Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

Forty years before their apotheosis as the Bronx Bombers, the New York Yankees, then a lackluster team called the New York Highlanders, played baseball at Hilltop Park on upper Broadway. Beginning in 1913, under the newly adopted name New York Yankees, the club shared a playing field in northern Manhattan with the Giants, their competitors and official landlords at the relocated Polo Grounds on the Harlem River at 157th Street. Mounting rivalry between the clubs led to the Yankees' ouster and their migration to a new ballpark built at River Avenue and 161st Street in the Bronx. On April 18, 1923, more than twenty thousand fans had to be turned away from the sold-out opening-day game at the novel, triple-deck Yankee Stadium -the first ballpark to boast the appellation of "stadium." Initially, many who ventured to the spacious new sporting facility were lured by the exploits of Babe Ruth, the phenomenal slugger recently signed by the club.¹ But the season proved renascent for the team as a whole and culminated in the Yankees' World Series victory over their former landlords -the first in a long line of championships that endeared the Bronx Bombers to baseball devotees and spiked attendance at their home games.

The war years challenged the team's management to find substitute talent for regular players lost to the armed forces and to consider ways of retaining attendance by attracting a broader spectrum of fans. Night games, considered controversial when first tested in the major leagues in 1936, were introduced gradually as a strategy to draw new working-class and family audiences to the sport. Not until the war's end, however, did lights arrive at Yankee Stadium. Combined with the return to the lineup of favorite players, the novelty of seeing games after dark paid off: in 1946 home attendance soared to nearly 70 percent over previous season highs.

Paolo Corvino was in the stands for that milestone debut on May 28, 1946, when the Yankees, under the glare of artificial lights, lost to the Washington Senators, 2 -1. The event's impression remained vivid enough to elicit this painted re-creation of it some twenty-three years later.² The scoreboard indicates play under way at the bottom of the third inning. (Corvino has playfully altered the game's outcome by inverting the scores to the home team's advantage.) The roofless stadium appears ablaze with color: an unprecedented yellow radiance illuminates the park's patriotic bunting, its sponsor billboards, the rainbow blur of crowds packed into the curving stands, and the rich brown dirt of the infield diamond. More conspicuous is the artist's rendering of another innovation made to the facility that season under owner Larry MacPhail: the newly imported field of intensely green Irish turf. The spectacle is heightened by the viewer's position as a seat-holder witnessing this historic contest under lights.

Notes:

1 When former congressman and millionaire brewery owner Jacob Rupert, who bought the team in 1915, decided to build in the Bronx, skeptics dubbed the plan "Rupert's Folly," believing that fans would never venture to a Bronx-based ballpark. The new stadium, which cost $2.5 million, was tagged "the house that Ruth Built" because of the turnaround Ruth had effected in the Yankees when he joined the team in 1920, during its final years at the Polo Grounds. The site of Yankee Stadium, formerly an undeveloped 11.6-acre plot, boasted convenient access to the subway and elevated trains.

2 Corvino's impulse to memorialize this moment in the Yankees' history may have been prompted by the team's altogether disappointing performance in the late 1960s. Beginning in 1965 the Yankees, who had been enjoying consecutive winning seasons for years, dropped to sixth place and stayed out of pennant contention through the remainder of the decade. By 1969 the team, to their ignominy, watched the New York Mets win both the National League Pennant and the World Series. See Miro Weinberger and Dan Riley, eds., The Yankee Reader (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991).


First Night Game, Yankee Stadium, May 28, 1946 1969 (depicting 1946) Paolo Corvino (b. 1930) Oil on canvas, 36 X 48 Signed lower middle: Paolo Corvino Gift of the artist, 89.34
Forty years before their apotheosis as the Bronx Bombers, the New York Yankees, then a lackluster team called the New York Highlanders, played baseball at Hilltop Park on upper Broadway. Beginning in 1913, under the newly adopted name New York Yankees, the club shared a playing field in northern Manhattan with the Giants, their competitors and official landlords at the relocated Polo Grounds on the Harlem River at 157th Street. Mounting rivalry between the clubs led to the Yankees' ouster and their migration to a new ballpark built at River Avenue and 161st Street in the Bronx. On April 18, 1923, more than twenty thousand fans had to be turned away from the sold-out opening-day game at the novel, triple-deck Yankee Stadium -the first ballpark to boast the appellation of "stadium." Initially, many who ventured to the spacious new sporting facility were lured by the exploits of Babe Ruth, the phenomenal slugger recently signed by the club.¹ But the season proved renascent for the team as a whole and culminated in the Yankees' World Series victory over their former landlords -the first in a long line of championships that endeared the Bronx Bombers to baseball devotees and spiked attendance at their home games. The war years challenged the team's management to find substitute talent for regular players lost to the armed forces and to consider ways of retaining attendance by attracting a broader spectrum of fans. Night games, considered controversial when first tested in the major leagues in 1936, were introduced gradually as a strategy to draw new working-class and family audiences to the sport. Not until the war's end, however, did lights arrive at Yankee Stadium. Combined with the return to the lineup of favorite players, the novelty of seeing games after dark paid off: in 1946 home attendance soared to nearly 70 percent over previous season highs. Paolo Corvino was in the stands for that milestone debut on May 28, 1946, when the Yankees, under the glare of artificial lights, lost to the Washington Senators, 2 -1. The event's impression remained vivid enough to elicit this painted re-creation of it some twenty-three years later.² The scoreboard indicates play under way at the bottom of the third inning. (Corvino has playfully altered the game's outcome by inverting the scores to the home team's advantage.) The roofless stadium appears ablaze with color: an unprecedented yellow radiance illuminates the park's patriotic bunting, its sponsor billboards, the rainbow blur of crowds packed into the curving stands, and the rich brown dirt of the infield diamond. More conspicuous is the artist's rendering of another innovation made to the facility that season under owner Larry MacPhail: the newly imported field of intensely green Irish turf. The spectacle is heightened by the viewer's position as a seat-holder witnessing this historic contest under lights. Notes: 1 When former congressman and millionaire brewery owner Jacob Rupert, who bought the team in 1915, decided to build in the Bronx, skeptics dubbed the plan "Rupert's Folly," believing that fans would never venture to a Bronx-based ballpark. The new stadium, which cost $2.5 million, was tagged "the house that Ruth Built" because of the turnaround Ruth had effected in the Yankees when he joined the team in 1920, during its final years at the Polo Grounds. The site of Yankee Stadium, formerly an undeveloped 11.6-acre plot, boasted convenient access to the subway and elevated trains. 2 Corvino's impulse to memorialize this moment in the Yankees' history may have been prompted by the team's altogether disappointing performance in the late 1960s. Beginning in 1965 the Yankees, who had been enjoying consecutive winning seasons for years, dropped to sixth place and stayed out of pennant contention through the remainder of the decade. By 1969 the team, to their ignominy, watched the New York Mets win both the National League Pennant and the World Series. See Miro Weinberger and Dan Riley, eds., The Yankee Reader (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991).