Opened in 2009 to replace the adjacent Shea Stadium, Citi Field seats 41,922 — over 15,000 fewer than its predecessor — and hosted the 2013 MLB All-Star Game.
The 7 train's Mets–Willets Point station sits steps from the front gate, with direct LIRR service on the Port Washington Branch from Penn Station and Grand Central.
Citi Field was built in Shea Stadium's parking lot, and Shea's ground is now Citi Field's parking lot; the old home plate, mound and bases are marked in the pavement. Shea had been a circle of some 57,000 seats with motorized lower stands that rode underground tracks to swing from baseball to football. The Mets and Jets shared it from 1964, the Yankees borrowed it for two seasons of renovation exile, the Beatles played to a record crowd there in 1965, and the Mets won two World Series in it before it came down over the winter of 2008–09.
The replacement is smaller and more self-conscious. Populous clad it in brick and cast stone with arched openings quoting Ebbets Field, and set a rotunda 160 feet across at the main entrance, dedicated to Jackie Robinson. That a Mets ballpark opened with a Brooklyn Dodgers memorial for a front door drew immediate complaint from Mets supporters; the club's own hall of fame and museum opened off the rotunda in 2010 in answer. A bridge motif runs through the building, and the Shea Bridge in right-center borrows its arch from the Hell Gate.
The playing field has been rebuilt twice. It opened as a severe pitcher's park, with deep angles and a sixteen-foot left-field wall that supporters named the Great Wall of Flushing. In 2012 the fences came in — right-center from 415 feet to 390, with an eight-foot wall built in front of the tall one and the walls repainted Mets blue; in 2015 right-center came in again, to 380. Seating, just under 42,000 at opening, is roughly 15,000 fewer than Shea held, set lower and angled toward the infield rather than wrapped in a continuous ring.
The setting is the northern edge of Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, the grounds of two world's fairs. The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is a short walk south, so late summer can put a Grand Slam and a ballgame on the same block. On the other side lies Willets Point, the auto-repair district the city has spent decades trying to redevelop.
123-01 Roosevelt Ave, Queens, NY 11368 · Official site ↗
Citi Field is a baseball stadium located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, in the borough of Queens, New York City, United States. Opened in 2009, Citi Field is the home of Major League Baseball's New York Mets. The ballpark was built as a replacement for the adjacent Shea Stadium, which had been demolished shortly before Citi Field's opening.
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