| abstract | - MCU Park (formerly KeySpan Park) is a minor league baseball stadium in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York City. The home team is the New York Mets-affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones of the New York - Penn League. Official seating capacity is 7,500, though the Cyclones will sell up to 2,500 more standing room tickets. Features include a concourse with free-standing concession buildings and overhanging fluorescent lamps in different colors, evoking an amusement park atmosphere. In addition, the park overlooks the Atlantic Ocean as well as the famous Parachute Jump in right field, and the landmarks Wonder Wheel and Coney Island Cyclone in left field. MCU Park was built on the old site of Steeplechase Park, an old-time Coney Island amusement park that closed in 1964 amid crime and general deterioration of Coney Island and the subways that run to the area. Part of a general reinvestment in the Coney Island neighborhood, the park opened in 2001 with a capacity of 6,500. Demand for Cyclones tickets was so great that the team added 1,000 seats in a right-field bleacher pavilion within three weeks after the park opened. MCU Park prohibits fans from bringing outside food into the stadium, a policy in every minor league stadium, but not in effect at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. MCU Park and the Staten Island Yankees' Richmond County Bank Ballpark were paid for with public money, part of a deal that involved both the Mets and Yankees. The Yankees had to approve the construction of MCU Park, and the Mets had to approve the Yankees' minor league park, since the Major League Baseball organizations share territorial rights to the New York City market, and have veto power over each other (and any other MLB organization). If the combined minor league stadium project did not involve the approval of both the Mets and Yankees, it is likely that it would not have happened. The park's naming rights were sold to KeySpan Energy, a utility company whose primary holding is the former Brooklyn Union Gas, until 2020. However, in 2007, KeySpan was acquired by United Kingdom-based National Grid plc. On January 29, 2010, the Cyclones announced that they had ended the deal with National Grid, because the KeySpan name no longer is in existence. On February 4, 2010, it was announced that the Municipal Credit Union signed an agreement for the ballpark to be called MCU Park in an eleven year naming rights deal. MCU Park is accessible via the New York City Subway at the Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue station, by the NYCS Stillwell trains.
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