Roosevelt Stadium was an American outdoor sports facility located in

Union City, New Jersey Union City is a city in the northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. According to the 2020 United States Census the city had a total population of 68,589,Union City High School could be built on the site. After the school was built, its athletic complex was also named Roosevelt Stadium; the current field is located atop the school. It is not to be confused with the former baseball park of the same name in neighboring

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

’s

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

. Construction began on the stadium in 1936, with 350 men. Built in the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style, and modeled after the

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world to ...

and arenas of ancient

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, the ribbon-cutting ceremony that opened it was held on November 25, 1937.Recreation page at Union City's official site; Accessed January 19, 2010
/ref> The stadium was bounded on the east by Summit Avenue and on the west by Kerrigan Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard (formerly

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...

Boulevard) between 24th and 26th Streets. Roosevelt Stadium stood 15 rows deep, and initially housed 7,000 people, with subsequent renovations enlarging that capacity to 11,000 and ultimately 18,000. The stadium also featured a tool house, dressing rooms, and a cafeteria. Primarily a football stadium, future

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

greats

Lou Cordileone Louis Anthony Cordileone (born August 4, 1937) is a former American football offensive lineman, primarily guard, who in nine years played six seasons in the National Football League, for five different teams. He played college football at Clems ...

and Frank Winters played during their high school days at Roosevelt Stadium, as did College Football Hall of Famer

Ed Franco Edmondo Guido Armando Franco (April 24, 1915 – November 18, 1992) was a professional American football player. He earned fame as one of the legendary Seven Blocks of Granite and played professionally for the Boston Yanks. He was inducted int ...

. However, Roosevelt also housed events in semi-pro

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

, as well as numerous special events, from

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

pulls, concerts, carnivals and

Fourth of July Independence Day (colloquially the Fourth of July) is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the Declaration of Independence, which was ratified by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing the United States ...

fireworks Fireworks are a class of Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a l ...

shows to an exhibition baseball game featuring

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

and

Lou Gehrig Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned f ...

. On September 9, 1994, the city held a grand re-opening of the Stadium, after it had been renovated and modernized. These improvements included the addition of artificial sports turf to replace the outdated field that was often muddy or dusty.

Turkey game

The stadium's most noteworthy annual event was the

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...

football Turkey Game, held from 1919 - 2004 between long-time rivals Emerson High School's Bulldogs and Union Hill High School's Hillers. In competing for the Hudson County Interscholastic Football Championship, Union Hill beat Emerson five consecutive years from 1923 to 1927. During the November 1927 game, Union Hill beat their rivals 19 to 0 in front of a crowd of 12,000 people. For 88 consecutive years, the most notable aspect of their rivalry on the field was the annual Turkey Game, held on Thanksgiving, a tradition that began in 1919, when the high schools served the neighboring towns of West Hoboken in the south and Union Hill in the north, a rivalry described as "simmering hatred" that gave the schools' principals cause to fear that the first game might turn ugly. That game ended in a tie of 0-0. When the towns of Union Hill and West Hoboken merged in 1925 to form the city of Union City, the Turkey Game remained, despite the fact that schools in the same district usually do not often compete directly against each other.Hu, Winnie (November 22, 2007)
"After 88 Years of Rivalry, the Last as Us and Them"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Accessed January 2, 2008. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Turkey Game attracted as many as 15,000 fans. A wooden chariot would be pulled around the field at halftime, carrying the football king and queen from the defending school, who were booed and pelted with paper when they got to the opposing side of Roosevelt Stadium. This part of the tradition fell into disuse by the early 1970s.

Stanley M. Sanger, who graduated from Emerson in 1969, and who never set foot in Union Hill until he became a teacher, characterized the Union Hill-Emerson rivalry by saying, "It's our Mason-Dixon line. You knew Union Hill was north and Emerson was south, and you respected the boundary. It was the natural state of things." An old traditional greeting before the game was "Are we having hot turkey or cold turkey?", as the loser was said to eat "cold turkey", figuratively speaking. Over the decades, coaches were known to zealously guard their game plans and players, who were alert for spies, were often excused from their classes to practice in secret locations. When sharing Roosevelt Stadium for practice, they would use opposite ends of the 50 yard line. While the athletic coaches were not permitted to recruit players from the rival school, students were known to often recruit players from the elementary and middle schools to attend their high schools. A 50 lbs. brass trophy whose base is engraved with scores from every game, was passed back and forth between the two schools, and the winning school was rewarded with a half-day of school on the Monday after the game. According to David Wilcomes, a former football player and later football coach and the last principal of Union Hill High School, the Turkey Game developed a nearly religious significance as a Thanksgiving ritual for Union City citizens, and a loss for one's favored team would cast a pall upon the day's subsequent holiday festivities, commenting, "If you don’t win, it's a long Thanksgiving dinner." Wilcomes, whose father also played for Union Hill, stated that he stopped answering his home following losing games because his strategies would be endlessly reviewed and second-guessed by various relatives. By 2007, the Union City district spent $130,000 annually on football. During a halftime ceremony held during the 1998 Turkey Game, Union City Mayor Raul Garcia dedicated the field of the stadium to the Emerson High School Hall of Fame great Joseph "Pep" Novotny, who had died less than a month prior. The phrase "Joseph 'Pep' Novotny Field" was later added beneath the words "Roosevelt Stadium" on the Kennedy Boulevard side of the stadium. Neither school was a regional powerhouse. Statistically, both endured cycles of consecutive wins and losses, and were roughly even in statistics, with Emerson having won 40 games, Union Hill, 39, and 9 ties. Union Hill won the 2006 game, while Emerson won the seven games prior. The Turkey Game tradition ended with its final game on November 22, 2007, prior to the two schools' merger into Union City High School, which is now housed on the site of the former Roosevelt Stadium, and features an athletic field on its roof. (During the year between the end of the Turkey Game and the September 2009 opening of Union City High School, the two schools shared the facilities at José Martí Middle School.) The district spent $2,000 on newspaper ads to invite alumni from around the state to the game, and to an alumni breakfast that preceded it. The district installed additional bleachers to accommodate an expected turnout of more than 4,000. It sold commemorative tickets featuring photos of the 1919 Union Hill and Emerson teams, and a game program whose proceeds went the new school's scholarship fund. During the final game, both principals sat together at halftime to present a united front, and the players on both teams were required to wear T-shirts bearing the new school's name under their shoulder pads. The final Turkey game was attended by 6,000 spectators, including Senator

Robert Menendez Robert Menendez (; born January 1, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from New Jersey, a seat he has held since 2006. Gale (publisher), Gale Biography I ...

Fahim, Kareen (November 24, 2007)
"High Schools’ Football Rivalry Is Now History"
''The New York Times''. (an alumnus of Union Hill"MENENDEZ, Robert, (1954 - )"
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved September 23, 2012.), and saw Union Hill beat Emerson with a score of 20–8, evening the rivalry at 40 wins apiece with nine ties. The Turkey Game trophy is today housed in Union City High School, whose players are known as the Soaring Eagles.Pizarro, Max (October 3, 2009)
"Stack honors McGreevey at new high school opening"

PolitickerNJ The Politicker Network, or Politicker.com, was a national network of fifty state-based political websites operated by the ''New York Observer''. Origins The network had its origins in journalist Ben Smith's ''New York Observer'' blog, "''The Poli ...

. The end of the Turkey Game came amid waning Thanksgiving football traditions in communities across the United States, as earlier football season and competing holiday demands on players and their families have made them less relevant. Post-holiday state championships have also overtaken such traditions in importance, as coaches grew reluctant to risk injury to players headed for the championships.

Demolition

The stadium was closed to make way for a new $136 million Union City High School and Union City Athletic Complex, which unites both Emerson High School and

Union Hill High School Union Hill High School was a public high school serving students in grades 9–12 from Union City in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States, operating as one of two high schools of the Union City Board of Education, an Abbott District. The ...

into one high school. On July 11, 2005, acting New Jersey Governor Richard Codey and Union City Mayor

Brian P. Stack Brian P. Stack (born May 16, 1966) is an American Democratic Party politician who serves in the New Jersey Senate, where he represents the 33rd Legislative District and serves Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has also served as ...

, along with other officials, broke ground in preparation for the new complex. The interior of the stadium was razed and demolished the following month, and the stadium's exterior walls were demolished subsequently. In commemoration of Roosevelt Stadium, the students of Union Hill High School, under the direction of business teacher Peter Drozd, began a website dedicated to the history of the stadium and the Turkey Game. In early March 2006, a large piece of the Hudson Brewery's original brick foundation was found intact, along with the base of a manhole still connected to an original sewer that opened underneath the brewery. The artifacts were removed, and officials monitored the excavation for future discoveries of other artifacts for historical preservation. Union City High School and Athletic Complex opened for students on September 3, 2009.Melissa Rappaport (August 30, 2009). "Back to School" ''

The Union City Reporter ''The Hudson Reporter'' is a newspaper chain based in Hudson County, New Jersey. ''The Hudson Reporter'' publications mainly focus on local politics and community news. The oldest newspaper in the chain is the '' Hoboken Reporter'', founded in 198 ...

''. pp. 1 and 8.

Notes

References

*''The Union City Reporter'' (December 6, 1998) *''The Union City Reporter'' (November 28, 2004) *''The Union City Reporter'' (December 5, 2004) *''The Union City Reporter'' (July 17, 2005) *''The Union City Reporter'' (December 6, 1998) *''The Union City Reporter'' (March 12, 2006) {{Coord, 40.7703, -74.0363, region:US-NJ_type:landmark, display=title Defunct American football venues in the United States Union City, New Jersey Sports in Hudson County, New Jersey Works Progress Administration in New Jersey High school football venues in the United States American football venues in New Jersey 1936 establishments in New Jersey Demolished sports venues in New Jersey Sports venues demolished in 2005