Of the few permanent structures that opened in Flushing Meadow in April 1964, the one that was intended as the greatest long-term legacy lay just outside the Fair's Main Entrance, across a walkway and parking lot: Shea Stadium, the brand new home of both the New York Mets baseball team and New York Jets (formerly Titans) AFL football team.
It was only coincidence caused by construction delays that saw Shea Stadium open at the same time the World's Fair did. The original planning had called for it to be ready the previous season (the Mets had even held a farewell to the Polo Grounds ceremony at the end of the 1962 season and then were forced to do it again at the end of 1963). In many ways the timing worked out perfectly as it allowed Shea to stand out as part of the aura of dynamic Space Age progress that the Fair symbolized. Shea Stadium was the first new stadium for New Yorkers in more than 40 years and it epitomized all the things that Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field were not.
At Shea a spectator could finally, for the first time, not have to worry about getting a seat with an obstructed view caused by a support post, that for all ballparks built before the 1950s was a necessary evil in order to accommodate a multi-level facility. At Shea a suburban visitor could make use of an ocean of available parking space for his car, something that wasn't available at Yankee Stadium or either of the bygone ballparks. And at Shea a visitor from the more upscale suburban communities could see a game without the uneasy feeling that he had put his safety at risk by coming to a game in a deteriorating neighborhood.
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