Every now and then, someone will wander into the parking lot of the sprawling apartment complex in Brooklyn where Ezra Askotzky works and start staring inquisitively at the ground. By now, Mr. Askotzky knows what they are looking for: a small plaque that marks the location of home plate at Ebbets Field, the long-ago-dismantled home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mr. Askotzky, 28, the maintenance manager for the Ebbets Field Apartments, or one of his staff members will emerge often wielding one of the wooden bats they keep in their office as props for pictures and momentarily assume the role of tour guide.
At this location on April 5, 1947, Jack Roosevelt Robinson Integrated Major League Baseball, the plaque reads. People come all the way out here just to see something that means so much to them, said Mr. Askotzky, who started working at the Crown Heights complex in 2021 after moving from Milwaukee.
It's not a big deal for us just to go out there and give someone a bat and offer to take their picture. You see the smile, and that makes it worth it. Image One resident of the apartment complex noted that the surrounding neighborhood has changed over the decades, and fewer people now grasp the site's historical significance.
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