PART
I: HISTORY OF MULTIPURPOSE VENUES
During
the turbulent days of the 1960s, considerable pressure was
placed on municipal governments to update their aging public
facilities as part of the Johnson Administration's Great Society.
In addition to building structures to treat wastewater, improve
public transit and beautify urban landscapes, many city governments
went on a binge, building grandiose new multipurpose sports
stadia.
Designed
to meet the public's demand for venues that could accommodate
different types of events from professional football, baseball
and soccer to rock concerts and visits by the Pope, new stadia
sprung up across the country.
Many of
these new "parks" followed the same basic design.
Massive concrete structures with astro-turf fields and elaborate
drainage systems were built in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh
and in Philadelphia. Their basic design was the same, a large
"donut" (or more technically, an eight-section octorad)
with 70,000+ seats for NFL football, less for Major League
Baseball (MLB).
While
they were initially hailed as state-of-the-art entertainment
palaces, over time, the public began to think that their design
was too sterile. They lacked the intimacy of old-time stadia
and attendance at some facilities began to drop.
With
a return to our urban cores of separate facilities designed
for each sport, grass fields to decrease player injuries and
smaller, more intimate venues, the "concrete donuts"
were soon on the critical list of public facilities. Three
Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh was demolished by Bianchi Trison
Corp. and Cinergy Field in Cincinnati, the old Riverfront
Stadium, was felled by O'Rourke Wrecking.
This
left only Busch Stadium and Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium,
"The Vet", remaining. Built in the late 1960s, The
Vet was the home to the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles and MLB's
Phillies. Completed in 1971 at a cost of $52 million, it was
the site of the Phillies only World Series championship in
1980 and a visit by Pope John Paul II later in the decade.
Over the years, the stadium developed a formidable reputation
as one of the most hostile environments for any visiting sports
team, a claim attributed in equal parts to raucously devoted
local fans and to the many injuries said to have been suffered
as a result of its hard, inferior playing surface.
However
by the fall of 2003, with the Eagles already relocated to
Lincoln Financial Field and a new baseball stadium under construction
across the street, Veterans Stadium's time had run out.
