June 18, 1962: Shakespeare In the Park

June 18, 1962: The Delacorte Theater opens in Central Park in Manhattan, at roughly the midway point between the American Museum of Natural History on the West Side, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the East Side, about where the intersection of 81st Street & 7th Avenue would be.

It was the idea of Joseph Papp, a poor Jewish kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who fell in love with the works of William Shakespeare. He thought "The Bard" should belong to everybody. He began producing and directing a series of Shakespeare workshops, then moved on to free productions on the Lower East Side. Eventually, the plays moved to a lawn in front of Turtle Pond in Central Park.

In 1959, Robert Moses, whose many City and State government positions included that of the City's Commissioner of Parks, demanded that Papp and his company charge a fee for the performances to cover the cost of "grass erosion." A court battle ensued. Papp continued to fight Moses, winning his enduring respect and the quote, "Well, let's build the bastard a theater."

Following this, Moses requested funds from the city for the construction of an amphitheater in the park. In 1961, the Delacorte was built, as an 1,800-seat amphitheatre. It was named for George T. Delacorte Jr., president of Dell Publishing, a Shakespeare fan who contributed $150,000 to the building's cost. The first performance held in the theater in 1962 was Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, starring George C. Scott and James Earl Jones.

Six months earlier, on December 1, 1961, The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs was published. She was in the process of defeating Moses over his proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway between the Holland Tunnel and the Manhattan Bridge, which would have done to Greenwich Village, Tribeca, SoHo and the Lower East Side what his Cross Bronx Expressway did to The Bronx: Destroyed them.

Papp died in 1991. Since 1962, over 5 million people have attended Delacorte productions, most of them of Shakespeare's plays.

In a 2011 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, guest performer George Watsky played Shakespeare, opposed by guest performer Mickey Meyer as Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing the Cat in the Hat, and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Thing 1 and Thing 2. This was the 1st time the series had 2 guest stars opposing each other, although Meyer as Seuss did not speak.

UPDATE: The Delacorte closed for renovations on September 4, 2023, and reopened on July 15, 2025.

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June 18, 1962 was a Monday. There were 5 baseball games played that day:

* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Braves, 7-1 at the Polo Grounds. Hank Aaron went 3-for-5 with 5 RBIs, including his 267th career home run. There would be many more.

* The Cincinnati Reds swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5 and 4-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Over the 2 games, Frank Robinson went 4-for-9 with a home run and 6 RBIs, and Roberto Clemente went 3-for-7 with a walk.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Athletics, 9-4 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 1-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Thsis was a matchup between perhaps the 2 best pitchers of their generation. For the Dodgers, Sandy Koufax pitched a 5-hit shutout, striking out 9 and walking none. For the Cards, Bob Gibson had a 2-hit shutout with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th inning, striking out 8 and walking 4, before Tommy Davis hit a home run to win it. Stan Musial went 2-for-3.