In 1908, Madigan Hall had agreed to end its conservatorship of the Whales and grant control of the franchise to a local businessman named George Bromwich. Bromwich, as much a dreamer as an empire builder, saw an opportunity with the Whales. A firm believer in never paying full price, he saw an opportunity to buy a championship-caliber organization (indeed, Brooklyn secured a Legacy Cup victory in Bromwich’s first year of club ownership) that had been tainted by scandal, with its players and fans prone to acts of violence, from a league office not well-suited to day-to-day team management for less than it was worth. He justified the past behavior of the organization by understanding what it was: the loud and furious death rattle of a fading outlaw era of baseball. The future, he believed, would be more civilized. He believed this maturation of the game of baseball was necessary to attract a larger base of fans to the ballpark–with women previously alienated from the rowdy male crowds–and to charge them more money for the experience. And, he knew, that the acculturation of baseball into higher income brackets could not be fully realized without a more sophisticated venue than the rickety wooden parks of old.
Bromwich had approached the Legacy Baseball League about purchasing the team with both a grand vision of what baseball should look like in the 20th century and the promise of the use of prime Brooklyn real estate for the construction of a new modern wonder. Still struggling to generate interest in the sport–although not without progress–Commissioner Jacob Parker allowed himself to be persuaded by Bromwich’s vision, by his financial resources, and by the covenants in the purchase agreement both to keep the current Whales leadership team, handpicked by Parker, in place and to establish a fund from Brooklyn’s gate proceeds to raise compensation of players leaguewide.
The real estate that Bromwich promised Madigan Hall was a factory complex sitting on a larger-than-usual, slightly misshapen city block in an industrial section of Brooklyn. Like the game of baseball itself, it was located in the city but was still waiting to be urbanized. However, the site had obvious potential with its easy accessibility by trolley line and Bromwich’s plans for further residential development of the surrounding area.
The vision of baseball that Bromwich sold was the marriage of baseball’s pastoral past and sense of tradition with a new and deeply urban experience. He envisioned his park as a modern wonder and source of civic pride open to all paying customers. Bromwich’s original plans could best be described as a baseball palace–ornate and with renaissance era-arches–with the grandstands lit by impressive custom-built chandeliers. In his vision, steel and concrete would serve as the literal foundation for his new park and as a metaphorical buttress to baseball’s march into modernity.
With construction set to begin in the fall of 1908, Bromwich anticipated the park’s availability for Opening Day 1909. Using his political influence, Bromwich had cleared the way for a quick and relatively cheap construction process. Unfortunately, Bromwich would learn during his time on top of the Brooklyn organization, the Whales often do things the hard way.
Delays immediately beset the project. Local protests slowed construction to a crawl. Organizing efforts of the construction workers nearly derailed the project entirely. Lawsuits from the neighboring American Can Company over the original design’s infringing on their factory’s rights to light and air further delayed progress.
Finally, in May of 1911, construction on the Whales’ new ballpark in Brooklyn arrived with a great collective exhale from both Madigan Hall and the team’s owner, George Bromwich. The project, nearly 3 years in the making, ended up costing over Bromwich $1.2 million and required a staggering $700,000 in overruns.
The design of the stadium–originally envisioned as a palatial structure–quickly became a compromise to the chaotic layout of the city around it. Streets sliced and curled what would have otherwise been an orderly lot. Per court order, the park needed to yield to the factory of the American Can Company neighboring it.
To comply with the court mandate, Bromwich abandoned his plans to build a park reaching up towards the heavens in a triumphant proclamation. Instead, he chose to build down. Bromwich dugout the site to allow for wrap-around bleachers across most of the outfield. The original American Can Company factory, purchased by the Brooklyn Whales decades later, stands prominently in the backdrop of the park from left-to-left-center. A byproduct of digging down, a fence measuring 45 feet in height was constructed in right field to prevent potential paying customers from getting a free show. The end result was a park that looked and played like no other stadium before or since.
The grand facade that Bromwich had originally envisioned yielded to a mostly brick construction to match the surrounding industrial architecture. After the overruns, the nobility of the grandstands–replete with chandoliers and marble floor–were abandoned. Instead, the intimate Bromwich Park, with great sightlines for Brooklyn rooters anywhere in the park, became an ode to and an echo of its industrial surroundings. Bromwich Park was born of Brooklyn, and the end result was a beloved ballpark nestled into its surrounding environment like a coiled spring ready to explode with energy.
While the park was never considered a modern wonder, to the chagrin of Bromwich, it did become a source of immense civic pride. Years later, reflecting on the stadium that bore his name, an elderly Bromwich was quoted as saying, “Even though I could have built three ballparks for what I paid for it, and it looks nothing like I thought it would, I am proud to have built this one.”