6. Shea Stadium

Image via Metsfan84 on Wikimedia Commons

During the years that the original Yankee Stadium was closed for renovations in the 1970s, the Yankees shared a home with their neighbors, the New York Mets. Both teams played in the relatively new Shea Stadium.

The stadium was opened in 1964 in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park as a multipurpose stadium for baseball’s New York Mets and football’s New York Jets.

After both the Dodgers and Giants left New York City for the west coast, New York was left without a team in the National League. In 1960, Mayor Robert Wagner reached an agreement with the league to build a new stadium for the owners of an expansion team from the attempted Continental League based in New York.

Shea Stadium held many significant events in sports, including several World Series, as well as many significant events in pop culture. In 1965, The Beatles played their first show in their 1965 North American Tour at the ballpark to a record audience of 55,600. The concert was the first to be held in a major sports stadium and created a trend for larger than life bands and musicians to sell out outdoor stadiums.

The multipurpose stadium was redesigned to specifically a baseball stadium after the Jets moved to Giants Stadium in 1984. It was soon discovered that the stadium had its flaws as strictly a baseball field and talks began in the 1990’s to build a new ballpark near Shea Stadium.

In 2009, the New York Mets moved to the newly constructed Citi Field, and Shea Stadium was dismantled the same year after being given the opportunity to auction off parts and memorabilia to fans.

Like the new Yankee Stadium, Citi Field was built adjacent to the Mets’ former home. Shea Stadium remnants are noted by several plaques and markers in Citi Field’s parking lot which denote the location of home plate, the bases, and the pitchers mound.