Elegant New Grounds

The St. Louis Browns will have elegant new grounds next year. They will be easily accessible by electric and cable cars. The field will be 450 feet wide and 580 feet long. The home plate will be 120 feet from the grand stand. There will be carriage accommodations outside of this space. The design of the grand stand will be of the Romanesque order. The stand will be 300 feet long and 60 feet deep and have a seating capacity of 3,000. Directly adjoining it are two handsomely-arranged pavilions with a seating capacity of 3,500. The open seats will have a capacity of 7,000. The grand stand will have three towers 8 feet high, one at each end and one in the centre. The towers will contain four tiers of private boxes, six seats to a tier, making twenty-four seats to a tower. In the centre tower will be finely-arranged quarters for the press and newspaper men will be well provided for. The reserved seats will be folding chairs, cushioned, and grand stand patrons will have plenty of space. A clubhouse will be erected and a quarter-mile cinder track will also be a feature. The total outlay will foot up to nearly $50,000.

-The New York Times, September 6, 1892

Several interesting things here. First, the plans for seats and a press box in the towers is pretty neat. I've never heard about seats in the towers at New Sportsman's Park before but if you look at the picture at the top of the post it does look like there's seating in the tower. Second, the article gives the cost of building the park at around $50,000 which is consistent with other sources. Lastly, when I wrote about the 1898 fire at New Sportsman's Park the question of how far home plate was from the grandstand came up. This article answers that question (or at least answers how far the plate was planned to be from the grandstand.).