Roosevelt Raceway Is A Showplace

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30286, 12 November 1963, Page 22

Roosevelt Raceway Is A Showplace

Patrons at this month’s night trotting meetings at Addington will enjoy facilities which are, by any standards, very good. However, it is not expected that they will compare with those at the Roosevelt Raceway in New York, which boasts the world’s best grandstand and clubhouse. Overhead, grandstand and bank lighting combine to provide illumination of unsurpassed brilliance at Roosevelt Raceway. This lighting was conceived and executed after consultations with the world’s leading experts in the lighting field.

The main track is 95ft wide and 660 ft long in the front and back stretches. The upright light poles around the track and aug-

mented by overhead horizontal beams, which together with banks of lights at the upper and lower turns of the main stretch, distribute

even illumination over the entire half-mile racing surface. In the straight, a battery of lights the entire length of the grandstand

roof add to the general brilliance. The site of the Roosevelt raceway has a history replete with romance, adventure and scientific advancement. In the beginning there were Indians inhabiting the fiat, treeless area. The came the Dutch and English explorers, followed by colonists who settled on the area in the middle of the Hempstead Plain. Agriculturists then developed the area, which was almost barren of vegetation. In four wars, military training was given to soldiers there.

Then in 1940 a group of men with greater faith than resources instituted the first extended night harness programme in America. They had lean years but they perservered and tapped their resources to the limit. Before many years they had a successful venture which in a short space of operation was drawing greater crowds than were New York’s major league football clubs. All told, Roosevelt Raceway floor area covers a total of 17 acres. There are 440 mutule windows and ample space to accommodate upwards of 50,000 patrons, with seating accommodation for 13,750. The capacity of the three dining rooms is 2500.

Above the ground on Roosevelt Raceway’s 300acre tract stands the world's most complete grandstand and clubhouse for racing patrons. Surrounding it is a landscape terrain of luxurious gardens, All this is visible to the eye. But the untold story is that of the vast labyrinth of the underground. Below the visible city is a vast network of pipes, wires and drains. A staggering figure of 500,000 cubic yards of excavation was required to

instal the pipe lines at Roosevelt. Other interesting features of the ground include a road and parking lot paving job of 716,500 square yards, four-and-half miles of chain link fence, and a half-mile reflector fence circling the main track. The telephone lines, all underground, run for miles to service both the inside and outside telephones. Roosevelt Raceway produces an ultra-modern printed programme which would turn a New Zealand punter’s hair white after the first race. Page two of this card devotes more than 1000 words under the heading “How to read this programme.’’