Metropolitan Oval

The Open Cup finals played here were in 1951, when the New York German-Hungarians answered a 4-2 first-leg loss with a 6-2 home win; 1974, when a New York Times report counted 2,000 spectators watching New York Greek-Americans beat Chicago Croatian 2-0; 1976, when San Francisco IAC beat New York Inter-Giuliana; and 1980, when the New York Pancyprian-Freedoms beat Los Angeles Maccabee SC 3-2 after extra time. In 1948 the owners, Kollsman Sport Club, put the ground up for sale, and the club raised the $30,000 asking price plus $20,000 for improvements, building a cinder block concession stand and bathrooms that remain. The surface was a rocky sandlot, nicknamed "The Dust Bowl," until the first artificial surface was installed in 2001. The Oval's own site records that when Latin American teams rented the field for night games, neighbors complained about the noise and the people, and that a 1994 New York Times article described a mostly white Maspeth as unwelcoming to people from a different culture; the complaints ended night games at the ground.