Sports Stadiums, Civic Pride, and Neighborhood Displacement, 1930-1970”
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“IF YOU BUILD IT, WHERE WILL THEY GO?” SPORTS STADIUMS, CIVIC PRIDE, AND NEIGHBORHOOD DISPLACEMENT, 1930-1970” by STEPHANIE LISCIO Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY May 2018 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the dissertation of Stephanie Liscio candidate for the degree of Doctor of History Committee Chair John Grabowski Committee Member Rhonda Williams Committee Member John Flores Committee Member Timothy Black Date of Defense March 9, 2018 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. i Dedicated to my BFF Torrey, who was with me every step of the way. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: From Pastime to Civic Asset ...............................................................28 CHAPTER TWO: “Pride of Pittsburgh” or Scourge of the Community: ........................57 CHAPTER THREE: A Multipurpose Misstep ................................................................106 CHAPTER FOUR: Minor League City with Major League Dreams ..............................152 CHAPTER FIVE: “The Finest Site for a Stadium in this Country” ................................205 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................256 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................266 iii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Map of Pittsburgh 104 FIGURE 2: Map of Greater New York City 202 FIGURE 3: Map of Brooklyn, New York 203 FIGURE 4: Map of Los Angeles 204 FIGURE 5: Map of Greater Atlanta Area 254 FIGURE 6: Map of Southern Atlanta 255 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There were several people that provided me with excellent advice and guidance throughout the course of this project. My original adviser at Case Western Reserve University, Rhonda Williams, helped me to develop my focus on this project and gave me valuable feedback in its early stages. After Professor Williams left CWRU, John Grabowski advised me for the remainder of the project. I will be eternally grateful for his willingness to step in as adviser to a project that was already partially complete. I would also like to thank the other two members of my dissertation committee, John Flores and Timothy Black, for their invaluable advice on a number of aspects of this dissertation. Travel for research can become expensive, especially when one must travel to a number of different archives across the country. I am extremely grateful for the funding assistance I received from a couple of sources. The CWRU History Associates provided me with generous funding so that I could travel to Los Angeles for research purposes. The history department at CWRU also provided me with departmental funding so that I could travel to Atlanta to conduct research. I would also like to thank the attendees of the Nine Journal of Baseball conference for their feedback throughout this project. A number of years ago, a discussion with Geri Strecker at this conference initially led me to the topic of stadiums and community. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their support as I worked on this dissertation and throughout my time in graduate school. They put up with my anxiety and neurotic outbursts, and I am eternally grateful for that. v “If You Build It, Where Will They Go?” Sports Stadiums, Civic Pride, And Neighborhood Displacement, 1930-1970” Abstract by STEPHANIE LISCIO In cities across the United States there has been an epidemic of new stadium and arena construction since the 1990s. The vast majority of these new structures were built with a share of public funding, despite the fact that a majority of team owners are independently wealthy. However, this was not always the case when it came to stadiums. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the vast majority of new stadiums were built with private funding. After World War II there was a shift toward municipally funded structures that were connected to urban renewal programs. This dissertation looks at that post-war period of stadium construction, and the impact of these municipal stadiums on urban communities. The urban landscape began to change in the post-World War II United States, as large numbers of white residents fled to the suburbs. At the same time, African American residents often remained trapped in deteriorating urban neighborhoods thanks to numerous restrictive housing covenants. Urban renewal plans often targeted these areas, as city officials labeled them “blighted” and discussed the need for “slum removal.” In a number of cities, these plans called for the construction of sports stadiums in these “blighted” urban neighborhoods. Sports teams were viewed as an important vi component of civic pride, and officials believed that sports and the new stadiums were important to the civic identity of their communities. New stadiums and arenas in three different cities are the focus of this study – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles, California; and Atlanta, Georgia. In Pittsburgh, a post-war urban renewal program dubbed the “Renaissance” targeted an African American neighborhood and included the construction of an arena, and a multi-purpose stadium. A publicly-funded stadium in Atlanta also destroyed an African American neighborhood, while a stadium constructed with a combination of public and private funds displaced the residents of a Mexican-American neighborhood in Los Angeles. These three cities, like many across the United States, saw urban communities negatively impacted by the new stadium construction. These stadiums were supposed to help revitalize the city and boost the local economy, but they often did the exact opposite. vii Introduction Since 2000, forty-seven stadiums and arenas have been constructed across the United States; if you extend that date to 1990, the figure jumps to eighty-six. Since there are 114 professional sports teams in the United States, that means that seventy-five percent of these teams built a new venue since 1990, almost all of which were funded with a percentage of public money. 1 It has become a common occurrence to see the owners of sports teams request, and then receive taxpayer money toward construction of a new venue. However, this was not always the case. A century ago, team owners were entrepreneurs who constructed new stadiums as part of an investment in their business. These owners purchased available land on the periphery of major cities and solidified their ties to the community with permanent concrete and steel structures. How did team owners move from private funding to the modern reality of public handouts? The answer lies in U.S. cities between the end of World War II and the early 1970s, the focus of this dissertation. In the post-World War II United States, the urban landscape began to change in cities across the country. Large numbers of white residents began to move to the suburbs, while black residents were often trapped in urban neighborhoods thanks to numerous restrictive housing covenants. There were several different ways in which this housing discrimination manifested across the country. A number of the new suburban 1 Since 1990 there were 23 new National Football League stadiums constructed, 23 new Major League Baseball stadiums, and 40 new arenas for the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association. There are technically 123 teams across all four professional leagues, but 9 of those are in Canada. Since this project looks exclusively at stadiums in the United States, those were excluded from the total. 1 communities made it clear that African Americans were not welcome in their neighborhoods. There were policies such as redlining, which made it nearly impossible for black residents to obtain a mortgage. On maps maintained by the federal government, neighborhoods that contained African American residents had a red line drawn around their boundaries. The Federal Housing Administration would not provide mortgage insurance to the residents in these “redlined” neighborhoods, which meant that banks deemed these black residents too risky a proposition when providing a mortgage loan. This policy reverberated throughout urban communities. As these neighborhoods were increasingly comprised primarily of African American residents, it meant that they were unable to purchase a home in the area. In a number of cases, black residents were forced to rent properties, which were often overcrowded and run-down. In some cases, unscrupulous landlords took advantage of these residents, knowing that their options were limited in terms of financing, and in terms of where they could live. If black residents tried to purchase property, they often had to do so “on contract” which meant that they paid an exorbitant rate to someone attempting to turn a profit on the dwelling. Because of the high prices these people paid for these structures,