Washington Park Wall

From 1883 until 1891, Washington Park housed the team that would evolve into the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. Today, there are no remnants of this original park, and its site is now used for recreational purposes under the original name, which, like many things, is named after the first president of the United States.

In 1891, the team relocated to Eastern Park in Brownsville, Brooklyn, but attendance dipped as the new stadium proved to be too remote for fans. After several commercially disastrous seasons, the team then moved to a second Washington Park, located diagonally opposite the first. Only a portion of the left-center field wall remains, and is today part of a Con Edison yard.

Charlie Ebbets, the team’s owner, would spend the next 15 years investing in land located in Flatbush, where he would establish the eminent Ebbets Field. The team soon moved there and would stay until the club was infamously transplanted to Los Angeles in 1957.

The Dodgers weren’t the last ones to use the second Washington Park. The Brooklyn Tip-Tops, a team of the ill-fated Federal League, acquired the ballpark in 1914 and rebuilt it with steel and concrete. The Federal League, though, survived for only two years, and the park was consequently abandoned.