The original Polo Grounds stadium in 1890, one year after it was built at 155th and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. Located off the Harlem River, the ballpark was home for the New York Giants until they moved to San Francisco in 1957. It originally held 16,000 fans and had space behind center field for fans to watch games with their horses and carriages. The "dead ball" during this era didn't travel far, so it was common for spectators to gather in a roped off area in the deep areas of the outfield.
"The Polo Grounds, the horseshoe-shaped of the Giants in Harlem, had anomalies of its own, as well as a rich sporting legacy that culminated in Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Round the World, perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history," The Times wrote in 2011. "Yet in recollections of classic 20th-century stadiums, it is often an afterthought.
" ÌøEverything about the Giants gets short shrift,' said Peter Magowan, the former managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants, who grew up in New York and attended his first Giants game at the Polo Grounds in 1950. ÌøIt was unique and very quirky. It was a great old ballpark.'" The ballpark was demolished in 1964 with the same wrecking ball, painted to look like a baseball, that took down Ebbets Field in Brooklyn four years earlier.
