Thompson Stadium was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

stadium located on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

and used by the

Staten Island Stapletons The Staten Island Stapletons also known as the Staten Island Stapes were a professional American football team founded in 1915 that played in the National Football League from 1929 to 1932. The team was based in the Stapleton section of State ...

of the

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 ...

from 1924 until 1933. It was located on the site of present Berta A. Dreyfus Intermediate School 49 and the

Stapleton Houses The Stapleton Houses are a housing project in the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island, New York City. The project consists of six 8-story buildings with 693 apartment units. It covers and is bordered by Tompkins Avenue, and Broad, Hill, Warre ...

. The stadium was built in the early 1920s by the wealthy owner of the local Thompson's Lumber Company. It was built against a hill in Staten Island's Stapleton neighborhood and doubled in summer as a home for

semi-pro ''Semi-Pro'' is a 2008 American sports comedy film. The film was directed by Kent Alterman in his directorial debut, written by Scot Armstrong, and produced by Jimmy Miller. It stars Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin and Maura Tier ...

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 ...

. Inside its stockade fence, about 8,000 uncovered bleacher seats encircled the field. The field's locker rooms consisted of sheds standing just outside the fence. Stapleton's owner,

Dan Blaine Daniel Blaine (1891–1958) was a professional football player for the Staten Island Stapletons from 1915 until 1924. In 1915 he, along with three other players, formed the team to play other semi-pro teams from New York and New Jersey. He suspe ...

, owned a restaurant which was located next door to the stadium, and after games and practices players and fans would meet up for beers. While an average of 3,000 fans normally paid their way into each game, hundreds of others would usually watch the game for free from the hill behind the south end zone. Although far smaller than other NFL venues, like the

Polo Grounds The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...

and

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Wh ...

, Thompson's Stadium hosted four years of NFL football. The stadium was demolished in 1958, and the borough of Staten Island would be left without a professional ballpark until the Ballpark at St. George was completed in 2001.

References

* * * {{Defunct NFL stadiums Sports venues in New York (state) Defunct National Football League venues American football venues in New York City Baseball venues in New York City Staten Island Stapletons Sports venues in Staten Island 1920s establishments in New York City 1958 disestablishments in New York (state) Sports venues demolished in 1958