Before I came here to New York, I’d only heard of Forest Hills in quiz questions—because it was the venue of the US Open before the event moved to Flushing Meadows, where it is still held.
The US Open moved away in 1978 because the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills couldn’t accommodate the event’s growing scale. This shift coincided with a phase in which grass courts were slowly going out of fashion—and giving way to hard courts.
As the US Open moved on, The West Side Tennis Club stayed operational—even if it hosted events much smaller in scale than the US Open. The club’s grass courts, Tudor-style clubhouse, colourful parasols and wood-panelled corridors stay intact to this day, commemorating a bygone era.
The attention might be on Wimbledon over the course of the next two weeks, but this photo essay shows another venue that keeps alive grass-court traditions—on the other side of the Atlantic.
