Origin and Construction
The Capitoline Grounds, named in reverence to Capitoline Hill, one of the famous Seven Hills of Rome, was first conceived in 1863 as a rival to the nearby Union Grounds, which had opened the previous year. The original plan included the draining of the Capitoline pond, used as an ice-skating area during the Winters, to make room for the park, but it failed, and wasn't until 1864 that the park was finished. In April, the proprieters, Reuben S. Decker and Hamilton A. Weed, offered the Atlantic Club of Brooklyn a free lease to play their games at their new park. The Grounds stood in Bedford, in a block bounded by Halsey Street, and Marcy, Putnam and Nostrand Avenues, an area that is now known as the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
The Capitoline Grounds consisted of two sets of bleachers that seated that were backed by Nostrand Avenue and Halsey Street, and had an approximate capacity of 5,000 people. In right field stood a circular brick outhouse, and if any player hit a ball over the structure, they were presented with a bottle of Champagne. Along Putname Avenue, two rows of stables were established for the patrons' horses. Other amenities included a bandstand, clubhouses, and sitting rooms for the female patrons.
Read more about this topic: Capitoline Grounds
Famous quotes containing the words origin and, origin and/or construction:
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)