The John T. Brush Stairway: Donated by the NY Giants 1912

On Edgecomb Ave. & 157th St. in Washington Heights Manhattan there lies a broken decayed stairway that is one of the greatest baseball artifacts in New York. That relic is a 175 ft. staircase built down the area known as Coogan’s Bluff. The staircase once led to the ticket booths behind home plate of the Polo Grounds.

The John T. Brush Stairway was built by NY Giants owner John T. Brush. Brush had previously owned an Indianapolis baseball team, then the Cincinnati Reds. He became a National League executive and brashly fought the new American league. Eventually he became owner of the NY Giants. After the original Polo Grounds on this site had burned down, he built the first concrete & steel stadium structure in New York. The Giants won the World Series in 1911 but Brush was in bad health. He passed away from rheumatism on a train to California and the stairway was dedicated by the NY Giants in his name by the 1912 season.

It is amazing that 95 years later it still quietly exists. It was fenced off when I visited it a few years back and badly falling apart. Some of the locals still used the fence as it saves alot of time & alot of walking to get from Edgecombe Ave up to the 157th St. area. There is an ancient lamp post on the landing which looks like its almost as old as the staircase. The letters are huge steel letters about 12" long and deeply embedded in the cement. Any 95 year attempts to get them out were foiled. I tried.
It is an amazing piece of history that a baseball buff and NY Giants fan like myself finds fascinating. Imagine people came down these steps to watch Christy Mathewson pitch, watch Mel Ott hit one of his 512 home runs, watch Bobby Thomson hit his "Shot Heard Round the World" in the 1951 Playoffs against the Brooklyn Dodgers, watch a Willie Mays make "the catch' in the 1954 World Series, watch the expansion NY Met's play in 1962, and so many other classic events at the Polo Grounds.

Back in the 1950s & 1960s New York couldn't care less about its baseball past as both the Polo Grounds & Ebbets Field were demolished and housing projects were erected. While the legend of Brooklyn continued to grow, the NY Giants and their six Championships were forgotten. Thank goodness for a group called the "NY Baseball Giants Nostalgia Society" who gathers a few times a year to preserve the Giants history. All that remains on the site of the Polo Grounds is a plaque on one of the housing towers.

Luckily this stairway piece of history also survived and now city officials say the long-forgotten inscription and staircase, could be in for a reprieve. As partof the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC2030 program, Highbridge Park & Bridge is set for an overhaul, including the historic, John T. Brush Staircase. The cost of repairing the staircase is about $1.2 million, according to city officials there is only 400,000 to pay for it, put up by the Mahattan Borough Presidents office.

UPDATE: Recently the NY Football Giants & the yankees have both donated a total of $300,000 to restore the classic stairway. The Giants putting up $200,000.