Sports
The Newport Casino was never a public gambling establishment. Originally, "casino" meant a small villa built for pleasure. During the 19th century, the term casino came to include other buildings where social activities took place.
In its heyday during the Gilded Age, the Newport Casino offered a wide array of social diversions to the summer colony including archery, billiards, bowling, concerts, dancing, dining, horse shows, lawn bowling, reading, real tennis, tea parties, and theatricals. It was best known as the home of American lawn tennis; the Casino hosted the 1881–1914 National Championships, later called the U.S. Open.
Today, there is still an active grass-court tennis club, as well as an indoor tennis club. The Newport Casino Croquet Club offers championship croquet play on Newport's grass courts.
The Court Tennis Building is part of the original complex, built in 1880. It burned down in 1945, but was rebuilt in 1980. It is home to the National Tennis Club.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“There be some sports are painful, and their labor
Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we may the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)