Sheepshead Bay Race Track |
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Mr. Leonard Jerome, who hung out with William K. Vanderbilt in the Manhattan Beach Hotel, and with help from Pierre Lorillard Jr. organized the Sheepshead Bay racetrack, which hosted meets for the Coney Island Jockey Club. Horseracing credits aside, this same Mr. Jerome, a Sheepshead Bay resident whom Jerome Avenue is named for, is Sir Winston Churchill’s American Grandfather. On December 4, 1879 in Leonard Jerome’s house, built on 112 acres of mostly woodland with a heavy forestation of Cedar trees, was purchased from a group whose names included Voorhies, Emmons and Stillwell, now three major avenues in Southern Brooklyn. The racetrack oval was bordered to the south by Voorhees Lane and Jerome Avenue, its western border nearly reaching Ocean Avenue, to the north on that pleasant little local train stop called Neck Road, and to the East at Knapp Street. While the history books don’t go deep into Leonard Jerome’s life, an educated guess must be that he prospered throughout the racetrack years enough to keep his daughter Jenny in socialite circles. One later day she would meet and ultimately marry British Lord Randolph Churchill. The geographical journey of the islands and mainland that is now called New York City has gone from a sort of Garden of Eden, to Parks Commissioner Robert Moses' concrete blanket in the 1930s. As my friends and I walked those concrete sidewalks in the 1960s and ’70s over street names of past residents called Knapp, Nostrand, Bedford, and Voorhies, it seemed impossible that the stretch run, or quarter pole of a racetrack, could one day long past have claimed that ground. The racetrack now belongs to folklore. Some of its great race events such as the Suburban Handicap and Futurity outlived this track into the oval of Belmont. There was also early aviation record setting flights that took off from there. Its prime years occurred when baseball was a baby, in a glorious infancy with characters such as John McGraw, Cy Young, the Baltimore Orioles moving to NY and becoming the Highlanders who later became the Yankees, and people dodging trolleys on Bedford Avenue near Ebbets Field. The Brooklyn nickname was shortened from "Trolley Dodgers" to "Brooklyn Dodgers." The track existed in a time before the modern automobile and the New York parkway system, which would bring commuters in, out, and around New York City. They raced before there were more entertainment choices such as movies with sound, the NBA, NHL, and NFL. The city park system and a mindset placing importance on recreational land were just forming. The industrial age was in full swing and profits dictated building factories with little concern for parks. Great beaches such as Jones Beach and Riis Park would come much later. Robert Moses, the famous Parks Commissioner to-be and sculptor of 20th century New York, was still a student in his teenage years when horses ran in Sheepshead Bay. One must assume that many people attended the Sheepshead Bay Race Track, with a passion that carried over through the years into other New York sports, beaches, travel, and weekend diversions commensurate to a working class of people looking for fun on their days off. Sheepshead Bay is the birthplace of perhaps the greatest horse racing trainer of all time. “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons was born in 1874 and lived at 1170 Sheepshead Bay Road between Avenue X and Y. He is the only trainer to win two triple crowns; one with Gallant Fox in 1930, and Omaha in 1935. He was considered the “Dean of American Trainers. “Mr. Fitz” trained 3 Kentucky Derby winners, 4 Preakness wins, and back in NY celebrated 6 Belmont Stake’s victories. He trained Nashua and Bold Ruler, who sired the legendary Secretariat. Jim Fitzsimmons resume is amazing and reads like a who’s who of racing legends and important races. Aside from the Triple Crown races he trained winners in 7 Jockey Club Gold Cups, and 7 Wood Memorial Stakes. Other major stakes wins were 10 Saratoga Cups, 9 Dwyer Stakes, 8 Lawrence Realizations, 8 Alabama Stakes, and 5 Suburban Handicaps. His life inspired Jimmy Breslin to write “Sunny Jim: The Life of America’s Most Beloved Horseman.” The title says it all. Mr. Fitzsimmons’ life was also included in Edward Bowen’s “Master’s of the Turf: Ten Trainers Who Dominated Racings Golden Age.” In 1958 he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. The National Turf Writer’s Association created the “Mr. Fitz” award to honor a member of the horse racing fraternity each year. While Mr. Fitzsimmons’ house just like the Sheepshead Bay Race Track is no longer standing, his achievements in the Sport of Kings will live on forever. He was one of a kind, and to those who follow horse racing, is most certainly revered. His credentials put him in any debate as the greatest ever, and that’s a tall achievement indeed. Several incidents including a riot at a Brighton Beach racetrack in 1908 built support for an anti-gambling referendum in New York City that was passed in 1909. In 1910 the New York State Legislature banned betting. Beach hotels met the wrecker’s ball in the years soon after 1910 when gambling became illegal in New York City. The widespread gambling ban included horse racing. This is from a place which about sixty years later would legalize Off Track Betting. Here is that cycle of history, up and down waves, cycles repeating over a span of years, the illegal becoming legal, the economy up or down, the neighborhood with a millionaire’s row, palatial hotels, or boarded up businesses. There were three racetracks in Brooklyn and they all closed and were dismantled. Two racetracks in Queens waited out the ban and reopened in 1916 when that ban was lifted. They are called Aqueduct and Belmont. While the loss of the racetrack and hotels made more land available for red brick working class apartment houses, one could only wonder "what if" at least one hotel stayed in existence. next: Chapter 6: |
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New York Around 1600 and Brooklyn Names |
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