September 12, 2004

Nostalgia, Anyone? Hope Rises at Forest Hills

lthough much of the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens has fallen into disrepair, the stoic stone eagles still standing solemn sentry around its top rim retain their grandeur.

Standing up among the eagles, one can survey much of the city, and the true tennis fan can hear a resounding United States Open roar that comes not from today's matches across Queens Boulevard, in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

The roar comes from yesteryear, from decades of historic tennis at Forest Hills, where the Open was held for decades, before being moved in 1978 to new stadiums in Flushing Meadows.

The cheers are for Tilden and Budge and Laver and Connors, or such female greats as Wade and Court and Evert and King. The rock fan might even hear cheers for Hendrix or Dylan or the Stones or the Beatles, from the historic concerts held at the stadium.

For years, the stadium has languished in disrepair and obscurity, but now officials at the West Side Tennis Club, which owns the stadium, say they want to revitalize it and bring back big-time tennis and other top events.

Jack Leibler, president of the club's board of directors, said the club is trying to attract an investor or corporate sponsor to help finance a renovation of the stadium, a project he contends would not be immensely complicated or costly.

"The basic structure is sound and we'd keep the shell," he said, walking carefully through the old stadium Thursday morning. "Of course, we'd have to replace the bench-style seating with individual seats, which would essentially cut the former capacity in half."

Hoping to regenerate interest in the stadium, the club agreed to host the Forest Hills Women's Tennis Classic last month, a tournament that included many top women pros entering the Open. To prepare, the club renovated the stadium court to official tournament specifications, installed a few aluminum bleachers and did a bit of cleaning and painting. Mr. Leibler said the tournament created more excitement than he expected.

"There's still an intimacy to this stadium, even from the seats up high," he said. "You feel like you're part of the action on the court."

"We're constantly being asked in the community, 'Gee, what are you going to do with the stadium? Is it ever coming back?' " he said. "A lot of people forgot about it, but not everyone. I bumped into Guillermo Vilas, and he couldn't stop raving about it. He said, 'What a pity it isn't used anymore.' Whenever we get young pros playing at our club, they can't believe this place is still here. They know the whole history of it." David Brewer, senior director of professional tournaments for the United States Tennis Association, said, "There's definitely a place for a facility like the Forest Hills stadium in pro tennis."

"You can't hold a U.S. Open there anymore, but the potential is there to place a tour-level event there," he said. "It's this great old jewel out there in the middle of Queens."

After its last Open, the Forest Hills stadium was used for other pro tournaments, including the World Championship Tennis Tournament of Champions. But after 1989, its use was largely confined to occasional concerts.

Several years ago, the club seemed determined to sell the stadium and the several acres of land it sits on to home developers. But now officials hope that returning tennis and entertainment events to Forest Hills will help the club bring in more revenue and members, and also restore the cachet of its Open legacy.

Time stands still in the clubhouse of the West Side Tennis Club, where members can sink into a leather couch and gaze above the fireplace at a grand painting of the Open under way in the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium outside the club's Tudor-style clubhouse and just beyond its lush grass tennis courts. In the painting, the sun is setting behind the Manhattan skyline, leaving the stadium glowing under spotlights and packed with fans.

In the club, there are photographs of legendary players of the Open, held at the stadium for more than 70 years: Billie Jean King, Bill Tilden, Rod Laver, Margaret Court, Don Budge and Jimmy Connors.

But the actual view from the clubhouse is of a stadium falling further into disrepair with each passing year. The horseshoe-shaped stadium retains its distinctive columns and graceful archways, as well as its classic semi-bowl shape. It is still surrounded by the elegant Tudor homes that make up Forest Hills Gardens. But much of the place is now marked by faded crumbling gray concrete and years of clutter.

A once-impressive plaque commemorating the year the stadium was completed, 1923, has turned green with oxidation, and a plaster scroll listing the female national champions dating to 1906 is too decrepit to salvage even as a souvenir. The concrete steps are littered with paint chips from the simple wood-slat benches, which allowed for tight seating and a 15,000-person capacity.

The West Side club, first organized in 1892 on the West Side of Manhattan, moved to Forest Hills in 1913. National championship play began at the stadium in the mid-1920's.

The stadium is a historic site in pop music history as well. Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Diana Ross and the Beatles all performed there. In 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience warmed up for the Monkees.

In its final Open, in 1977, a 14-year-old Tracy Austin competed, as did a young John McEnroe. Chris Evert won her third straight singles title, and Guillermo Vilas beat Jimmy Connors in a dramatic four-set final.