Jackie Robinson Museum breaks ground

It is scheduled to open in spring ’19

NEW YORK — Ground was broken for the Jackie Robinson Museum after a 10-year wait — matching the length of the Hall of Famer’s barrier-breaking major league career.

Rachel Robinson, the 94-yearold widow of the Brooklyn Dodgers star, attended Thursday’s ceremony in the SoHo section of Manhattan along with her daughter, Sharon, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and former National League President Len Coleman.

“There are a lot of American heroes. I think Jackie Robinson is in a class by himself,” Manfred said, “and really it is impossible to do enough to recognize what he means and continues to mean to process of change.”

About $23.5 million has been raised to build the museum, now scheduled to open in spring 2019 on the street level of an already-existing office building. The Jackie Robinson Foundation hopes to raise a total of $42 million — matching Robinson’s uniform number — to fund an endowment that will pay for the museum’s operations.

“Breaking ground allows us to show the country that we are for real,” Sharon Robinson said.

Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947 and died in 1972. Rachel Robinson started the Jackie Robinson Foundation a year later.

The 18,500 square-foot space, which will include a 75-seat theater, originally was to open in 2009 or 2010 but was delayed when the Great Recession slowed fundraising.

“The bottom fell out,” foundation president Della Britton Baeza said.

Strada Education Network last month announced a $6.5 million gift to the foundation.