The ‘king of sports’, deeply rooted in Hispanic culture, continues to make small steps of expansion in New York City, where this sport has continued to grow at the pace of the immense Latin American fan base. Proof of this is that, due to pressure from a school community in Washington Heights, $1.5 million was allocated to convert an abandoned handball court and surrounding land into a new soccer field.
The new facility, to be built at Wright Brothers Public School 28 at 155 West 155th Street, with a combination of city and federal funding, will serve all Upper Manhattan schools and provide a lever for the development of New York’s future soccer players.
“The children themselves advocated for this field. More than an investment, it is a very clear example of citizenship, of how communities can connect with their elected leaders to carry out projects,” said Dominican Congressman Adriano Espaillat.
Councilwoman Carmen de La Rosa explained that the entire school community learned a great lesson about civic engagement through their enthusiastic support of this project: “We hope to inspire future champions of Washington Heights. This is truly called community,” said the Councilwoman for District 10.
Students and administrators at this school in the ‘Little Dominican Republic,’ through their ‘Local Hyper Activism’ project, learned about the process of civic engagement in their efforts to communicate with the offices of their elected leaders and how government budget allocation works.
“We are helping students at our school realize that we can be agents of change in our neighborhoods. At the same time, they are recognizing the role that full-time school librarians play in supporting civic engagement in our communities,” said Lauren Ginsberg-DeVilbiss, media specialist, PS 28 The Wright Brothers School Library.
The last public soccer field in Upper Manhattan officially opened in September 2020. It is a synthetic turf field located near the entrance to Highbridge Park on 175th Street.
Improvised meshes
Beyond some public parks or private grass fields belonging to clubs, the availability of fields to practice this sport in the Big Apple is still very limited for certain neighborhoods. And everything indicates that fans and potential professional players are eager for new spaces to grow local teams and championships, particularly within Hispanic communities.
In fact, there is currently no professional football stadium in New York City. Despite several failed proposals for large stadiums in the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, Belmont Park, the West Side of Manhattan or Flushing Meadows Corona Park, none of them have reached a municipal agreement.
Just last April, the City Council approved the construction of a privately funded, 25,000-seat soccer stadium in Willets Point, Queens, to house the New York City Football Club.
Professional soccer clubs in the Big Apple have played most of their home games at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Citi Field in Queens. But as experts point out, baseball stadiums have proven to be an uncomfortable place for soccer: sight lines are poor and the field tends to be narrow.
This project became one of the most voted in the history of the current city council, which will continue the first phase of the development of this Queens neighborhood, approved last year, which opened the door to the construction of 1,100 affordable housing units and an elementary school for 650 students. The second phase guarantees another 1,400 affordable apartments, near the stadium, which will be privately financed.
More and more fans:
- The 2024 Copa América final in the US had 12 million viewers, according to the report ‘Nielsen Plays on Hispanic Audiences, Sports and Media Engagements’, of which 53% were Hispanic. This makes it the most-watched soccer game in the country’s history.