So Let's Talk About This New Park
Being a native Washingtonian (well, almost native), this whole 'new ballpark thing' worries me. I am old enough to remember the rumblings about a new, state of the art stadium that was to be built to replace the aging Griffith Stadium. I remember a bevy of Washington types getting together and creating their 'masterpiece.' "No, can't have light towers" said one. "Oh heavens, a flat circular roof wont have any artistic nuances" said another. I can't remember the name of the group (something like "The Washington Endowment for the Arts") but they helped create the new stadium as if it was a new monument for out nation's capitol. What we got was a waffle.
The outside wasn't too bad, with those vertical aluminum posts hiding the banked concrete walkways. I always thought that "sad face" people cover was kinda cool, with "D.C. Stadium" arched across the front of it (later R.F.K. Stadium) in shiny aluminum letters.
The bowl of the stadium felt comfortable enough, but I never did figure why there were no outfield stands. That huge dreary concrete wall banked from left to right, broken up by the semi-eliptical scoreboard in right (I actually got my name on the 'magic-message' board once) and the crude tarpaulin roofs that covered the bull pens in left. And, is anyone else amazed that D.C. Stadium, built at an astounding cost of almost $16 million, used chain linkfor the outfield fence? This was art? I always wanted to sit in the mezzanine section, but never had the extra dollar or two that it took to get in there. Oh well.
OK, on to the new stadium. If it is going to be similar to the rendition shown at the Munsey and Suppes ballpark site, then I'm impressed. But that drawing has been there for sometime, and I don't know if the D.C. art police have had their chance to chop it up into little art works yet.
We'll see.
The outside wasn't too bad, with those vertical aluminum posts hiding the banked concrete walkways. I always thought that "sad face" people cover was kinda cool, with "D.C. Stadium" arched across the front of it (later R.F.K. Stadium) in shiny aluminum letters.
The bowl of the stadium felt comfortable enough, but I never did figure why there were no outfield stands. That huge dreary concrete wall banked from left to right, broken up by the semi-eliptical scoreboard in right (I actually got my name on the 'magic-message' board once) and the crude tarpaulin roofs that covered the bull pens in left. And, is anyone else amazed that D.C. Stadium, built at an astounding cost of almost $16 million, used chain linkfor the outfield fence? This was art? I always wanted to sit in the mezzanine section, but never had the extra dollar or two that it took to get in there. Oh well.
OK, on to the new stadium. If it is going to be similar to the rendition shown at the Munsey and Suppes ballpark site, then I'm impressed. But that drawing has been there for sometime, and I don't know if the D.C. art police have had their chance to chop it up into little art works yet.
We'll see.
# posted by Farid Rushdi @ 9:32 AM 
