Michael W. Mitchell still remembers the days fondly.
From his childhood home on 162nd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, he and his family would walk two blocks to the John T. Brush Stairway, down the steps and onto a grassy knoll, then across the street to what was then the upper level of the Polo Grounds. There were no busy highways, no guardrails — just the welcoming sights and sounds of baseball.
Decades later, Mitchell stood in the same spot he had many times as a kid, with the Brush stairwell looming at his back, gazing at what used to be his haven. Now all that stands on that hallowed ground are stained reddish-brown public housing buildings, the stadium that once housed five major New York sports teams left to linger in the memories of aging fans.
But on Thursday, the city took a step toward remembering.
At a rededication ceremony at the bottom of the Brush Stairway, the New York Department of Parks and Recreation officially unveiled renovations — which were completed last year — on 102nd anniversary of the stairwell’s opening. It signified a commitment to the rich history of New York baseball, and more specifically the Giants organization that departed for San Francisco in 1958.
“There’s one thing that New Yorkers do not have, and that’s a lack of pride. We care about our place,” said former Met and Yankee Lee Mazzilli, who grew up in Brooklyn. “We talk about Yankee Stadium being the cathedral of baseball. We know how iconic the Stadium is. But before Yankee Stadium, that’s what the Polo Grounds was. It was a part of baseball history, but more importantly, people forget that right here where we stand was a part of American history.”
The New York baseball Giants presented the Brush Stairway to the City of New York on July 9, 1913, naming it honor of former owner John T. Brush, who died in 1912. The stairwell served as an important passageway for fans to travel from the top of Coogan’s Bluff’s rocky cliffs down to Polo Grounds, the home of the baseball and football Giants, the Yankees, the Jets and later, the Mets.
Mitchell was one of the residents who frequented the Brush Stairway as a kid. So was New York Assemblyman Denny Farrell.
Farrell grew up two blocks away from the Polo Grounds on 159th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, and he remembers one day when the Cardinals were playing at the stadium. The team took the wrong train and ended up on 157th Street and Broadway instead of 157th and 8th Avenue.

They had no choice but to pick up their bags and walk to the stadium, marching right past Farrell’s home with their Cardinals jackets on.
“Look there’s a ball team here!” Farrell remembers hollering to his friends. “A real ball team!”
Farrell and his friends followed the team down the Brush Stairway and all the way to the Polo Grounds.
“The stadium was beautiful,” Farrell said. “I’ll never forget that. I didn’t know that a baseball game could be so beautiful and so pretty.”
A number of other respected figures helped celebrate the rededication, including New York City Park Commissioner Mitchell Silver, Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost and San Francisco Giants Executive Vice President of Communications Staci Slaughter.
But the real reason for the ceremony was the fans — people like Mitchell who think back to their days watching Giants games at the Polo Grounds and smile.
“It was one of the few things in life that you had to do that was fun,” Mitchell said.