of New York prohibited baseball in Central Park.) Until the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan were leased to the New York Metropolitans in 1880, New York-area teams after the Civil War were largely based in Brooklyn. The New York Clipper wrote in 1869: "This is probably the last season of the once famous Elysian Fields as a place of resort for our metropolitan ball clubs." The once-preeminent New York clubs who had begun playing at the grounds in the 1840s and 1850s — the Gothams, the Knickerbockers, the Empire, and the Eagles — continued playing in Hoboken until the 1870s. However, by then the sport had evolved to paid professionalism (the first major league, the National Association, debuted in 1871), and these old clubs were competitively irrelevant. In 1879, the New Jersey Athletic Club opened new multi-use grounds at what remained of the northeastern part of the Elysian Fields. The grounds showcased bicycle and foot-races, pole-leaping, hammer throwing, shot-put, and other competitive athletic pursuits. (By enlarging the image, the name of the NJ Athletic Club can be seen printed along the perimeter wall in the accompanying 1881 map.) Sybil's Cave was closed in 1880 due to health department concerns about water quality, and it was used as a cool storage locker for a nearby eating establishment. That establishment devolved into a seedy waterfront tavern and closed in the 1930s, when the cave was filled in with concrete and dirt. Tom Gilbert wrote that by the mid-1890s, "The baseball fields gave way to piers, warehouses, and more railroad tracks." The New York Herald-Tribune, in 1890, described the area's rapid urban transformation: In the upper part of the city, row after row of fine flat houses and dwellings have sprung up where boys formerly played baseball. The splendid old oaks of the famous Elysian Fields, the scene of the murder of Mary Rogers, the tragedy which gave birth to Poe's "Mystery of Marie Roget," have one by one fallen before the axe, and in their places are the rows of new brick dwellings. The River Walk, a stretch of two miles under the cliffs of Castle Point, has been extended, and soon expensive wharves for the accommodation of European steamers will be built along the base of the Point. A new public school, costing $75,000, has just been finished, and a new police station on the Elysian Fields is contemplated. A November