Development Watch: Bulldozer Time for Gowanus Building
As reported this October, Con Ed was getting ready to demolish this building at the corner of Third and Third. This is the building connected to an old cement ballpark wall. This location is the pre-Ebbets Field home of the Dodgers, and the ballpark’s successors, the Brooklyn Tip Tops, owned by the Ward’s Bakery family….
As reported this October, Con Ed was getting ready to demolish this building at the corner of Third and Third. This is the building connected to an old cement ballpark wall. This location is the pre-Ebbets Field home of the Dodgers, and the ballpark’s successors, the Brooklyn Tip Tops, owned by the Ward’s Bakery family. There is some contention about the wall’s provenance, but regardless, it appears that the building is finally coming down, something Con Ed had promised to do over ten years ago. Workmen were setting up a sidewalk bridge yesterday, and men in hazmat suits were seen on the roof doing asbestos removal. In October, Con Ed admitted they didn’t know what was going to replace this building, but they would not touch the wall. Regardless of who actually played there, it is one of the few remaining remnants of early professional baseball in the city, and should be preserved. Thanks to one of our readers for the tip.
Con Ed Readying Demolition of 3rd Street Warehouse [Brownstoner] GMAP
Photo by Denton Taylor
The wall is ceritifiably original. Washington Park. There is a whole collection about it at the Brooklyn Museum. JB – you sould go read all of it you ignorant herb. Go back to jersey.
On the Buildings Dept website, the only permits current for that site are for the sidewalk shed and an internal fence. Nothing I can see for the demolition itself, let alone a new structure:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/PermitsInProcessIssuedByBinServlet?requestid=6&allbin=3846361
There is a terrific site that gives the history of the wall, which was part of the Federal League Tip Tops’ ballpark, not part of the Dodgers’ ballpark on the same site. http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/washwall.html As such, the Washington Park wall post-dates Fenway Park and therefore is not the oldest extant portion of a Major League ballpark.
I’m very glad Con Ed is preserving the wall because it is a neat reminder of what the neighborhood was like a century ago — it blows my mind that Casey Stengel played on that site as a rookie.
There are a good number of baseball fans in Brooklyn who still love and care about the history. And they do visit the site and take photographs. I’m one of them. The stable story is not right, according to my research, but the wall is still very old and historic. Please see the details here:
http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/washwall.html
And much more about the long history of both Washington Park sites here:
http://www.covehurst.net/ddyte/brooklyn/washington_park.html
Very sad to see the last real relic of the major leagues in Brooklyn disappear.
i think con ed is fibbing.
if they dont know what is going in, why bother to demolish?
Let’s hope it some new “luxury” condos they build there. We need lots more of those.
I’ve been by there many many times over the years……and have never ever seen anyone looking around and being all nostalgic or taking pics or even paying any attention to what might have been part of some wall.
I believe Con Edison has made a commitment to not demolish the portion of the wall that was part of Washington Park. Not all of the structures on Third Avenue were part of the ballpark.
JB and ML, the section of wall that is part of Washington Park (the stable, I believe) is the oldest remnant of any professional baseball stadium in America. Many baseball greats played there, but that is hardly the only standard for measuring importance. The rarity of a resource is a common evaluative criterion used in historic preservation.
If Con Ed would include interpretive information in whatever gets built at ‘Toid an’ Toid,’ then this will cease to be the “ballpark that nobody’s ever heard of.”
In the Bronx, old Yankee Stadium is being demolished. And that is the real deal. The actual ballfield that Babe Ruth played on is awaiting demolition. Kind of puts this in perspective.