SNY: Belth: For some, Giants not forgotten

Skeeter Scalzi lives! Alex Belth checks in on the New York Giants Nostalgia Society.

“By the middle 50s,” says Roger Kahn, “there was a sense that it wasn’t safe around the Polo Grounds. You had to drive through Harlem and racial tensions were building. The perception was that it was dangerous to go up there. It’s hard to think they couldn’t even draw 700,000 in ‘57 with Willie Mays in center field, but it happened.”

“It was tough to get there with a car and the neighborhood was changing,” says Alan Schmidt, a retired fireman who has been attending meetings with Kent since the group’s inception. “I can’t blame them for not staying in the Polo Grounds, as much as I miss it all. I probably spent more time there than Willie Mays. It was my second home.”