Where Did the Tennis Courts Go?

Navigating the New York City tennis scene isn’t for the faint of heart.

Finding and securing court time is a long, asinine process that elicits child-like frustration similar to when TiVo glitched and didn’t entirely record your favorite show. 

It feels like there’s some supernatural force that is personally sabotaging your ability to play tennis. I often visualize this force as a Patrick Bateman-esque figure.

You know the type: a status-obsessed, narcissistic finance bro who you once hooked up with who is dazzled by his own reflection and budding collection of watches. 

Except in this version, you don’t go home with him. Instead, he whispers in your ear: “How badly do you want it?”

And by “it” he means to play tennis outside like a normal human being as you stand there in a trancelike state considering what sacrifices you’re willing to make – time and money – to play a sport that just doesn’t seem to want you in it. 

Just like when the world realized that Bateman isn’t sporting a Rolex Datejust 16013 in American Psycho and instead a significantly cheaper Seiko 5 SNJX90, the hard-held belief that New York has always been and always will be an unfriendly tennis city is shattered once you discover that the first person to bring tennis to the United States was a woman from Staten Island. 

Mary Ewing Outerbridge reportedly introduced tennis to the United States in 1874 after playing it while on vacation in Bermuda. 

Outerbridge was instrumental in popularizing the sport, and contributed to the formation of the United States Tennis Association – originally known as the United States National Lawn Tennis Association – when she hosted the first national tennis tournament in 1880. 

The tournament took place around Staten Island’s St. George Park. Now, the competition grounds blend unremarkably into the terrain of a ferry terminal. It’s hardly a surprise that Outerbridge is not the first female name that comes to mind when thinking of tennis, or that Staten Island is not strongly associated with the origins of USA tennis. 

That’s why, when lifelong Staten Island resident Jeremy Nieves discovered Outerbridge and Staten Island’s role in popularizing tennis in America, he knew that he had to do something.  

“Most Staten Islanders don’t seem to be concerned with any of its history, and that’s why I feel like it’s my responsibility as a native Staten Islander and native New Yorker to keep these stories alive,” Nieves told Now Frolic. 

To commemorate Outerbridge’s contributions to tennis, Nieves linked up with Staten Island skate and streetwear brand Richmond Hood Company to create a graphic tee as a nod to Staten Island’s tennis past. 

The tee features a woman who can best be described as a cross between Billie Jean King and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. Of course, this woman is a modern Mary sporting a little less clothing than the average woman wore playing tennis in the late 19th century. 

The tee also features a ferry and a bridge in the background, symbolizing Staten Island and the commemorating the location of the first national tennis tournament. 

Staten Islanders aren’t the only ones discovering that New York was once a tennis friendly city. Sam Burns, the cofounder of Brooklyn-based tennis apparel brand Bageled NYC, learned this first hand after a visit to the Center for Brooklyn History in Brooklyn Heights. 

As part of creating a social media marketing campaign, Burns decided to dig through the archives of New York City’s tennis history to begin answering our most pressing question: What’s the deal with New York’s tennis situation? 

The results were puzzling. According to Burns’ research, New York City has more tennis courts today than it did in 1935, but it doesn’t feel like it. Burns offers a simple and logical explanation: 

There is pretty convincing evidence supporting Burns theory that NYC treats public tennis as a joke. McCarren Park’s blacktop used to be all tennis courts; today there are just a handful. 

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Prospect Park, too, was a magnet for lawn tennis. In 1914, players filled the Long Meadow’s grass courts, and the park even had a Tennis House. Today it’s a neglected building, but a $5.6M renovation plan from the City and partner organizations was announced in 2019. Ultimately, $3.6M in funding came through, and restoration is expected to be complete by 2026. 

Further south, even Red Hook Park had tons of courts in the 1950s. Today Red Hook Park is a desert with zero courts.

Burns described discovering that NYC was once a tennis-friendly city as “bittersweet.”

In a note to Now Frolic, Burns wrote that “seeing that NYC’s rich tennis history goes back for more than a century helps illustrate New York’s status as one of if not the center for tennis in the US. By the same token, it's incredibly frustrating to realize how the City failed to provide the public with access to the sport and, in some cases, like Red Hook Park, actually removed that access.” 

There’s always hope that things could improve, however.

In 2009, the Brooklyn Paper reported that the tennis courts at McCarren Park had not been resurfaced for 25 years. That year, a group of local players who would become the McCarren Tennis Association banded together to resurface a single court. The news spread, and Brownstoner reported in 2010 that American Express had “stepped up to redo the other six.” The nonprofit McCarren Tennis Association is still going strong, providing a voice for about 3,000 tennis players in north Brooklyn.

“The key to unlocking more and better courts in NYC is money,” Burns said. “The trick is making the right connections with the right folks at these organizations. Once you do that, the doors can open very quickly.”

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