A Short-Lived Return of the Bears

The main entrance to Newark’s Riverfront Stadium, Jul-2002.

Looking from the third-base picnic area toward the plate and the Newark skyline.

The field overlooks a railroad bridge; off in the distance, but not visible here, are New York skyscrapers.

Chronological Tour: Stop 157

• Location: Broad and Orange streets, Newark, N.J.
• Opened: 1999 as Riverfront Stadium
• Additional names: Bears & Eagles Riverfront Stadium (2002)
• Demolished: 2019
• Home team: Newark Bears, Atlantic League (1999-2010), Can-Am League (2011-13); New Jersey Institute of Technology Highlanders, Atlantic Sun Conference (through 2018); Rutgers University-Newark Scarlet Raiders, New Jersey Athletic Conference (through 2018)
• Capacity: 5,799

Rating: 3 baseballs

Finally, in 1998, the independent Atlantic League announced plans to put one of their teams in Newark. The trouble was, no one was quite sure where the park would end up. Several sites along the Passaic River were discussed and ultimately rejected.

In the end, the park landed in the shadow of the Lackawanna tracks, near the Broad Street station, in such a way that home runs clearing the outfield wall could land on McCarter Highway (NJ 21). After construction delays, the still-incomplete park opened for business in July 1999. During 2000, an additional screen had to be erected in left field to protect motorists from blasts by slugger Ozzie Canseco.

The seating was fairly typical, although the designers did angle the farthest seats toward home plate, a nice touch. Concessions were reasonable. Parking in area lots was expensive, but on-street spaces could be had on most evenings as meters do not operate after 6:00.

Effective with the extension of the Newark City Subway past the park in 2006, many of the on-street spaces were removed. However, fans arriving in Newark on the Northeast Corridor line could take this shuttle train to the park.

For the 2011 season, the Bears, who had chronic issues with attendance throughout most of their history, shifted their affiliation to the shorter-season Can-Am League. But even that was not enough to save the club, whose average attendance dropped below 500 in the 2013 season. The club was mothballed that November.

The park, which was owned by Essex County, continued to be used by two college programs, NJIT and Rutgers-Newark. NJIT offered to purchase the stadium and make it their all-purpose outdoor sports facility, but the school was outbid. A developer announced in March 2016 that he was buying the site from the county and would demolish the stadium to build a high-rise residential “transit village”, taking advantage of the site’s proximity to rail lines. That deal closed in November 2016. The park’s two college tenants continued to use the field through 2018 but found alternate sites for the 2019 season, and demolition began in August 2019.