical way to do it I suppose.
It looks like the exterior facade should be just about complete by opening day the way they are going.
economical and environmentally sound. its the way all modern buildings are bit, modularly.
Lookin’ good!
The House That Wright Built
The Wright House!
The mild, snowless winter we’ve been having so far is no doubt helping the pace of construction.
I remember when CitiField was just a patch of dirt.
They grow up so quickly, I tell ya.
Not sure if it’s because I live outside of NY, or because I grew up at Shea, or my Dad’s experiences at Polo Grounds, but I have to say I have extremely mixed feelings about this transition.
I know Shea is old, and junky, but I go back to the Field of Dreams speech when Mann says of “the field” “It will be as if they were children again. The memories will be so thick, they will need to brush them away from their faces.”
In that movie, it was the players coming back from the dead. But in reality, that link to the past is the park. One of the wonderful things about going to Shea with my kids is being in the same place I grew up as a fan. The ghosts of great Mets past like Seaver and Mex and Piazza intertwine with the countless Hubie Brooks’ and Steve Hendersons. As games are being played, I see them, but I also see the countless games I’ve seen there in the past.
Shea is my ballpark, and as beautiful as CitiField will be, it will never be my park. I will still love the Mets if a passion that is far stronger than any rational human being should have for a sports team, but I’m really coming to mourn the loss to come. Far more than the cemetary where my Grandma Mary and Grandpa Lou–the two biggest Mets fans I’ve ever known–lie, it is Shea that is the physical place I can connect to my most vivid memories of them and the team they taught me to love.
Time must march on, I know. But I envy the Cubs and Sox, and even the Dodgers fans for the hallowed ground they have to share. Sometimes, my father would go on and on about the Polo Grounds–what he saw, what it meant to him. I only now understand, or am beginning to understand, those feelings.
Sorry to be maudlin, but can’t help feeling this way.
Matt, thanks for the site and opportunity to rant about stuff like this.
its definitely because you live outside NY. If youve spent any time at Shea over the past 10 years you are counting the days until it is leveled.
The place is a complete dump. The memories will always be with me but the building is a cesspool.
You cant compare 50’s/60’s era stadiums like Shea and Dodger stadium with Wrigley and Fenway is a stretch. Ive been to Wrigley, Fenway, Dodger Stadium and obviously Shea — believe me – Dodger Stadium is just as bad as Shea. Fenway and Wrigley reek of old time baseball and tradition. Dodger Stadium and Shea just reek.
I took my son to his first game at Shea about 8 years ago…..he’s was on the field as a 5 year old with Mookie Wilson learning to hit off a tee during a clinic. My daughter attended her first game just this past season.
My father took me to my first game there back in the 70’s. The stadium holds great memories for me.
All of this said, I would empty my bank accounts for the opportunity to be the one to push the button to bring it all down. I would do this without ANY hesitation at all. My memories will ALWAYS be with me….there are photos as well as video. The stadium itself is A DUMP…..dirty, outdated and long overdue to be replaced…..I cannot wait for the opening of Citi Field. Do I wish they were able to avoid the corporate naming….yes. Would I much prefer keeping the Shea name (or, better yet…maybe Payson Field ??!!)….absolutely. Unfortunately these are the times we live in, but I will gladly give up the name on the outside for some of the comfort and cleanliness of a new park. Having gone to many new parks over the past few years (Houston…Arizona….Baltimore) I don’t have any problem with creating new memories in much nicer surroundings.
I come to Shea every year. You can say anything you want about what a dump it is–all true. I almost killed myself in ‘99 going up those upper deck “stairs” at the end of the horseshoe for the NLDS game 4 thriller.
That said, what you say takes NOTHING away from my sentiments above. You certainly don’t have to agree with my sentiments, but for all its many warts, this part is intertwined in my life in a way no other single place is, and I’ll miss it.
Not sure how old you are, or if you have kids, but I’ve definitely found that has made a profound difference in my perception of Shea and its demise.
I am sure I will like CitiField but when I am at that last regular season game this year, I am sure I will be bawling like a baby. Shea is a dump….but it was our dump where so many amazing memories happened…and not just the obvious ones like the WS wins but the personal ones that we all have….my first baseball game in 1972 when Joe Ferguson of the Dodgers hit a homerun…ten years ago when my three year old son did the Dynamets dash…in 1986 when I missed a game winning hit since I was in the bathroom and I ran back to the stands and asked some drunken guy who was whooping it up what happened and he turned to me with a crazed look and yelled in my face ‘F**ing Mitchell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ (my friends and I still laugh at this)
I just wish that it wasn’t an homage to Ebbets Field…sorry I am 43 years old and the Dodgers played their last home game in Brooklyn 6 years before I was born…we have our OWN history and I wish CitiField was a tribute to that. Heck and modern Shea with all the amenities of a new Stadium maybe done in a retro-future 1964 Worlds Fair motif would have been fantastic…and yes WITH the blue and orange tiles (I DESPISED them growing up and would do anything to have them back now)
I remember my first games at the Polo Grounds. We usually caught the second half of the first game and the first half of the second game of a twi-night doubleheader. I remember going to Gil Hodge’s night and seeing Choo Choo Colemen hit a 270 foot homerun into the right field overhang. I remember in 1963 seeing Jim Hickman hit a natural cycle against the Cardinals, the first Met to hit for the cycle. Plus there were many memories at Shea as well. The point is, you root for the uniform and absorb the history. We have memories of the Polo Grounds, Shea and will have new memories at Citi-Field. For those of us wgho never saw Ebbetts Field, who cares what Citi-Field is modeled after. At least we will have enough, and hopefully clean bathrooms……
A—-Freaking—-men….
My father brought me to my first major league game in 1964, at Shea. I was 9 years old. I remember a lot about that game. Seeing Casey, and drinking my first Yoo-Hoo are the 2 that I remember
most.I still like Casey and Yoo-Hoo, but I can’t wait for the new
stadium. I won’t miss Shea.
I hope they don’t spoil the atmosphere of the new stadium by
blasting that irritating music and other noise. Let there be quiet
between batters and innings so that Mom’s and Dad’s can talk to
their kid’s and explain the game. Let the fan’s chat with each
other too. This pointless loud noise that’s taking over has got to go.
I think the 1st time any of you nastalgic people see Johan come running onto Citi Field, Shea will be the furthest thing from your mind….
Its time for a new era of Mets baseball. I know those of you that have been around since ‘62 still have that warm cuddly feeling. Win or lose they’re still our Mets kinda sentiment…..
Screw that sentiment. I want a winner. I want a state of the art stadium, with the best pitcher on the planet playing for us….I want to be a 1st class organization, and you cant have that paying at Shea…..
Well I agree but I want a new Shea not some sort of Ebbets Field paying tribute to some team that left 50 years ago. Heck, if they were going to that, they should have done the Polo Grounds instead since the Mets actually played there!
Well, I’m obviously in the minority, at least among these posts. Just for the record, I never said I wanted them to halt construction and stay in Shea. Just relating the very mixed feelings about when I walk into that new ballpark, it won’t have the same feeling of history. I won’t immediately see the grand slam single, the Pratt game winner, Benny’s blast against the Giants, or eating grapes with my Grandpa in the Mezz as he explains to me how Dave Winfield is about to light up Neil Allen to win it for the Padres–and then promptly did it.
I’m all for new memories–I’m just sad that the place that holds so many old wonderful ones is going, as needed as that might be. It might be a dump–a terrible dump–but it’s my dump, and I will miss it.
I grew up in Kew Gardens Hills, about 2 miles south of Shea on the Grand Central, and used to pass the stadium every day on the school bus. When I was a kid, Shea to me was all things good like spring, summer, baseball cards, green grass, no school, et al.
My uncle lived in Jackson Heights in the ’70s and used to take my brother and I to a game every year.
I’m 42 now and I have a million great memories of Shea. But its day is long over. The Mets deserve a new place to play and we fans deserve a stadium that we can be proud of.
All that said, it’s the name that gets me. You can bet that other stadium will never have a corporate sponsor name.