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I took a drive to Shea Stadium this morning, to see the demolition site first hand.
There is no way around it, it was tough to look at – especially the first moment, as I drove up and over from the Whitestone Bridge, only to see a dismantled shell of what once was. It put a pit in my stomach. The longer I drove around the job site, taking pictures and video, the more comfortable I got with the idea that, in a week or so, the building will be totally erased from existence. But, seriously, that first image, wow, it was difficult to digest. And, while pictures are one thing, seeing it in person is something totally different.
The following are five photographs that I took, followed by a short one-minute video from the demolition site:
To check out the rest of my photographs, click here.
Jesus! Still hard to believe.
My first thoughts are simple.
1. Frank Sinatra singing there used to be a ballpark right here.
2. There should be a designation where Home plate was in the parking lot and where Tommie Agree long homerun was
3. A statue of Seaver should placed outside the new stadium ala Philly with Schmidt. Pitts with Clemente and Stargell
man… good bye shea stadium.. sorry we had to close you down on another collpse..
Good riddance to that place. It’s been nothing but a house of horrors since ‘86. There are only a handful of good memories since then and a botload of forgettable moments, starting with Scioscia’s HR.
wow…sorry to hear that you have no good memories in that stadium for the last 22 years….maybe you should try another team, since this one seems to make you miserable
agree.. as much as i criticize what they do, i always bleed blue and orange.. LET’S GO METS!
I have to agree. I have a lot of really good memories at Shea that I will never forget. You can’t deny that Shea was a complete dump but it was our dump. It was our home and its tough to see it come down.
I am with Alex and mets9268—-Shea was a pit, but my childhood baseball memories will always be amazing…..from game 3 of the 1986 playoffs when Dykstra hit the homer to games with about 4,000 people in the late 70s hoping for a Kingman homer to the incredible 1986 celebration in 2006 to the old Diamond Club with the pictures of everyone important in Met history and the two WS trophies on display…..those memories will be golden forever.
Sorry to see I touched a nerve. I bleed blue & orange just like everyone else and have many fond memories, but the stadium itself was a dump. Cramped seating, lack of concessions in the upper deck and ridiculously long lines in the bathrooms…..not to mention the lack of TVs in the concession area. I will not miss losing a whole inning and 1/2 because I go take a leak and grab a pretzel & beer. Oh and hjhjhjhhj, just because some people on here aren’t sorry to see Shea go, doesn’t mean we aren’t die hard fans or are too young to appreciate anything. I’m 32, and I go to at least 8-10 games a year and watch every other one on TV religiously. Go watch a game at Philly’s new ballpark and you’ll see why I’m happy to see Shea go. That stadium is a great place to watch a game. It might be a bandbox, but there isn’t a bad seat in the house. I am so looking forward to the new stadium that I just bought the 15 game weekday package 2 weeks ago.
Papdog is right, place was a dump with more bad memories than good.
Yup. Time to move on.
Sorry for all your heartache. You know the Bronx always welcomes frontrunners….
agreed….we all know it was not as good as all of these new parks (but it did have charm when compared to the parks they were built in the 70s)….it just seems to me that these people have are not real fans or are just too young to appreciate anything
have you ever thought that maybe it’s not that ‘we’ are too young to appreciate anything, but that ‘you’ are too old to appreciate change and upgrades?
I loved Shea, but I’ve made my peace with it. I loved my childhood home too, but I’m not planning to move back in with my parents anytime soon either.
I don’t understand why people are so reluctant to be excited about the new place, which looks awesome. It’s like never wanting David Wright because you wish HoJo was still at third.
one im only 29 so the “too old” comment goes out the window…the issue that i have is that the majority of the people here that have expressed their complete digust for the stadium (by the way i am excited about the new stadium but will certainly miss shea) seem to combine the lack of championships with their hatred of the the stadium…and frankly this bothers me and a lot of what i would call “true” fans of a team….people arent being reluctant to embrece the new but rather taking a minute to appreciate what we are losing before moving on to the new…think what you want to but if dont appreciate shea and its history for the team you are supposed to be a fan of, then i dont know what to tell you as i am clearly wasting my breath here
Couldnt have said it better myself hjhjhjhjhj
hjhjhjhjhj,
Agreed it was appropriate to “take a minute.” But the minutes over.
It’s like the sad guy in the bar lamenting the girl who left him 7 years ago. Shea was a great old dump. Now its time to move on to our hot new stadium that will be the envy of the rest of the league.
And maybe help the Mets get over the hump so we can start on some new memories. For sure there will be great and sad moments at Citi, but they will be ours because we are all Mets fans.
Thank you Ceetar for an intelligent post.
I go back to the Polo Grounds and I was at Shea when it was new. Of course the first hr was hit by a member of the opposing team but what else could you expect. I even liked the round ball parks and I detest the odd shapes of the new parks. The very first baseball parks had all these irregularities in shape because of land restrictions at the building site or they were originally used for some other sport or who knows why. I believe that nooks and crannies belong on an English muffin. But I digress. I rooted for the Mets in the Polo Ground, Shea Stadium and now will root for them in the new ball park. Perhaps I’m not as obsessed as the rest of you but I do not define my life by the ball parks I attend. It was great entertainment and I had some very good times at Shea but I never “lived” there. I had some great times at the local movie house and I must say me and the gf probably had better times in the balcony of that movie theatre than at Shea. But I didn’t weep when they tore the damn thing down.
Well true, but the time to appreciate the past is well, past in my mind. I was at the last game, and that’s where it ended. Once the playoffs were over it was full on ‘look forward to next year’, and that means the Citi. I’ve been slowly been saying goodbye to Shea for the past four years, and once that game ended, I turned the page.
LGM in 2009 !!!!!!!!!!!
Rught, anyone with an opinion that Shea wasn’t wonderful is a lousy fan. Why don’t you go there and bury yourself in the ruins, and you’ll be happy forever.
Wow, RIP Shea…to paraphrase FDR talking about Somoza, “It may have been a piece of sh*^, but it was OUR piece of sh*^.”
well said !
lol, agree.. lol.. remeber the first game i went to.. houston vs the mets… dwight gooden got rocked!! lol.. 1994..
The view coming East on the Grand Central Parkway is particularly depressing. I gasped the first time I saw how much of the building was gone.
guess i better get there real soon if i want to say goodbye.
I will miss one thing…
Night games at Shea with the total black sky in the outfield. It created a great ambiance.
Im glad to have taken my 3 year old son there for his first and last game at Shea and we got to go on the field and run the bases for the last time! Thats my favorite memory!
any idea what those circular concrete things on (in?) the ground are?
They appear to be closer to Citi and newer…
They look to be platforms or pedestals of some sort in the fanwalk area. Maybe to hold statues or trees or some such to walk through.
It’s hard to look at that. Thats the only place I have ever known as a Met fan. Lots of personal memories there. When it is completely gone, thats when it will finally sink in.
Come on now Matt. Shea was an absolute dump. While I have fond memories including attending Game 6 in ‘86 and watching Doc pitch a 2 or 3 hit 16k gem agst the Phils in may ‘85 , I’m not shedding a tear over the demolition. Ever try to take a leak in between innings during a playoff night game. Utter disaster. I am looking forward to a nice spacious seating area, new concessions and short lines for the men’s room!!!
Matt, just an FYI it is Jan 2009, not Jan 2008 : )
Watching that video make my stomach turn. I’m sure the new stadium will be beautiful, but you know what they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Shea was the most beautiful stadium in the world, cuz it was ours!
I know Shea was the only home most Mets fans ever knew and its tough to see it torn down but can Matt please give it a bit of a rest? Every other day, there are pictures with “oh I can’t believe it” and “its hard to see Shea this way.” Enough! Look guys, Shea was a total crapheap in 1998 when I had a Sunday plan and was hoping for a new stadium and it didn’t get better with age. Can we all please let Shea go away and keep our memories without having to look at pictures every 5 minutes??
The fourth picture with the elevator hanging off the wreckage is a great shot…
Looks like they will be getting this done soon– they must be picking up the pace. I had heard it would be leveled by Opening Day, but the parking lot wouldn’t be ready… Now, it may all be ready.
What’s with the whole “But Shea was ours! “…
Isn’t Citi Field also going to be yours?
No, citi field is really the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the real love of the Wilpons. Its not a Mets stadium and it certainly isn’t the fans’ stadium. Its corporate trash.
agreed 100%
RodKanehl nailed it.
I have many a fond memory of moments at Shea.
I am glad it’s being demolished. CitiField is an amazing ballpark.
My Mets memories are of baseball, not minimal legroom, or poor sightlines, or obstructed views, or cramped concourses.
Baseball will be played in CitiField and memories will be made.
I remember being there for a DH with the Pirates in April of ~1983. Freezing rain and only about 500 in the stands. We had uppers and the guards wouldn’t let us go down.
Saw Moose’s no hitter in 1969 from the upper deck. The house was completely packed that day.
First game was in 1967 against the Astros. We lost 1-0 on a Jimmy Wynn HR. Shook Ed Charles’ hand.
Ugh. I used the word “c-l-a-s-s-y” earlier so of course the Corporate suits will block that posting.
So here goes again.
Don’t understand why the Mets didn’t keep the pitching mound and home plate intact as a memorial to the stadium. Could have had a fence around it with a plaque as a reminder – even if it was in the parking lot. Seems like the “right” thing to do.
didn’t they mark the exact place of home plate from Forbes Field in Pittsburgh?
Don’t know, but if they did that was a good idea.
Yea they did I saw it when I visited Pitt.
They do that and they’d lose 40 bucks a night in parking. You wouldn’t want the Wilpons to starve would you?
Not only did I find the comment funny I enjoy the homage to our beloved and deceased 2B.
they should take the bulldozers over to willets point
I have to say, while I too was disgusted by standing knee deep in urine by the 4th inning of every game, watching the deconstruction video and seeing the pictures is like looking at fast aging photos of your parents. I say that because when you think of both Shea and your aging parents, the first thing you think of are memories.
For anyone that’s not old enough to have been in Shea in it’s first few years – it’s hey day- (me included), it was a dump. But despite that, most of us had our first baseball memories there…Met memories. I can say that I was so fortunate to have caught 4 foul balls there, beginning with my very first baseball game, my very first Met game in 1983 that my dad took me to off of Chris Chamblis against the Braves. And I was so fortunate to take my 2 1/2 years old son to his first and only Shea game on the Sunday before the last game there, also against the Braves and I caught a ball for him…at his first game.
Despite all of the terribly disappointing times I was there, the good and foundational baseball memories of my life will remain on that sacred ground.
Now we’re all gonna cry. After barfing that is.
Having moved away from my hometown of NYC almost six years ago, these pics are a little hard to stomach. I’ve been going to Shea since 1973 (hence my screen name). While I am fine with the move to the new ballpark, and I thought I was fine with the change, this brought it to close to home for me (so to speak). So many memories that I have… so many great moments that I was there and not there for… 1986 was my highlight. And seeing young Dwight Gooden in 1984 and ‘85.
And also lets not forget it was one of the only remaining venues played by The Beatles in North America.
First game I ever went to at Shea, George Foster hit a 2 run shot to put the mets up 2-1 and Chili Davis later tied it to send it to extras. SF scored 6 in the top of the 10th. The Met who gave up the 6 runs got traded to Boston with Calvin Schiraldi the guy who lost both games 6 and 7 of the 86 WS. In return the Mets got Bobby Ojeda, our best pitcher in 86.
It’s interesting the different views here. I’m in the “Shea was a better stadium than given credit for” camp, Rarely had a bathroom or drink break where I missed one pitch. Perhaps that is because we knew where to sit (i.e. Mezz boxes).
I feel that the only reason they built the new ballpark was for the money and the Wilpon’s ego.
That being said, comments on CF can’t be relevant until you actually go to some games there. It is a different perspective watching a game from the outfield. Such seats are usually cheap seats in other ballparks but the Mets are charging full price. You are a long long way away from the main action. there also might be some impaired views with the Prom staircases, out of town scoreboard, overhand on some decks (like the last few rows of the Mezz and Loge) and other railings. Only one way to see for sure..