Reconsidering Elysian Fields -- October 2022: Difference between revisions
IrwinChusid (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
Line 9: | Line 9: | ||
[] A. Aspects of the role of Elysian Fields that ''we wish we knew more about. ''<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Possible example</span>: what does EF tell us about the role of unavailable local playing grounds in the diffusion of base ball? | [] A. Aspects of the role of Elysian Fields that ''we wish we knew more about. ''<span style="text-decoration: underline;" >Possible example</span>: what does EF tell us about the role of unavailable local playing grounds in the diffusion of base ball? | ||
[] B. Favorite sources of existing coverage of ballplaying at Elysian Fields for those who want to read up (or refresh their grasp) of current knowledge on Elysian Fields. | [] B. Favorite sources of existing coverage of ballplaying at Elysian Fields for those who want to read up (or refresh their grasp) of current knowledge on Elysian Fields. | ||
Line 24: | Line 24: | ||
= <br>= | = <br>= | ||
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Note:</span> By accident, an active email discussion among a smaller group broke out on September 29. Here are the 12 postings so far : we will next expand the conversation to a larger group. <p style="font-weight: 400;">'''Current Protoball Thread on EF and the Lack of Manhattan Playing Space'''<br></p> | <span style="text-decoration: underline;" >Note:</span> By accident, an active email discussion among a smaller group broke out on September 29. Here are the 12 postings so far : we will next expand the conversation to a larger group. <p style="font-weight: 400;" >'''Current Protoball Thread on EF and the Lack of Manhattan Playing Space'''<br></p> | ||
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><br></p> | <p style="font-weight: 400;" ><br></p> | ||
<div style="font-weight: 400;"><div><div><div><div><br></div> | <div style="font-weight: 400;" ><div><div><div><div><br></div> | ||
<div><div><div><div><div>1) Bruce Allardice, 9/2922<br>Irwin, Jon:<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> | <div><div><div><div><div>1) Bruce Allardice, 9/2922<br>Irwin, Jon:<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> | ||
<div><div><div><div><div><div>A question came up tonight in a conversation with Larry McCray. It is admitted that part of early baseball's attractiveness in NYC was the fact that because of the foul rule it could be played in smaller, more available spaces than alternate bat ball games such as cricket and town ball, which featured 360 degree fields. In fact this has been given as one reason early NYC baseball clubs played their games at Elysian Fields.</div> | <div><div><div><div><div><div>A question came up tonight in a conversation with Larry McCray. It is admitted that part of early baseball's attractiveness in NYC was the fact that because of the foul rule it could be played in smaller, more available spaces than alternate bat ball games such as cricket and town ball, which featured 360 degree fields. In fact this has been given as one reason early NYC baseball clubs played their games at Elysian Fields.</div> | ||
Line 96: | Line 96: | ||
8.01 Irwin Chusid 10/3 | 8.01 Irwin Chusid 10/3 | ||
:Referencing Tom's comment above — but did that apply in 1843–1846 when Hoboken became the go-to destination for countless NYC teams? Clearance for Central Park began around 1857, by which time "upper" Manhattan was being developed. Perhaps by that point there were more open spaces than there had been twenty years earlier. Brooklyn, by then, also offered more available grounds. In the 1860s, the opening of the Union and Capitoline grounds drew teams away from Hoboken. After the Civil War, the Elysian Fields went into decline and fewer NY-based teams played there.</div> | :Referencing Tom's comment above — but did that apply in 1843–1846 when Hoboken became the go-to destination for countless NYC teams? Clearance for Central Park began around 1857, by which time "upper" Manhattan was being developed. Perhaps by that point there were more open spaces than there had been twenty years earlier. Brooklyn, by then, also offered more available grounds. In the 1860s, the opening of the Union and Capitoline grounds drew teams away from Hoboken. After the Civil War, the Elysian Fields went into decline and fewer NY-based teams played there. | ||
</div> | |||
<div>===</div> | <div>===</div> | ||
<div><br></div>9) John Thorn, 10/1</div></div> | <div><br></div>9) John Thorn, 10/1</div></div> | ||
<div><br></div> | <div><br></div> | ||
<div><div>That would have been in Jones' Wood, the site initially proposed for Central Park. By 1850 Andrew Jackson Downing proposed a new location for a vast public park in New York City — a Central Park that would be located between Fifth and Eighth Avenues, running north from 59th Street. Poet William Cullen Bryant had proposed a public park six years earlier, but his idea was to place it along the rustic eastern shore of Manhattan Island, on the site then known as Jones’ Wood. “The heats of summer are upon us,” Bryant wrote,</div> | <div><div>That would have been in Jones' Wood, the site initially proposed for Central Park. By 1850 Andrew Jackson Downing proposed a new location for a vast public park in New York City — a Central Park that would be located between Fifth and Eighth Avenues, running north from 59th Street. Poet William Cullen Bryant had proposed a public park six years earlier, but his idea was to place it along the rustic eastern shore of Manhattan Island, on the site then known as Jones’ Wood. “The heats of summer are upon us,” Bryant wrote,</div> | ||
<div><em style="font-weight: inherit;"><br></em></div> | <div><em style="font-weight: inherit;" ><br></em></div> | ||
<div><em style="font-weight: inherit;">"and while some are leaving the town for shady retreats in the country, others refresh themselves with short excursions to Hoboken or New Brighton, or other places among the beautiful environs of our city. If the public authorities who expend so much of our money in laying out the city, would do what is in their power, they might give our vast population an extensive pleasure ground for shade and recreation in these sultry afternoons, which we might reach without going out of town…. All large cities have their extensive public grounds and gardens, Madrid and Mexico their Alamedas, London its Regent’s Park, Paris its Champs Elysées, and Vienna its Prater. There are none of them, we believe, which have the same natural advantages of the picturesque and beautiful which belong to this spot."</em></div> | <div><em style="font-weight: inherit;" >"and while some are leaving the town for shady retreats in the country, others refresh themselves with short excursions to Hoboken or New Brighton, or other places among the beautiful environs of our city. If the public authorities who expend so much of our money in laying out the city, would do what is in their power, they might give our vast population an extensive pleasure ground for shade and recreation in these sultry afternoons, which we might reach without going out of town…. All large cities have their extensive public grounds and gardens, Madrid and Mexico their Alamedas, London its Regent’s Park, Paris its Champs Elysées, and Vienna its Prater. There are none of them, we believe, which have the same natural advantages of the picturesque and beautiful which belong to this spot."</em></div> | ||
<div><em style="font-weight: inherit;"><br></em></div> | <div><em style="font-weight: inherit;" ><br></em></div> | ||
<div><div>Further, my caption and image from New York 400 (2009):</div> | <div><div>Further, my caption and image from New York 400 (2009):</div> | ||
<div><br></div> | <div><br></div> | ||
Line 151: | Line 152: | ||
<div>===</div> | <div>===</div> | ||
<div><br></div> | <div><br></div> | ||
<div><br></div> | <div><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;" >Learning More about Elysian Fields: Some Favorite Starting Points</span><br></p><p><br></p><p> [] Gilbert, Thomas, How Baseball Happened (David R. Godine, Boston, 2020) pages 81-102.<br></p><p> <br></p><p> [] Mann, William A., "Elysian Fields of Hoboken, New Jersey", Base Ball, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 2007, pp 78. - 102.</p><p> <br></p><p> [] Popovich, Jonathan and Irwin Chusid, 2022 webinar on Elysian Fields, </p>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwJGWeWDHPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwJGWeWDHPA]<p><br></p><p> [] Thorn, John, , "The Cauldron of Baseball,'Baseball in the the Garden of Eden, (Simon and Shuster, 2011, pages 85-104.<br></p><p><br></p><p> [] John Thorn, "The Cauldron of Baseball,'Baseball in the the Garden of Eden, (Simon and Shuster, 2011, pages 85-104.<br></p><p><br></p><p>Got another favorite source? Let Larry know. Would it be helpful to assemble an EF bibliography for this list? Let him know.</p></div> | ||
<br></div> | <br></div> | ||
<div><br></div> | <div><br></div> | ||
<br></div> | <br></div> | ||
<div><em style="font-weight: inherit;"><br></em></div> | <div><em style="font-weight: inherit;" ><br></em></div> | ||
<br></div> | <br></div> | ||
<div><br></div> | <div><br></div> |
Revision as of 17:44, 6 October 2022
Protoball is opening a page on the state of knowledge about Elysian Fields and its influence on the evolution of base ball. Irwin Chusid and Jon Popovich have expressed strong interest in writing further about Elysian Fields, and will participate in this limited-term discussion. For a riveting presentation on Elysian Fields from a base ball researcher's point of view, see Irwin and Jonathan's recent Youtube presentation at:
As something of a time-limited experiment in supporting current Origins research, we plan to resume the stimulating e-mail discussion of new research on the role of Elysian Fields in the evolution of ball-playing that Peter Mancuso initiated a couple of months ago. That group included several of our best-informed authors and observers. Irwin and Jon will participate.
Some issues that seem likely to be covered include:
[] A. Aspects of the role of Elysian Fields that we wish we knew more about. Possible example: what does EF tell us about the role of unavailable local playing grounds in the diffusion of base ball?
[] B. Favorite sources of existing coverage of ballplaying at Elysian Fields for those who want to read up (or refresh their grasp) of current knowledge on Elysian Fields.
[] C. Other factors ("threads") that we haven't thought of at this point.
While the main fun may well be in the e-mail exchanges that ensue, Protoball will import material from the discussion on this page for the benefit of future Origins researchers.
-- Larry McCray, 9/30/2022
Current Protoball Thread on EF and the Lack of Manhattan Playing Space
Irwin, Jon:
Our projected book is about the totality of the EF, with base ball one of many aspects to be addressed. My sense of Protoball's involvement is to aggregate facts (journalistic and visual) about base ball, cricket, and other ball games being played at the EF, but not to delve into the history of the parkland, which pre-dates what we know as base ball. The fields were developed by Col. John Stevens as a public amusement area in the late 1820s and early 1830s. At the time of Col. Stevens' death in 1838, I suspect he had never heard of base ball.
Irwin
8.01 Irwin Chusid 10/3
- Referencing Tom's comment above — but did that apply in 1843–1846 when Hoboken became the go-to destination for countless NYC teams? Clearance for Central Park began around 1857, by which time "upper" Manhattan was being developed. Perhaps by that point there were more open spaces than there had been twenty years earlier. Brooklyn, by then, also offered more available grounds. In the 1860s, the opening of the Union and Capitoline grounds drew teams away from Hoboken. After the Civil War, the Elysian Fields went into decline and fewer NY-based teams played there.
Picnic Season, 1873: This early summer number of the popular illustrated weekly Daily Graphic provides a handy key to New York’s garden spots for excursions—even after the opening of Central Park. Steamboat excursions up the Hudson or ferry rides across it had been popular for decades. By 1873 the Elysian Fields of Hoboken were in decline as commercial interests had gobbled up much of the former workingman’s paradise. But now he had Fort Lee and good old Jones’ Wood, the spot rejected as the site of Central Park but still popular for German turnvereins, Caledonian games, and good rowdy fun of the sort depicted here by Jules Tavernier. The Daily Graphic was one of many illustrated weeklies popular at the time—Harper’s Weekly, Leslie’s, Police Gazette and more—but it was notable for its focus on city affairs and historic for its launch in 1880 of photomechanical engraving, the halftone process by which photographs might be reproduced. Within twenty years engraving would go the way of the dodo.
Yorkville was also the site of a baseball grounds, cited in Peverelly as being, in 1859, at Eighty-first street and Second avenue.
The last, I promise. I sent this to the 19cbb list on Sept 6, 2004, with a header of Pre-1871 NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and NJ Ball Grounds:
===
===
Learning More about Elysian Fields: Some Favorite Starting Points
[] Gilbert, Thomas, How Baseball Happened (David R. Godine, Boston, 2020) pages 81-102.
[] Mann, William A., "Elysian Fields of Hoboken, New Jersey", Base Ball, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 2007, pp 78. - 102.
[] Popovich, Jonathan and Irwin Chusid, 2022 webinar on Elysian Fields,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwJGWeWDHPA [] Thorn, John, , "The Cauldron of Baseball,'Baseball in the the Garden of Eden, (Simon and Shuster, 2011, pages 85-104.
[] John Thorn, "The Cauldron of Baseball,'Baseball in the the Garden of Eden, (Simon and Shuster, 2011, pages 85-104.
Got another favorite source? Let Larry know. Would it be helpful to assemble an EF bibliography for this list? Let him know.