William A. Shea Municipal Stadium was located adjacent to CitiField which is there today. It was originally to be called "Flushing Meadow Park Municipal Stadium" After 29 months and $28.5 million, Shea Stadium opened on April 17, 1964, with the Mets losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates, before a crowd of 50,312. It was the home of the Mets from 1964 to 2008. It was demolished to furnish additional parking for the adjacent Citi Field, the current home of the Mets.
Shea Stadium was dismantled, rather than imploded. Stadium fragments and memorabilia were sold to fans. The seats were the first to go ($869 a pair) followed by the foul poles, dugouts, stadium signage, and the giant letters that spell out "SHEA" at the front of the building. Actual demolition of the ballpark began in October 2008. On January 31, Mets fans all over New York came to Shea for one final farewell to Shea Stadium. The last remaining section of seats was demolished on February 18. Shea's home plate,pitcher's mound, and the bases are immortalized in Citi Field's parking lot, and feature engravings of the neon baseball players that once graced the exterior of the stadium.
Shea Stadium was the home of the New York Mets since its inception in 1964, and hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game that same year. The New York Yankees played their home games in Shea Stadium during the 1974 and 1975 seasons. Football’s New York Jets played at Shea for twenty seasons, from 1964 to 1983. The football field at Shea extended from around home plate all the way to the outfield, with the baseline seating rotating out to fill left and right fields. New York United of the American Soccer League called Shea home in 1980.
One of the most significant concerts in music history occurred at Shea Stadium on Sunday, August 15, 1965, when The Beatles opened their 1965 North American tour there to a record audience of 55,600. The Beatles played only 12 songs that night. Film footage taken at the concert shows many teenagers and women crying, screaming, and even fainting. The crowd noise was such that security guards can be seen covering their ears as the The Beatles entered the field. Nevertheless, it was the first concert to be held at a major stadium and set records for attendance and revenue generation, and led the Beatles to return again to Shea for a very successful encore on 23 August 1966. The attendance record stood until 1971 when it was broken by Grand Funk Railroad. The stadium has hosted numerous concerts since, the last being a two-night engagement by Billy Joel on July 16, and July 18, 2008. The 1978 International Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses was held at Shea Stadium in July. During his tour of America in October 1979, Pope John Paul II was also among those hosted by Shea Stadium. On the morning of the Pontiff's visit, Shea Stadium was awash in torrential rain, causing ankle-deep mud puddles, and threatened to ruin the event. But as the Popemobile entered the stadium, the rain stopped. Between 1972 and 1980, Shea also hosted 3 WWF wrestling events. Shea was also the home to a number of movies including Godzilla: The Series and The Wiz. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the stadium became a staging area for rescuers, its parking lots filled with food, water, medical supplies, even makeshift shelters where relief workers could sleep.
Shea was a circular stadium, with the grandstand forming a perfect circle around the field and ending a short distance beyond the foul lines. The remainder of the perimeter was mostly empty space beyond the outfield fences. This space was occupied by the bullpens, scoreboards, and a section of bleachers beyond the left field fence. The stadium boasted 54 restrooms, 21 escalators and seats for 57,343. It was big, airy, sparkling, with a massive 86' x 175' scoreboard. Also, rather than the standard light towers, Shea had lamps along its upper reaches which gave the field that unique high-wattage glow. Praised for its convenience, even its "elegance," Shea was actually deemed a showplace. The design also allowed for Shea Stadium to be expandable to 90,000 seats (by completely enclosing the grandstand), or to be later enclosed by a dome if warranted. In 1965, a plan was formally announced to add a glass dome and add 15,000 seats. The Mets strongly objected to the proposal. The idea was dropped after engineering studies concluded that the stadium's foundation would be unable to support the weight of the dome. Originally, all of the seats were wooden, with each level having a different color. The game ticket was the same color as the seat that it was for, and the signs in the lobby for that section were the same color as the seat and the ticket. Before the 1980 baseball season they were replaced with red, green, blue, and orange plastic seats. Before Shea Stadium closed, it was the only stadium in the Major Leagues with orange foul poles. This tradition is carried on at Citi Field as the foul poles there are the same color. The scoreboard was topped by a representation of the New York Skyline, a prominent part of the team logo. The scoreboard was demolished in October 2008, but the skyline was preserved and is now located in Citi Field's "Taste Of The City" food court behind the giant scoreboard in center field.