I ran across this in this Houston Chronicle today. It's captioned:

Crowds gather on rooftops across from Shibe Park to watch the Philadelphia Athletics play the Boston Braves during the 1914 World Series.



Way before the Wrigley rooftops! Connie Mack not only managed the A's back then, he was part owner, and he hated people being able to see games for free. He went to court to stop it and lost, so before the 1935 season, he built a tall "spite fence" in right field to block the view from the rooftops.

21 years later he built the fence? That dude procrastinated way worse than I do.

[This message has been edited by American nomad (edited 6/29/2014 3:44p).]

Nice pic. And kudos to the engineers and construction guys that built those houses to support 20 to 30 people standing on the roof. Not sure what the building codes were like in Philadelphia in 1914. Maybe they were designed with ballpark viewing in mind