Baseball with a Skyline View

Main entrance to the Ballpark at St. George, Jul-2001.

Interior design: Somewhat standard, but with a steep pitch for good viewing.

The park offers a spectacular view of Upper New York Bay and the Manhattan skyline.

• Location: Richmond Terrace at the ferry landing, Staten Island, N.Y.
• Opened: 2001
• Home team: Staten Island Yankees, New York-Penn League (2001-present)
• Capacity: 6,964

Rating: 4 baseballs

I really didn’t know what to expect from this place, but I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, it had sky boxes, but they were supported on beams extending from the edge of the concourse, as was the press box (so you didn’t have the ugly dark area on the concourse behind the plate). It was also a continuous seating area, with no walkway halfway down. I’m thinking Altoona without the upper deck, or Lowell. Except that this place holds over 6900, thanks to an extensive right-field bleacher that will only get jammed on overflow nights, as that’s the field that gets the last sun.

And, as you might expect, the park has a beautiful view of the Kill van Kull, the Upper Bay, and -- Bayonne. No, seriously, while the industrial area of Bayonne, N.J., is visible, and so is plenty of barge traffic to go along with the ferries, the pièce de résistance of this place is the view of lower Manhattan. And they don’t obstruct it. The outfield wall has no decks of advertising, although it is broken up by four video-type boards displaying the logo of that inning’s sponsor. There’s also a standard scoreboard, coupled with a video display. Of course, there are picnic areas and a kid’s area.

(On a visit in August 2005, the outfield wall had been converted to a typical minor-league wall, with advertising all around. However, the view of the bay and the city was still unobstructed. By 2007, the entire wall had become a video display board, but still not obstructing the view.)

I should mention that the outer brick is reminiscent of a building like the ferry terminal (which I didn’t look at for comparison). It’s orange or bright mud-colored, rather than red. Another thing that makes the park stand out is the seats themselves. They’re blue, for the Yankees, rather than the all-too-common forest green of modern parks.

The photos on this page were taken at a game 6-Jul-2001, before the devastating attack 11-Sep that destroyed the World Trade Center towers which stand out in the photo above. The park was used as a triage site for individuals injured in the tragedy. These casualties were ferried from the Battery to the ballpark in the hours after the incident.