William A. Shea Municipal Stadium ( ), typically shortened to Shea Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City. Opened in 1964, it was home to the New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1964 to 2008, as well as the New York Jets of the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL) from 1964 to 1983.
The stadium was named in honor of William Shea, who was most responsible for bringing National League baseball back to New York after the Dodgers and Giants left for California in 1957. It was demolished in 2009 following the opening of the adjacent Citi Field, the ballpark built to replace it and the current home of the Mets. The former footprint of Shea Stadium is part of Citi Field's parking lots.
History
Planning and construction
The origins of Shea Stadium go back to the relocations of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants in 1957, which left New York without a National League baseball team.
Prior to the Dodgers' departure, New York City official Robert Moses tried to interest owner Walter O'Malley in the site as the location for a new stadium, but they did not reach an agreement. O'Malley preferred to pay for construction himself and own the stadium outright, and thus control the revenue from parking, concessions, and other events. The city, in contrast, wanted to build the stadium, rent it to the users, and retain the ancillary revenue rights to pay off its construction bonds. Additionally, O'Malley wanted to build in Brooklyn, while Moses insisted on Flushing Meadows. When Los Angeles offered O'Malley what New York City would not—complete ownership of a stadium—he left for southern California in a preemptive bid to install the Dodgers there before a new or existing major league franchise could beat him to it. At the same time, Horace Stoneham moved his New York Giants from Manhattan's Polo Grounds to San Francisco (although he originally considered moving them to Minneapolis), ensuring that there would be two National League teams in California, and preserving the long standing rivalry with the Dodgers.
In , the National League agreed to grant an expansion franchise to the owners of the New York franchise in the abortive Continental League, provided that the team play in a new stadium. Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. personally wired all of the National League owners to assure them that the city would build a stadium.
Unlike O'Malley, the owners of the franchise that eventually became the Mets felt Queens was the logical home for their new ballpark. They wanted to secure the loyalties of both Dodgers and Giants fans, and feared that a team in Manhattan or Brooklyn would be seen as a de facto revival of the respective borough's former franchise, thus possibly alienating fans in the other borough. A club playing in Flushing Meadows (located roughly the same distance from Manhattan and Brooklyn) would not only likely avoid the same perception, but presumably capture the loyalty of fans in Queens as well, thus potentially confining support for the New York Yankees of the American League to their home borough of The Bronx on the mainland.
Nevertheless, Moses and William A. Shea, the New York lawyer who had led the effort to bring National League baseball back to New York, faced a problem. New York state law of the time did not allow a city to borrow money to build a stadium. The only way for the city to finance a stadium would be to demonstrate that the stadium could pay for itself. With this in mind, Moses and Shea proposed to have the new team pay substantial rent in order to pay off 30-year bonds. This provision came back to haunt the Mets years later; they never met that monetary commitment, and it caused them financial problems for years.
On October 6, 1961, the Mets signed a 30-year stadium lease, with an option for a 10-year renewal. Rent (for a facility originally budgeted to cost $9 million) was set at $450,000 for the first year, to be reduced by $20,000 in each subsequent year until it reached $300,000 annually.
In their inaugural season in 1962, the expansion Mets played in the Polo Grounds, sharing the facility with the New York Titans of the upstart American Football League which had begun play in 1960. The original plans were for both teams to move to a new stadium in 1963. In October 1962, Mets official Tom Meany said, "Only a series of blizzards or some other unforeseen trouble might hamper construction." That unforeseen trouble surfaced in a number of ways: the severe winter of 1962–1963, the bankruptcies of two subcontractors, and labor issues. The result was that both the Mets and the football team (by then renamed the Jets) were forced to play at the Polo Grounds for one more year.
left|thumb|<!--A game at-->Shea during its inaugural [[1964 New York Mets season|1964 season]]
It was originally called "Flushing Meadow Park Municipal Stadium" – the name of the public park within which it was built – but a movement to rename it in honor of Shea was successful. with the Pittsburgh Pirates beating the Mets before a crowd of There were no prior exhibition games or events, and the stadium was barely finished in time for the home opener. Because of a jurisdictional dispute between Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Local 1106 of the Communications Workers of America, the telephone and telegraph wiring was not finished in time for opening day. The stadium opened five days before the 1964–65 New York World's Fair, across Roosevelt Avenue. Although not officially part of the fair grounds, the stadium sported steel panels on its exterior in the blue-and-orange colors of the Fair, the same team colors of the Mets. The panels were removed in 1980.
Demolition
In accordance with New York City law, in 2009 Shea Stadium was dismantled, rather than imploded. The company with the rights to sell memorabilia was given two weeks after the final game to remove seats, signage and other potentially sellable and collectible items before demolition was to begin. The seats were the first ($869 per pair plus tax, a combination of '86 and '69, the team's two World Series championship years), followed by other memorabilia such as the foul poles, dugouts, stadium signage, and the giant letters that spelled out "SHEA" at the front of the building.
After salvaging operations concluded, demolition of the ballpark began on October 14, 2008. On October 18, the scoreboard in right field was demolished, with the bleachers, batter's eye and bullpens shortly thereafter.
By November 10, the field, dugouts and the rest of the field level seats had been demolished.
thumb|right|Plaque commemorating the location of Shea Stadium's home plate, now in Citi Field's parking lot
On January 31, 2009, Mets fans all over New York came to Shea Stadium for one final farewell. Fans took a tour of the site, told stories, and sang songs. The last remaining section of seats was demolished on February 18. Fans stood in awe as the remaining structure of Shea Stadium (one section of ramps) was torn down at 11:22 am.
The locations of Shea's home plate, pitcher's mound, and bases are marked in Citi Field's parking lot. The plaques feature engravings of the neon signs depicting baseball players that graced the exterior of the stadium from 1988 onward.
Redevelopment
, Mets owner Steve Cohen is trying to build a park, casino and entertainment complex at the site, called Metropolitan Park, which had the support of the New York City Council and then-mayor Eric Adams, but is pending approval by the New York State Legislature and the New York State Gaming Commission. The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Metropolitan Park would be built on the site. Local coalition Fed Up opposes the park alienation, instead advocating for a “Phoenix Meadows Vision Plan” which would create public green space over the parking lot.
Stadium usage
Baseball
thumb|<!--Shea Stadium-->A Mets game in [[1969 New York Mets season|1969]]
Shea Stadium was the home of the New York Mets starting in 1964, and it hosted its only All-Star Game that first year, in which Johnny Callison of the Philadelphia Phillies hit a walk-off home run in the ninth inning to win the game. A month earlier, on Father's Day, Callison's teammate, future Hall of Fame member and U.S. Senator Jim Bunning, pitched a perfect game against the Mets.
The stadium was often criticized by baseball purists for many reasons, even after it was retrofitted to be a baseball-only stadium after the Jets left. The upper deck was one of the highest in the majors. The lower boxes were farther from the field than similar seats in other parks because they were still on the rails that had swiveled them into position for football. Teammate Cleon Jones said the ball was still rising when it hit the seats, so it very likely could have been the longest home run hit at Shea. It came in the second inning, and Agee hit another in the seventh over the center field wall; both solo shots were off of Montreal Expos starter Larry Jaster, and the Mets