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Shea Stadium

Shea Stadium was the home of the New York Mets major league baseball team before being replaced by Citi Field in 2009. The stadium was named after William Alfred Shea, an attorney that led the efforts to attract a second baseball team to New York after the Dodgers and Giants moved to the west coast in the late 50s.

Groundbreaking occurred on October 28, 1961 and the 55,601-seat stadium was dedicated on April 17, 1964, a year behind schedule. The stadium cost $28.5 million to build and included motorized stands that permitted conversion to a football configuration. The New York Jets also played at Shea from 1964 until 1983, when the Jets moved to New Jersey following a failed effort to finance a renovation of the stadium. The building was one of the aesthetically-challenged "cookie-cutter" multi-purpose designs that proliferated in the 1960s and, since it was in the approach to LaGuardia Airport, was deafeningly noisy.

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