TheBallplayers House orBallfields Café is a 450-square-foot (42 m2) building inCentral Park inManhattan,New York City, designed by the architecture firmButtrick White & Burtis. Completed in 1990,[1] it replaced an older building, architectCalvert Vaux's Boys Play House of 1868, which stood on the northern edge of the Heckscher Ballfields until it was demolished in 1969. Vaux's building was a 1-1/2 story (plus basement), 52-foot (16 m) long clubhouse and dispensary for bats and balls,[2][3] whereas Buttrick White & Burtis' building is a 1-story food concession half the length of the original.
The Ballplayers House recalls Vaux's design, albeit much altered in form and detail. In contrast to the brick and bluestone facade of Vaux's building, with its pointed arches and polychromevoussoirs, the facade of Ballplayers House is composed with graphic stripes of highly contrasting brick. An encaustic tilefrieze with a simple flower motif and a zig-zag pattern, symbolizes a ball bouncing across a baseball field.[4] In lieu of Vaux's bracketed eaves, pointed pinnacles and chamfered chimney, the new building boasts a simple roofline, topped with a sleek, factory-made, metal cresting.
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, president of theCentral Park Conservancy when the Ballplayers House was built, described its design as "a contemporary interpretation of Vaux's style."[5]
.jpg)
40°46′13.08″N73°58′33.3″W / 40.7703000°N 73.975917°W /40.7703000; -73.975917
