Sports Stadiums, Civic Pride, and Neighborhood Displacement, 1930-1970”

Home , 1903 World Series, Aqueduct Racetrack, Archives Service Center, Astrodome, Belmont Park, Ben Shibe

“IF YOU BUILD IT, WHERE WILL THEY GO?” SPORTS STADIUMS, CIVIC

PRIDE, AND NEIGHBORHOOD DISPLACEMENT, 1930-1970”

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.

Dedicated to my BFF Torrey, who was with me every step of the way.

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

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.

“If You Build It, Where Will They Go?” Sports Stadiums, Civic Pride, And Neighborhood Displacement, 1930-1970”

Abstract

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, there was often little money that remained for repairs or upkeep. 2

As city leaders discussed these urban neighborhoods, they often spoke in language that referred to “blight” or potential “slum removal” in these troubled neighborhoods. Rather than dealing with the core causes behind these issues, they instead attempted to remove people through urban renewal programs, and move them to

2 Many of these housing policies are discussed in Beryl Satter, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America (Henry Holt and Company, 2009), Kindle edition and Richard Rothstein, Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (W.W. Norton and Company, 2017) Kindle edition.

2 other neighborhoods in the city. With so many people fleeing to the suburbs, and with businesses already leaving cities in the Midwest and Northeast, city leaders across the country were trying to develop ways to increase their tax base. By repurposing the land in these neighborhoods for private enterprise, these leaders believed that was more beneficial to the success of the downtown area. In addition to the destruction of these neighborhoods thanks to commercial businesses, city leaders also oversaw construction of the federal highway system. As these highways were constructed, they often cut through existing neighborhoods, destroying them. When officials were determining the appropriate path for the highways, they usually found ways to avoid primarily white, middle class neighborhoods. They took no such precautions when it came to plowing through primarily African American neighborhoods. 3

These policies were also aided by several housing acts passed between the 1930s and 1950s. The Housing Act of 1937 dictated that federal money would go to cities for housing, but the funds would be administered at the local level. This act also mandated the creation of public housing in cities, and said that for every unit of housing created, a substandard unit of housing would be removed. This meant that there would supposedly be an increase in the quality of housing, but not the quantity of housing in a given city.

The Housing Act of 1949 became the first government legislation that recognized

“slums” as a national problem. Title I of this act was meant to induce private investors to clear slum areas and increase residential housing. 4 Finally, the Housing Act of 1954 placed a major emphasis on the concept of urban renewal and placed an emphasis on the

3 A number of these issues are discussed in Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). Sugrue writes about discriminatory housing policy, as well as the ways other urban policies negatively impacted black residents. 4 Steven C. Forest, “The Effect of Title I of the 1949 Federal Housing Act on New York City Cooperative and Condominium Conversion Plans,” Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol. 13 No. 3, 1984.

3 renewal of the downtown area in order to keep pace with the rapidly growing suburbs. It dictated that neighborhoods that were cleared could also be used for commercial purposes, with the idea being that it would lead to a strong business district in the city.

While there has been a great deal of work on the study of urban renewal, both by historians and from scholars in other fields, almost none of this material looks solely at the role of sports stadiums in these urban renewal projects. I argue that the construction of these stadiums from the 1950s to the early 1970s led to a “safe” contained space for primarily white suburbanites to visit in the city. At the same time, this advanced racial segregation in numerous cities all in the name of city growth and civic pride. A city’s identity was so closely connected to its sports teams that officials were desperate to keep a team from leaving their city. Cities without teams did everything in their power to draw a team, with officials arguing that they were not a “major league” city without professional sports.

These homogenous, post-war “cookie-cutter” parks were bland, generic, and almost identical to each other – much like the suburbs themselves. Even though they were supposed to save money through their use as multi-purpose facilities, they represented an acceleration of the use of public funding toward the construction of privately owned sports teams and professional sporting facilities. In the vision put forth by city officials, these new sporting venues would draw suburbanites back to the downtown, where they would spend money at other local businesses. However, the design of these facilities practically ensured that people would never venture outside of their grounds. Within a few short decades of their construction, officials acknowledged that the economic and community improvement promises made in connection with these

4 stadiums would never come to fruition. The vast majority of the stadiums which opened between 1961 and 1971, would almost all close between 1996 and 2005. The “cookie- cutter” era, in a sense, set the stage for today’s out-of-control spending on sports facilities for privately-owned teams.

I chose to focus on three cities that were impacted by the construction of multipurpose and single-sport stadiums – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles, California; and Atlanta, Georgia. While this story could be told through the events that took place in more than a dozen cities across the country, these three diverse cities represent something groundbreaking in terms of sport and stadiums. They also represent a pattern of new stadiums connected to urban renewal that damaged established neighborhoods, particularly neighborhoods where primarily black and Latino/a urban residents lived.

Pittsburgh was home to one of the few team-owned Negro League baseball parks, as well as home to one of the first concrete and steel ballparks constructed in 1909. The city saw two separate stadium urban renewal projects, one that involved a multipurpose “cookie cutter” park, and one that constructed a hockey and performing arts arena. Los Angeles was the first city to construct a stadium using 100 percent public funding, and nearly forty years after that, the first city to construct a stadium using a mixture of public and private funds. Atlanta was one of the first cities to build a stadium without a specific deal in place – they hoped to convince an established team to move to their city. It was also one of the first major southern cities to attempt to draw a professional sport, in this case baseball. These three cities, like many across the United States, saw urban communities negatively impacted by the new stadium construction. They are just a few of the dozen or so cities that chose to destroy established urban neighborhoods in favor of new

5 stadiums. These stadiums were supposed to help revitalize the city and boost the local economy, but they often did the exact opposite.

In order to develop my argument for this era of stadium construction from post-

World War II to the early 1970s, I will discuss earlier phases of stadium construction in the United States, and the introduction of public finances into the world of privately owned sports teams. Finally, one of the more important threads of this project will focus on the urban communities that were negatively impacted by the construction of these sports facilities, both in terms of land taken and in financial resources diverted away from neighborhoods and to these sports stadiums. In all of the cases I will discuss, the neighborhoods were vibrant and densely populated and socioeconomically their residents were primarily working class prior to the stadium construction. These neighborhoods tended to be racially or ethnically homogenous, with African American neighborhoods impacted in Pittsburgh and Atlanta, and a Mexican American neighborhood affected in

Los Angeles. In other cities where stadium construction impacted an established urban neighborhood, it almost always negatively influenced a neighborhood primarily comprised of racial or ethnic minorities, and/or poor or working class communities.

Between 1961 and 1971 ten different “multipurpose” stadiums opened across the

United States, as well as at least a half-dozen “single sport” facilities. These stadiums had several things in common – the “multipurpose” buildings (given this title by city officials and urban planners) were meant to handle multiple sports, as well as special events like concerts. These were also often called “cookie cutter” stadiums because from an architectural and design standpoint they were almost identical. They also were almost all part of urban renewal projects in major cities, with one or two of the stadiums from

6 this era constructed outside of town in the suburbs. These “multipurpose” stadiums included Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C. (1961), Shea

Stadium in Flushing, Queens, New York (1964), Atlanta Fulton County Stadium (1965), the Astrodome in Houston (1965), Busch Stadium in St. Louis (1966), Oakland-Alameda

County Coliseum in California (1966), Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego (1967), Three

Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh (1970), Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati (1970), and

Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia (1971). Some of the notable single-sport facilities built around the same time include Candlestick Park in San Francisco (1960), Civic Arena in

Pittsburgh (1961), Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (1962), Anaheim Stadium in

California (1966), and Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri (1973). In about half of these cases, stadiums were constructed to replace an existing facility somewhere else in the city. With the other half, stadiums were constructed to house a league expansion team, or in an effort to convince an existing team to leave their current home and relocate to their city. All of these stadiums, with the exception of Dodger Stadium and Busch

Stadium, were built with 100-percent (or close to 100-percent) public funding. 5

Starting in the 1950s, team owners began to pressure cities with ultimatums – build a new stadium, or else they will move to a city that will do so. Cities afraid of losing their teams started to comply. There were several reasons that city officials considered the loss of a team as something to avoid at all costs. Teams were considered a point of civic pride, something that put the city on the map nationally. This era also saw the rise in nationally televised sporting contests, which meant that teams and cities were

5 With these stadiums, Dodger Stadium and Busch Stadium each had 25 percent public funding, Anaheim Stadium had 96 percent public funding, and Kauffman Stadium had 76 percent public funding. All statistics come from Judith Grant Long, Public/Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), Kindle edition, Chapter 2.

7 now featured on televisions in homes across the country. City officials were also afraid to lose revenue from teams if they were to pack up and move to another city. And finally, local politicians were afraid that they could be blamed for a city’s failure to hold onto a team; they thought that voters would have a long memory when they cast future votes for their local officials. Their emotions toward their favorite team would cloud their vision at the polls.

The statistics are staggering when you consider how stadium construction and funding changed over time. From 1909 to 1956 (a period of forty-seven years), twenty- seven stadiums were constructed across the United States, with forty-seven percent of the funding coming from the public. From 1956 to 1976 (a period of just twenty years), fifty new stadiums were built across the United States, with seventy-five percent of the funding coming from the public. That averages out to 2.4 new stadiums per year during that time period. However, both of those are dwarfed when considering the modern period. From 1991 to 2004 (a period of just thirteen years), seventy-eight stadiums were built or underwent major renovations, an average of 5.4 per year. Of those stadiums, sixty-one percent were funded with a majority of public money. There was a bit of a slow-down from 2004 to 2012, in part thanks to the Great Recession, as just eighteen new stadiums were constructed. It was the first time since the early period of stadium construction from 1890 to 1920 where public funding dipped below fifty percent, to forty-seven percent. 6

***

6 Reuben Fischer-Baum, “Animated Infographic: Watch As America’s Stadiums Pile Up On The Backs Of Taxpayers Throughout The Years,” Deadspin Accessed September 6, 2016.

Existing literature on stadiums comes from various disciplines, primarily urban planning, sociology, economics, and communications. No historian has looked at the topic of stadiums, stadium funding, and the structures’ impact on urban communities.

Even the existing stadium literature does not really discuss the impact of stadiums on urban communities, or the prevalence of stadiums in urban renewal projects. While I see this dissertation making a contribution to the literature on stadiums by providing a historical perspective on the topics mentioned above, I also see it making a contribution to the literature on urban/suburban history and urban renewal. There is a rich historiography on these topics, but none of it really considers the role of sports and sports stadiums in these urban renewal plans, and how these projects leveraged political power and money and decimated existing urban neighborhoods to transform the urban-suburban landscape and relationship.

Sociologists Kevin J. Delaney and Rick Eckstein focus primarily on the modern phase of stadium construction (from about 1990 to the present) in Public Dollars, Private

Stadiums: The Battle Over Building Sports Stadiums. Despite the more recent focus of their book, they do include a brief historical discussion of stadium construction and how cities approached the subject. Their primary argument is that teams are typically more successful in convincing cities to fund their new stadiums when there is a strong local

“growth coalition.” Delaney and Eckstein explain that “these coalitions are rooted in an institutionalized relationship between headquartered local corporations and the local government.” 7 These coalitions are concerned about economic growth in cities, but usually in ways that will primarily benefit local businesses. Delaney and Eckstein also

7 Kevin J. Delaney and Rick Eckstein, Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battle Over Building Sports Stadiums (New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press, 2003), Kindle edition, Chapter 1.

9 stress that these coalitions may not necessarily be formal groups with an office and a meeting schedule. In some cases, it simply means that there is coordination/discussion between local businesses, and also between business interests and government. While this explains the issues connected to more recent stadium funding and construction, it does very little to explain funding in prior eras of stadium construction. What happened in the past that got us to the point where teams (and cities) believe that they need a new publicly funded facility after as few as 20 years? How did we get to a point, where it is almost an automatic assumption that taxpayer money should pay for these stadiums? By focusing on the era of stadium construction where public funding became commonplace,

I hope to explain the roots of some of these more modern issues. Plus, how long will it be before the current generation of stadiums is rendered obsolete? Will private businesses continue to make demands upon city governments and taxpayers in order to obtain funding for new structures?

Robert Trumpbour looks at stadiums through the lens of political institutions, sports franchises, and media coverage in The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the

History of Stadium Construction. Trumpbour selected those three issues because he believes those are the most important factors in determining the outcome of stadium proposals. While he does discuss the history of stadiums in the United States, it is not the main focus of his book. The urban renewal “cookie cutter” stadiums are just one component in the larger history of stadiums. In his examination of the first major phase of stadium construction (1890 to 1920), Trumpbour argues that owners often agreed to build ballparks because their teams were successful enough to justify the investment. In some cases, the stadiums were connected to their other business ventures. Trumpbour

10 splits this early era of stadium construction into two sections. The first half of this period ran from 1890 to 1909, and stadiums were typically constructed of wooden framework.

In 1909, the construction shifted the use of concrete and steel to build these sports stadiums, more reminiscent of modern facilities. The first two parks constructed in this manner were Forbes Field in Pittsburgh and Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Obviously a concrete and steel structure required more money to construct, but would also last longer and be less prone to fires.

When Trumpbour discusses the stadiums designed and constructed from the

1950s to the 1970s, he mentions two conflicting viewpoints on what precipitated the push toward increased public funding of stadiums. The first school of thought is that the

Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958 triggered this era of new, publicly-funded stadiums. Teams realized that other cities may be willing to offer them sweetheart deals and that they could still flourish financially in other locales. If a popular team like the Brooklyn Dodgers could pick up and move across the country, it meant that no team was safe. Concerned cities were more likely to offer teams perks in order to keep them from moving away. The other school of thought places the beginning of this era in 1953, when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to play in the publicly funded County Stadium. Even though it wasn’t a move entirely across the country, it was the first major sports team to move “west” during this time period. For years there had been attempts to establish teams, or even entire sports leagues, in the western United States. It was considered a region with untapped potential, specifically after the expansion of commercial air travel, making it easier for teams to travel across the United States. The Braves were the first of many established teams in east coast

11 cities that would move west in the hopes of greater financial success. The Braves would play in Milwaukee for just thirteen years before moving to Atlanta in 1966. Trumpbour does not really discuss the funding of these parks during this era, but does claim that the rise in popularity of football during this time period meant that there was a perceived need for better facilities for NFL teams. Officials in cities across the United States thought that they could save space in the center of their cities by building one facility to host the NFL and Major League Baseball. It would be easier to get public approval if the stadium would serve multiple teams. Trumpbour also emphasized that the new stadiums constructed during this time period were “a visible symbol of civic pride as many individuals regarded these facilities as futuristic.” 8 The circular design, in his argument, was meant to look sleek and futuristic. This was important to a rust belt city like

Pittsburgh that was often viewed as lagging in innovation and technology. The new multipurpose stadium (Three Rivers) made them part of the cutting edge of design.

Trumpbour portrays the Astrodome in Houston as the structure that was really on the cutting edge of this futuristic wave of stadiums. The first dome stadium of its kind when it was completed in 1965, it was often referred to as “the eighth wonder of the world” as a symbol of this futuristic style. 9 Even though Trumpbour implies that the

Astrodome was the leader of this trend, it was actually the third multipurpose, circular stadium constructed during this era, albeit unique as the first domed stadium. However, the Astrodome was very innovative when it came to amenities that are now considered commonplace at modern stadiums, like luxury suites and large, electronic scoreboards. It

8 Robert C. Trumpbour, The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction (Syracuse University Press, 2007), Kindle edition, Chapter 2. 9 Ibid.

12 was also the first park to use artificial turf, the reason the material ended up with the nickname “Astro-turf.”

While Trumpbour’s argument that the stadiums from the 1950s to 1970s were designed to represent a type of futuristic idea is fascinating, it ignores major issues connected to stadiums during this time period. Why were communities funding these new, futuristic venues, and why did they typically tie them to urban renewal projects?

What about this time period specifically, led to these developments, in terms of sports history, as well as United States and urban history? His book’s primary argument is that the media played a major role in the encouragement (or discouragement) of new sports stadiums. Since that is his focus, it means that these other questions go unanswered.

Trumpbour’s reason for the end of this era is relatively simple – the economic recession in the late 1970s and 1980s meant that fewer stadiums were built. During this time period, cities instead opted for renovation projects as opposed to new structures. By the

1990s, however, a number of the thirty-year bonds for the “cookie-cutter” stadiums were set to expire, leaving an opening for the negotiation of new deals.

Another book primarily focused on the modern phase of stadium construction from 1990 to the present is Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns

Public Money into Private Profit by journalists Neil deMause and Joanna Cagan. Even though they spend little to no time looking at historic stadium construction prior to the

1990s, one of their points of focus in the book may still have relevance to a historical project. They look at some of the typical issues one sees in the literature of modern stadiums, such as how these stadiums were funded and built, and how the issue is portrayed in the media. However, they also look at citizen activist groups that opposed

13 these new stadiums and fight against their existence. Even though deMause and Cagan feature these modern activists, they admit that they have not had much success in actually preventing the construction of a new stadium. 10 While there was opposition to stadiums during the multipurpose era, none of those folks successfully blocked the construction of these facilities.

Many of the statistics on the public and private financing of stadiums comes from the work of urban planner Judith Grant Long in her book Public/Private Partnerships for

Major League Sports Facilities. Long questioned the nature of these public/private relationships when it came to stadium funding, and wanted to investigate who pays for these facilities, how much they pay, and why they agree to pay for them. She claimed that public/private partnerships were used by federal and state governments throughout the history of the United States in order to complete infrastructure projects. Even though these partnerships existed at the federal and state level, Long argued that until the 1960s they were rarely used by local municipal governments. This shift was due to a decrease in federal funds for urban areas, which meant that cities that were “land rich but cash poor” needed public-private partnerships to “attract private capital to public projects.” 11

Stadiums became a common factor in these partnerships, since they were highly visible to the public. In addition, cities would use convention centers, festival markets, entertainment retail, and waterfront revitalization projects in an attempt to draw private capital. Like much of the other work on stadiums, Long’s primary focus is the period from 1990 to the present. However, she compiled financial data for every stadium ever

10 Neil deMause and Joanna Cagan, Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), Kindle edition. 11 Judith Grant Long, Public/Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), Kindle edition, Chapter 2.

14 built between 1876 and 2010. This data is of great importance to my project, since it helps to show the shift from private to public financing of stadiums. According to Long, the shift toward public funding in the 1950s and 1960s was due to team owners desiring larger and more elaborate stadiums. Sports fandom was increasing exponentially and the older facilities did not have enough seats and amenities like food service and restrooms to handle larger numbers of fans. These owners knew they did not have the money to build these facilities on their own, so they started to apply pressure to municipal governments.

If the team did not get what they wanted from their home city, then they would find a city that would give them what they wanted.

In his article “A Whole New Ball Game: Sports Stadiums and Urban Renewal in

Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, 1950-1970,” Aaron Cowan argues that the crop of new multipurpose stadiums built during this time period was representative of cities desiring to draw suburban families downtown, and provide facilities for tourism and entertainment. 12 These “cookie cutter” facilities “embodied the ideals of their planners and the middle-class suburbanites,” rather than the urban residents, according to Cowan.

The concrete behemoths separated fans from the city, “insuring that suburban fans would feel comfortable and protected in what they perceived as a crime-ridden inner city.” 13

When it came to Pittsburgh, Cowan focuses solely on the construction of Three Rivers

Stadium, but never addresses the construction of the Civic Arena across town at the foot of the Hill District neighborhood, even though its construction fell into the time period covered in his study. Civic Arena is an important part of this story, because its

12 Aaron Cowan, “A Whole New Ballgame: Sports Stadiums and Urban Renewal in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, 1950-1970,” Ohio Valley History, Fall 2005, 64. 13 Ibid, 65.

15 construction was so destructive to the vibrant Hill District neighborhood and opens up the discussion of race, class, space and politics in the post-World War II era.

Successful businesses and entertainment venues were demolished in order to make room for the new arena. On Pittsburgh’s north side, the site of Three Rivers

Stadium, the land along the river was mostly left vacant by the departing and declining industry. What is lacking from Cowan’s study, are the stories of the people impacted by these trends, stories of the people who lost homes, jobs, and community institutions due to the construction of sports stadiums connected to urban renewal, as well as those from the people who were excited to attend events in these new facilities and saw them as renewing their interest in the city. Lives were (and still are) impacted due to the boom in the construction of sports stadiums and the shift toward more public funding.

One of the issues that Robert Trumpbour discussed in The New Cathedrals:

Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction was the impact that post-

World War II consumerism had on stadiums. As mentioned earlier, one of the ways in which the stadiums of the 1950s to 1970s were innovative was the advent of the luxury box. Three Rivers Stadium actually became the first sporting venue to have a “club” section – an upscale restaurant with views of the field available for a fairly steep fee during a game. “Team shops” and an increased number of concessions also comprised parts of the newer stadiums. Attendance at a sporting event was now a shopping and dining experience, rather than simply a chance to watch your favorite team.

Existing literature on urban history is important to my study to provide background on the challenges that cities faced in the mid-twentieth century and to explain how those structural problems developed. As historians Thomas J. Sugrue and Arnold R.

Hirsch have illustrated, “a new racial geography took shape after World War II that mirrored a stark contrast between white suburban affluence and inner-city racial poverty.” 14 In his analysis of Detroit, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and

Inequality in Postwar Detroit, Sugrue argued that the period from the 1940s to the 1960s set the stage for the challenges facing urban areas today. Jobs left the Midwest and

Northeast, and moved to suburban or rural areas, or moved south to the Sunbelt region.

Once these jobs moved, they typically utilized lower-wage, often non-union labor. The neighborhoods in these Midwest and Northeast cities faced challenges as well. When it came to the attempts to integrate homogenous, white neighborhoods in Detroit, the residents resisted what they deemed encroachment and racial invasions. There was the inaccurate perception that integration would diminish housing values, and also lead to crime. These angry whites, both men and women, wanted to protect their neighborhoods and “investment” in their homes, and fought against Civil Rights legislation and liberal reform. The Origins of the Urban Crisis explains the segregation that existed in urban communities, and the stark contrasts between the city and the suburbs. 15

In The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles against Urban

Inequality, Rhonda Y. Williams discusses discrimination in public housing, urban inequality, and the impact of urban renewal that displaced thousands of people in

Baltimore. Williams shows the “texture and changing nature of poor black women’s activist experiences,” and also argues that renewal “recast the prevailing view that public

14 Eric Avila and Mark H. Rose, “Race, Culture, Politics, and Urban Renewal: An Introduction,” Journal of Urban History, Volume 35(3), March 2009, 339. 15 Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

17 housing was an unmitigated failure.” 16 The women featured in the book fought to improve building conditions, and to replace government and housing officials who were not responsive to their concerns during the 1940s. By the 1960s, the descendants of these activists were fighting for a larger role in the leadership and decision-making process. These women wanted to fight for the voices of tenants, and fight against mismanagement in public housing. There is cooperation between the women that live in this housing, political organizers, and antipoverty workers on both a local and national scale. The issue of public housing provided a starting point for the discussion of issues that impacted poor women that lived in Baltimore.

One of the reasons that African American residents were confined to specific urban neighborhoods was due to government policy that limited their ability to move to other parts of the city. Beryl Satter discusses the challenges facing African Americans that wanted to purchase property in Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the

Exploitation of Black Urban America. Due to restrictive lending policies, specifically that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) would not back mortgages in neighborhoods with black residents, it meant that these people were unable to acquire a traditional mortgage from a bank. Since black urban dwellers were unable to obtain a mortgage due to this policy of “redlining,” they had to buy homes “on contract,” which meant that they essentially purchased a home on an installment plan. Satter notes that a number of contract sellers were speculators, that would charge inflated prices for a property and evict families after just one missed payment. Satter writes, “The reason for the decline of so many black urban neighborhoods into slums was not the absence of

16 Rhonda Y. Williams, The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles Against Urban Inequality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 8.

18 resources but rather the riches that could be drawn from the seemingly poor vein of aged and decrepit housing and hard-pressed but hardworking and ambitious African

Americans.” 17 In many cases, the black owners subdivided their homes and rented space to other families, in order to make the often steep contract payments. Policies like these damaged urban neighborhoods and left African American families in a nearly impossible position. Often people spent so much money making contract payments, they struggled to afford upkeep and repairs on their homes. 18

Richard Rothstein also discusses the manner in which government policy enforced racial segregation in cities in Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our

Government Segregated America. Rothstein argues that “We have created a caste system in this country with African Americans kept exploited and geographically separate by racially explicit government policies. Although most of these policies are now off the books, they have never been remedied and their effects endure.” 19 Even though the

Supreme Court ruled in 1917 that segregation via zoning regulation was forbidden, the federal government devised other ways to achieve the same goal. One of these was through the FHA backing of mortgages; in fact, developers constructed all-white suburbs, in part, because they knew they would not be able to otherwise obtain financing thanks to restrictions on FHA-backed loans. Another way this was accomplished was by developing zoning regulations that were not explicitly segregationist. For example, there were zoning regulations to separate single-family homes from multi-family homes.

While there was never an explicit statement about segregating via race, the fact remained

17 Beryl Satter, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America (Henry Holt and Company, 2009), Kindle edition, Loc. 151. 18 Ibid. 19 Richard Rothstein, Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (W.W. Norton and Company, 2017) Kindle edition, Loc. 184.

19 that white families were more likely to live in single-family homes and African-American families more likely to live in multi-family dwellings due to the lending restrictions.

There were also cases where property owners and builders placed exclusive language in home deeds or situations where there were pacts among neighbors that they would refuse to sell to African American families. Rothstein notes in reference to these exclusionary policies, “Government and private industry came together to create a system of residential segregation.” 20

In A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South

Florida, N.D.B. Connolly notes that between the 1940s and 1960s, both local and federal officials destroyed nearly 1,600 black neighborhoods through “slum clearance,” urban renewal, and the construction of the interstate highway system. He argues that the displacement of black families was intentional. Connolly explains, “They represented, for growth-minded elites, successful attempts to contain black people and to subsidize regional economies with millions in federal spending.” 21 These policies were often supported by “urban progressives” and “moderate reformers,” because they argued it was a way to improve housing conditions and was a tool against “abusive and intransigent landlords.” Connolly says that these more moderate reformers, who sought to improve urban housing, “found common cause with proponents of regional growth who simply wanted to repurpose the land rental owners held.” 22 According to Connolly, to understand many of these urban policies, one needs to look at the origins of landlord power and how that power influenced segregation and property rights. He adds,

20 Ibid, Loc. 1291. 21 N.D.B. Connolly, A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2014), Kindle edition, 8. 22 Ibid.

“…property owners’ collaboration worked less as some kind of conspiracy than as a simple cohort of entrepreneurs protecting shared interests from contrasting social positions.” 23

Additional literature connects specifically to the three cities featured in this dissertation, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. In Pittsburgh, Rob Ruck writes about the importance of sports to the African American community in Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh. While this book covers sports in the Hill District neighborhood, as well as the importance of the Negro League baseball in the city, it does not touch upon the construction of Three Rivers Stadium and the Civic Arena. Joe W. Trotter and Jared

N. Day write about the African American community in post-World War II Pittsburgh in

Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II. Trotter and

Day note that, “Pittsburgh’s black community has transformed against the broader backdrop of industrial capitalism, on one hand, and the spread of the segregationist system on the other,” and argue that Pittsburgh has often been left out of discussions of

African Americans in the post-war United States. 24 While they discuss Pittsburgh’s

“Renaissance” urban renewal plans, there is almost no discussion of sports stadiums within that program. Another work that discusses the Renaissance in Pittsburgh is

Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region, edited by Joel A. Tarr. While the essays extensively cover the smoke removal and anti- pollution aspects of the Renaissance, there is little focus on the communities impacted by these programs and no mention of any environmental issues connected to the new stadiums. Michael P. Weber’s biography of Mayor David L. Lawrence, Don’t Call Me

23 Ibid, 9. 24 Joe W. Trotter and Jared N. Day, Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010), Kindle edition, Loc. 386.

Boss: David L. Lawrence, Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Mayor, discusses the mayor’s role in the Renaissance programs, but primarily focuses on the political implications of these policies, and not their impact on the community. While there is discussion on the construction of the Civic Arena, it barely mentions Three Rivers Stadium since it was completed after Lawrence’s term in office.

There is a growing body of literature on the impact of sports and Dodger Stadium to the Los Angeles community. However, it primarily views this case in isolation, and does not connect the sports and stadium-related issues in Los Angeles to similar events across the country. Don Parson’s Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red

Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles provides a wealth of information connected to the Cold War public housing controversy in the city. Even though it does not focus on the Dodgers, and the construction of Dodger Stadium, it does document events that took place in Chavez Ravine prior to the involvement of the Dodgers. In

Shameful Victory: The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Scare, and the Hidden History of

Chavez Ravine John H.M. Laslett focused primarily on the history of the Chavez Ravine community, dating back to the nineteenth century. While it includes stories about the people directly impacted by the stadium construction, it does not examine the reasons

Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley chose to come to Los Angeles, and what encouraged his decision to move the team to Los Angeles. Andy McCue’s biography of O’Malley,

Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball’s Westward Expansion does consider all aspects of O’Malley’s decision-making process, but does not consider the decisions that team owners faced in other cities.. Jared Podair’s recently released City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles describes the cultural

22 significance of the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles and the tug-of-war between business interests and community interests in the city. However, he does not contextualize what took place in Los Angeles to greater changes in American sports at that time. 25

Within the literature on Atlanta there is often mention of Atlanta-Fulton County

Stadium, as well as the arrival of the Olympics in the city during the 1990s. However, the literature does not delve into the Braves’ connection to the city of Milwaukee, nor does it examine the perceived importance of sports to city officials, or the stadium’s impact on the city. Most works focused on Atlanta often explore the political environment of the city, and its connections to the larger Civil Rights Movement. In The

Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta,

Maurice J. Hobson looks at the black elites in Atlanta and their connections to white elites in the city. Hobson wrote that even as the government in Atlanta moved from white to black control, black leaders “pursued policies that benefitted white and black elites at the exclusion of many black citizens that brought them to power.” 26 Carlton

Wade Basmajian writes about the role of regional planning agencies in Atlanta in Atlanta

Unbound: Enabling Sprawl Through Policy and Planning. He argues that an interconnected network of agencies, working in tandem with the business community, was responsible for much of the growth and sprawl throughout Atlanta. In Atlanta

Rising: The Invention of an International City, 1946-1996 Frederick Allen writes about

25 Don Parson, Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2005); John H.M. Laslett, Shameful Victory: The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Scare, and the Hidden History of Chavez Ravine (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015); Andy McCue, Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014); Jerald Podair, City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017). 26 Maurice J. Hobson, The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 1.

23 the post-World War II growth in Atlanta and the forces that shaped the city during that time frame. Allen places a great deal of focus on political figures, like Mayor William

Hartsfield and Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., and prominent individuals from the business community such as banker Mills Lane and Robert Woodruff of Coca Cola. He concludes that corporate interests often dictated important governmental decisions in Atlanta.

***

This study of stadiums and their impact on urban identity and the community is presented in five chapters. Chapter one looks at the early period of stadium construction in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, as well as the early municipal stadiums constructed during the 1920s. I argue that during this period, sports, particularly baseball, shifted from a pastime into a lucrative business. The construction of stadiums was emblematic of the success of these team owners, and was also a way for them to earn more money by creating large seating capacity. While city governments did not provide funding for these early stadiums, their officials still viewed both the teams and their ballparks as a point of civic pride. When these stadiums were constructed, team owners bought the land outright from its original owners. This differs from the post-

World War II era when eminent domain was often used to clear land for a new stadium.

The focus of chapter two is Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood from the

1930s through the 1960s. Situated at the eastern edge of Pittsburgh’s downtown, the Hill

District was a bustling African American neighborhood with one of the few team-owned

Negro League baseball stadiums, Greenlee Field. Owned by businessman Gus Greenlee, the stadium lasted for just six years before it was demolished in order to make space for public housing in the neighborhood. Other major cultural institutions in the Hill District,

24 like Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the oldest churches in the city, and the Crawford Grill, a famous jazz club owned by Greenlee, were demolished in the

1950s to make way for the Civic Arena. This Arena, and the urban renewal plans for the

Hill District, was part of an ambitious plan dubbed the “Renaissance.” The Renaissance was supposed to change the image of Pittsburgh from that of a soot-covered, outmoded city to that of a sleek, modern city looking to its future. While this plan focused on how

Pittsburgh was presented to the rest of the world, it ignored the needs of African

American residents who were seemingly “in the way” of these ambitious plans.

Chapter three also focuses on Pittsburgh, but instead looks at the construction of a new, multipurpose stadium on the city’s north side named Three Rivers Stadium. This new facility replaced Forbes Field. City officials feared that major league baseball’s

Pirates could leave town if they were not offered a better venue in Pittsburgh and sought to construct a new, municipally-funded stadium. While the construction of Three Rivers

Stadium did not lead to the destruction of an established community, as with the Civic

Arena, it did divert financial resources away from other parts of the community. Unlike the loss of Greenlee Field to the Hill District, the demolition of Forbes Field was actually beneficial to the city’s Oakland neighborhood by providing land to the University of

Pittsburgh for a planned expansion of campus. Unlike the powerless in the city, the poor and African American residents of the Hill District, the powerful figures in this story benefitted from the new stadium plans.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers announced their move to Los Angeles, it reshaped the game of baseball in the United States. Baseball was confined to the eastern half of the country, particularly the northeast; this shift west made baseball a truly national sport.

This move also likely left officials in a number of cities worried about the fate of their own teams. Could a Sunbelt city steal one of their teams as well? What would they need to do to hold onto their teams? Chapter four examines the Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and the way this move created shock waves throughout the game of baseball. The construction of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles marked the first case of a stadium constructed with a hybrid of public and private funding. Even though Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley paid for the actual structure itself in Los Angeles’s Chavez

Ravine neighborhood, he expected the city to gift him land for it (or at the very least, provide a significant discount). This chapter also covers O’Malley’s demands to the city of New York, and how the lack of an agreement between the two parties led to the

Dodgers’ move west. Much as in Pittsburgh, the construction of Dodger Stadium in Los

Angeles destroyed an existing ethnic community – in this instance one that was Mexican

American. As Chavez Ravine was close to downtown Los Angeles, city officials believed the land was too valuable to allow poor, Mexican American people to continue living there. A new stadium was seen as a civic asset.

The cities of Milwaukee and Atlanta are the focus of chapter five. Baseball’s

Braves left Boston for Milwaukee in 1953 and moved into a new municipal stadium constructed in the city. In this case, the new stadium was not enough to keep the team from moving to a different city. When Atlanta started to woo the Braves, the team’s new ownership group paid attention. Braves officials were intrigued by the possibility of holding a media monopoly in the southeastern United States; it would make them the only major league baseball team for hundreds of miles and the first professional sports team in the southeast. Atlanta city officials believed that professional sports were a civic

26 asset and could help to promote the image of Atlanta as a progressive, modern city.

When it came time to select a location for their new municipal stadium, Atlanta officials chose an African American neighborhood just south of downtown. This area was already marked for urban renewal as part of what was called the Washington-Rawson project, but plans initially called for better housing in the area. Instead, Atlanta officials opted to displace the residents and push them further to the periphery of the city. As in Los

Angeles and Pittsburgh, land so close to downtown was viewed as too valuable to house low-income or working class non-white families.

While there are very obvious similarities between these three cities, there are also differences. Geographically they are a southern city, a western city, and a city located in the northern rust belt. All three were unique and innovative in some way when it came to the construction and/or funding of stadiums and each provides an important example as to how stadium construction was connected to urban renewal projects from the 1950s to the 1970s. While there were differences, in each instance there was enough common ground to allow for generalizations about the period, and about stadium construction during this time period, most particularly the way in which the new stadiums had a lasting, negative effect on urban communities.

Chapter 1 – From Pastime to Civic Asset: The Rise of Privately Funded Sports Stadiums in the Early Twentieth Century

In the late nineteenth century, sports in the United States, particularly the sport of baseball, began the evolution from a pastime to a business. As team owners realized that sports were a profitable venture, they sought ways to increase their earnings. One of the ways that they could do so was by constructing a stadium; owners could then charge an admission fee to games and could more comfortably host large numbers of people. With a stadium, teams also had a fixed location in the community. City leaders started to view sports teams, as well as their new stadiums, as civic assets. They were a point of pride for urban boosters who wanted to use the teams for bragging rights, even if city officials did nothing to financially support the teams and their stadiums in the early twentieth century. By the mid-twentieth century cities were desperate to keep sports teams and their owners happy, and were willing to fund and construct new sports stadiums on their behalf. The seeds for this major change were planted in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century as sports became a big business and a valued civic asset.

From 1890 to the 1920s, there was a building boom of sports stadiums across the

United States. For the first half of that period these stadiums were constructed of wood; starting in 1909 these wooden structures were all replaced by concrete and steel ballparks. There were many similarities with these new stadiums, the majority of which were built for baseball teams. They were approximately the same size, they were all privately funded by team owners or entrepreneurs, and more than half of them were designed by the same company, Osborn Engineering in Cleveland, Ohio. These new

28 concrete and steel parks were almost all woven into the fabric of urban neighborhoods, typically a short streetcar ride from a city’s downtown. At this point in time baseball was an increasingly popular sport, and team owners wanted structures that could hold as many paying fans as possible. With industrialization, increasing numbers of workers had available leisure time and disposable income to fund leisure activities. Since stadiums had different pricing tiers, even in the early twentieth century, it provided a sense of class segregation within the ballpark. 1 Baseball was an increasingly professionalized sport in the early twentieth century, and required facilities that could represent that fact. If there were any government connections between these stadiums and the local municipality, it usually involved issues like patronage or bribes, often to alter certain municipal regulations. These facilities were representative of the success of the individual teams and sports in general at this point in time. With minimal involvement from urban officials, there was little formal financial connection between individual sports teams and city government. The exceptions to this rule were three municipal stadiums constructed in the 1920s. However, these municipal stadiums were not designed with a specific team in mind, and two of the three intended to draw the Olympics to their individual cities.

There were a number of reasons for the increase in baseball’s popularity during the late nineteenth century, several of which mirrored changes in the United States at that time. Historian Steven A. Riess said that “The game’s swift development as a commercialized spectacle also depended on such modernizing external factors as

1 David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Professional Amusements (Harvard University Press, 1993). Nasaw discusses the growth of sports, particularly baseball, as a leisure activity in chapter eight of Going Out. Roy Rosenzweig also discusses the growth of leisure activities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870- 1920, (Cambridge University Press, 1985).

29 urbanization, economic prosperity, and transportation and communication innovations.” 2

Transportation was important to move teams from place to place, and to get fans to and from ballparks. The nineteenth century sports media was vital in providing information on the teams to the public, and for generating support for the teams and their players.

With industrialization came urbanization, and it also meant that there were now some workers who could use their disposable income to attend baseball games. Thanks to the economic prosperity of team owners, these owners could afford to put some of their money back into the operation of their teams. 3

Modern major league baseball is defined by two leagues, the National League

(formed in 1876) and the American League (formed in 1901). At the turn of the twentieth century, these leagues were not viewed as two halves of a greater whole, as they are in the twenty-first century. The two leagues were considered competitors in the early 1900s, and were governed almost as separate entities for much of the twentieth century. Because the founder of the American League, Byron Bancroft “Ban” Johnson, wanted to compete with the National League, he established franchises in a number of cities that already had National League teams. Thanks to Johnson’s plan, by 1903 New

York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Boston all had multiple teams. After the formation of the American League, professional baseball experienced a high degree of stability. In the past, there were problems with teams going out of business, or even entire leagues that disappeared through failure or merger. Teams and leagues were consistent after 1901, and in 1903 an annual championship game dubbed the World

Series was established between the National League and the American League.

2 Steven A. Riess, Touching Base: Professional Baseball and American Culture in the Progressive Era, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 12. 3 Ibid.

According to Riess, team owners were portrayed by the media as “intelligent, hard-working, public-spirited citizens whose primary concern was the welfare of their community.” 4 However, that was not always necessarily the case – often these owners were involved with questionable business practices, or mistreatment of their players.

Riess notes that the reason for the discrepancy in their actual image, versus their image in the media, was due to the fact that investigative sports reporting was almost nonexistent near the turn of the twentieth century. While the muckraking tradition took hold in other areas of journalism, the same did not hold true for the sports media. In many cases, teams often paid expenses for sports writers, which meant they were less likely to be critical. Additionally, the team owners knew how to communicate effectively with the media, as did league officials. Ban Johnson got his start in journalism before he founded the American League, and he knew how to finesse journalists. 5 Riess explained the connection between sports journalism and the image of team owners:

“The absence of critical media commentary gave fans no reason to doubt the

carefully designed image of magnates as outstanding civic-minded business

professionals and selfless philanthropists devoted to providing clean and

wholesome amusement. However, the reality was that professional baseball was

not dominated by benevolent people, but by entrepreneurs out to make money.” 6

Riess also points out that teams had four very valuable assets within their control – a team, players under contract, a ballpark, and “the loyalty and goodwill of hometown fans.” 7

4 Ibid, 54. 5 Ibid, 54-55. 6 Ibid, 55. 7 Ibid.

The earliest baseball parks in the 1860s and 1870s did not typically have seating for fans. At most there were railings or fencing that kept fans separated from the field of play. By the 1880s and 1890s, more fans started to attend baseball games, which meant that team owners needed to find a way to improve the paying public’s view of the game.

That was when they started to construct wood frame ballparks with multiple ranks of seats, with the idea that more fans could view the action. These facilities were not flashy or architecturally unique; their primary focus was “utilitarian” in nature. Another benefit to these wooden structures was the fact that team owners could more easily charge admission to fans at the park. Many of these early wooden ballparks were considered temporary, or even movable, until more permanent structures were completed around the end of the nineteenth century. Therefore if a team went out of business, or tried to move their location, they could do so with ease. These ballparks were often prone to fire, and in some cases were destroyed multiple times. By 1894 one third of all major league parks had caught fire at one point or another. 8

There were instances in the late nineteenth century where team owners built ballparks to benefit one of their other businesses. A number of independent streetcar operators built baseball parks in order to encourage additional ridership for their streetcars. There were even instances of owners who operated their teams and parks at a loss, because the primary source of income was the tickets they sold for their streetcars. 9

In Cleveland, Frank De Haas Robison constructed a new, wood-frame baseball park in

1891 east of downtown on his streetcar line. By doing this, Robison earned ticket fees

8 Robert C. Trumpbour, The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007), Kindle edition, Location 220; James T. Bennett, They Play, You Pay: Why Taxpayers Build Ballparks, Stadiums, and Arenas for Billionaire Owners and Millionaire Players, (Springer Science and Business Media, 2012), Kindle edition, 38. 9 Trumpbour, Loc. 229.

32 from fans, and these same fans also patronized his streetcar to get to the park. 10 When the new wooden park first opened to the public, the Cleveland Plain Dealer estimated that hundreds of fans arrived at the park via Robison’s streetcar, and thousands of fans bought tickets to attend the game. All of these were profits that went directly to Robison.

11 In Brooklyn, New York, Charles Ebbets owned a wooden ball park in Washington

Park where his Superbas (later renamed Dodgers) played. Washington Park enjoyed a central location in Brooklyn, close to two different trolley lines. Two trolley car companies actually contributed money to the construction of this early wooden stadium, in the hopes that it would increase their ridership. 12

In a number of cases team owners had both direct and indirect connections with the political system in their cities. When considering the majority owners and stockholders of teams near the turn of the twentieth century, about half of the team officials across the United States were involved in politics. In some cases politicians ran teams as a side business venture, or owners were civic boosters or public figures. One example of this was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, owned by the publisher of the

Cincinnati Inquirer. 13 Riess notes that teams used their connections to city hall to help avoid certain municipal regulations, provide patronage to people, or even use their teams to improve politicians’ public images. Baseball in the nineteenth century was a risky venture though; almost seventy-five percent of all teams lasted for less than two years and fewer than ten percent survived six or more seasons. 14

10 Joan M. Thomas, “Frank Robison,” Society for American Baseball Research Bioproject, < https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ddadbc42> (Accessed November 15, 2017). 11 “A Grand Opening,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 2, 1891. 12 G. Edward White, Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself 1903-1953, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), 16-17. 13 Riess, 55. 14 Ibid.

Public officials did not commit funding toward these stadiums, and in many cases demanded money from the teams and their owners. For example, city leaders and other well-connected citizens worked to control the locations of stadiums near the turn of the twentieth century. These powerful figures held sway over city regulations and held the fate of stadium owners in their hands. In some cases, they demanded a share of profits from the owners, or at the very least, a bribe to earn municipal approval. For example,

Byron Bancroft “Ban” Johnson, the founder of the American League, wanted to establish a team in New York in 1901. However, the owner of the New York Giants, Andrew

Freedman, was well-connected politically and managed to stop Johnson from doing so.

Johnson continued to push for an American League team in New York, and finally accomplished his goal in 1903 after promising a shared ownership stake to a former police chief, a professional gambler, and a former city superintendent of buildings. 15

Economist James T. Bennett said that in the early twentieth century seventeen of the eighteen professional ball clubs were run by people with political connections. Bennett notes, “Although baseball is beloved in the American memory as a pastoral sport played in meadows by rustic youths, even the early professional teams were the property of urban politicians, often boasting – or hiding – dubious connections.” 16

While the early team owners did not get cities to pay for their stadiums, or provide funding to their teams, they were able to obtain certain perks. For example, they may get an early tip on streetcar routing, or possibly some sway over determining a future

15 Trumpbour, Loc. 237. 16 Bennett, 35.

34 route. 17 That way, they could make sure that their stadium was on the streetcar line for more convenience. Team owners could also find a way to get favorable real-estate assessments for properties they wanted to purchase, or receive tips on available land.

City officials also cut deals on “amusement” licensing fees for the team owners. 18

Teams and stadiums were not completely removed from government and politics, but city officials were not funneling money to teams in order to subsidize stadiums. There were mutually beneficial political connections between the two entities, but city officials stopped short of providing a blank check to team owners. These officials increasingly viewed sports teams as a civic asset, something that could enhance the image of their city. In the late nineteenth century, with “the establishment of professional teams,” both

“urban boosters and investors envisioned a winning team as a means of promoting civic pride and even economic development.” 19

There were a number of similarities between the team owners that chose to build stadiums near the turn of the twentieth century. While these men often had political connections, none came from elite, upper-class families at the end of the nineteenth century. These men had backgrounds as former baseball players, brewery owners, liquor manufacturers, bookkeepers, contractors, real estate speculators, and entrepreneurs in the sporting goods industry. 20 Team owners often viewed themselves as upwardly mobile in

17 Even though streetcar systems were private entities, routes were awarded by politically approved municipal franchises. John H. White discusses the history of streetcars in Wet Britches and Muddy Boots: A History of Travel in Victorian America, (Indiana University Press, 2013), 87-129. 18 Bennett, 35. 19 Richard O. Davies, Sports in American Life: A History, (Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 45. 20 White, 23. These owners included James Gaffney (Braves Field in Boston), John Taylor (Fenway Park in Boston), Barney Dreyfus (Forbes Field in Pittsburgh), Jimmy Manning and Frederick Postal (National Park, later Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C.), Julius and Max Fleischmann (Redland Field, later Crosley Field in Cincinnati), Frank Navin (Navin Field, later Tiger Stadium in Detroit), Ernest Barnard (League Park in Cleveland), Charles Comiskey (Comiskey Park in Chicago), Charles Weeghman (Weeghman Park, later Wrigley Field in Chicago), Robert Lee Hedges (Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis),

35 society, and saw their teams as a potential gateway to wealth and social status. While baseball was a pastime and something viewed as a leisure activity, it was quickly becoming a lucrative business for owners at the turn of the twentieth century. 21

***

Between 1909 and 1923 team owners replaced their wooden stadiums with more permanent concrete and steel ball parks. In that span of time there were more than a dozen new permanent baseball stadiums constructed in the United States, primarily in the

Northeast and Midwest. Part of the reason for this is likely due to the fact that overall attendance doubled in baseball between 1903 and 1908 to more than 7 million fans.

Owners wanted to accommodate more people in their parks, and felt they could earn a return on their investment if they built larger, more reliable facilities. 22 These new parks included Forbes Field in Pittsburgh (1909), Shibe Park in Philadelphia (1909),

Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis (1909), Comiskey Park in Chicago (1910), League Park in

Cleveland (1910), the Polo Grounds in New York (1911), National Park (later renamed

Griffith Stadium) in Washington, D.C. (1911), Navin Field (later renamed Tiger

Stadium) in Detroit (1912), Crosley Field in Cincinnati (1912), Fenway Park in Boston

(1912), Ebbets Field in Brooklyn (1913), Weeghman Park (later renamed Wrigley Field) in Chicago (1914), Braves Field in Boston (1915), and Yankee Stadium in New York

(1923). Nine of these stadiums, Forbes Field, League Park, Comiskey Park, the Polo

Grounds, Griffith Stadium, Navin Field, Fenway Park, Braves Field, and Yankee Stadium were designed wholly or in part by the same company, Osborn Engineering based in

Charles Ebbets (Ebbets Field in Brooklyn), John Brush (Polo Grounds in New York), and Ben Shibe (Shibe Park, Philadelphia). 21 Ibid, 23-24. 22 Riess, 5.

Cleveland. While these parks were not identical – in many cases they were constructed to fit on a specific lot size in their respective cities – there were many similarities in style between them.

There were numerous reasons as to why there were so many relatively similar stadiums built within such a short span of years. The steady increase in the popularity of baseball after the turn of the twentieth century obviously meant that teams felt there was a need for larger and more reliable stadiums. But there were several things that made the construction feasible at that time. Players were paid very little at this point, which meant that the owners were able to keep the majority of the profits. That meant that they could afford to build improved facilities for teams. Thanks to an influx of immigrants from

Europe, team owners found relatively cheap labor readily available to build the stadiums.

It was also relatively easy to gain municipal approval on such a structure, especially if the owner was willing to provide any necessary bribes to officials. Since these parks typically were not constructed in a city’s downtown area, it meant that team owners often found affordable and available land a bit removed from the city center. 23

Other factors that enabled the stadium boom were advancements in construction materials and techniques. Frank Osborn, the founder of Osborn Engineering, worked for bridge building companies upon his graduation from college in 1880. When he started his own company in Cleveland in 1892, Osborn wanted to focus on major structural steel projects. However, “the firm quickly became experts in the use of reinforced concrete as a major construction element.” 24 As baseball team owners considered more permanent, safe structures for their teams, Osborn’s experience with steel frames and reinforced

23 Trumpbour, Loc. 296. 24 Richard G. Weingardt, “Frank Osborn: Nation’s Pioneer Stadium Designer,” Structure Magazine, March 2013, 62.

37 concrete made his firm a great match for these new baseball parks. At one point in the twentieth century, Osborn Engineering became known as the “stadium designers for the nation.” 25 Even though Osborn died in 1922, just before his newly-designed Yankee

Stadium opened, his son Kenneth took over control of the company. By 1928, Osborn

Engineering had designed seventy-five stadiums across the country, for both professional sports and colleges.26

Kurt Rim, Osborn Engineering’s CEO Emeritus, said that the design of bridge and stadium structures had several similarities, as both had “a lot of cantilevers and trusses.”

27 Rim said that Yankee Stadium was the first structure to have three levels of seating; the standard prior to that point was two levels of seating. Rim said that it was steel that made the construction of these stadiums possible. He explained that the Colosseum in ancient Rome had nineteen tons of stone for every spectator it could accommodate. The

1923 Yankee Stadium had less than one ton of steel per spectator, which meant that it was easier and more cost-effective to build it. 28

With a single company designing a great number of these stadiums, there were obvious similarities between them. Team owners still wanted to leave their own mark on these structures, and wanted a certain aesthetic when they envisioned their new ballpark – they wanted these new stadiums to look like “palaces.” At the very least, the ballparks were meant to be viewed as imposing structures in their cities, and in many cases they

25 Ibid, 61. In Osborn Engineering’s early years, the company still primarily worked on bridges, including what was the largest reinforced concrete bridge in the country at the time in Zanesville, Ohio. 26 Greg Miller, “Rare Blueprints Show How an Iconic Baseball Stadium Evolved,” National Geographic, May 30, 2017, < https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/baseball-yankee-stadium-hand-drawn- blueprints-architectural/> (Accessed November 1, 2017). 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. Even though Osborn Engineering did not build the original Wrigley Field, they were the firm hired to install lights at the structure in the late 1980s; Weingardt, 61-63. Osborn Engineering still operates in Cleveland and is the city’s oldest engineering company; it even designed the city’s Jacobs Field (later renamed Progressive Field), which opened in 1994.

38 had features like decorative friezes, ornate lobbies, or neoclassical motifs. Author G.

Edward White said that all of the owners “thought of their ballparks as architectural symbols of the commercial and cultural vitality of urban twentieth-century America.” 29

The stadiums were symbols of modernity both in terms of the sport of baseball, and in terms of urban growth. White argued that these concrete and steel parks “were seen as signals that the game of major league baseball had evolved from its amateurish beginnings to become a sport that could serve as the basis for civic identification and pride.” 30 There was a sense of continuity with the steel and concrete parks, in addition to the sense of permanence. It meant that several generations of family members shared the same experience as they attended games in the steel and concrete ballparks over the years. Baseball is a game steeped in tradition and nostalgia, and these stadiums helped to perpetuate those sentiments. 31

Progressive Era politics also played a role in the design of the permanent concrete and steel ballparks. During the 1890s alone, twenty-five different ballparks caught fire thanks to the dry wooden construction of the old parks. There were a number of high- profile deadly fires around this time as well, like the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire in

Chicago where 602 people lost their lives, and a fire on the steamer General Slocum in

1903 that took the lives of 1,030. Municipalities during the Progressive Era paid closer attention to the dangers of fire and wanted to ensure that public venues were safe for large crowds of people. Local governments rewrote building codes and tightened regulations when it came to construction materials. These governments also established

29 White, 22. This was similar to the movie theater “palaces” constructed across the United States in the early twentieth century. 30 Ibid, 20. 31 Ibid, 20-21.

39 basic safety standards and insisted on building inspections to ensure fire safety standards were up to par. Owners often tried to remain on good terms with city officials in order to positively influence their ballpark’s inspections. A good relationship could mean that an inspector would overlook some of a park’s infractions, while a bad relationship could lead to numerous citations and fines. 32 A concrete and steel ballpark was much safer than the wooden structures, and by this point urban officials focused on improved safety features in places where large numbers of people gathered.

When it came to a decision on where to locate these old parks, the reasons for site selection varied from city to city. In some cases team owners just chose available, accessible pieces of land. In the case of Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, the process was a bit more complex than some of the other early parks. Charles Ebbets wanted to move his team to a section of Brooklyn at the southeast corner of Prospect Park called “Pigtown,” a piece of land that appealed to Ebbets because it was near the intersection of nine different trolley car lines. While the property was not considered necessarily desirable in the early

1910s when Ebbets looked to purchase it, Brooklyn was experiencing rapid growth around this time. Ebbets believed that the property would likely have value in the future, if not right at that moment. 33

The site in Pigtown was five and a half acres and Ebbets worked to purchase the parcels of land that comprised the site. He created a dummy corporation called the

“Pylon Construction Company” and hired a man completely unaffiliated with baseball or

Ebbets, Edward Brown, to handle the negotiations with the property owners. It eventually cost $100,000 to purchase the entire site by January of 1912, and the Brooklyn

32 Riess, 116-117. 33 White, 17.

Eagle pointed out that by keeping his identity a secret, Ebbets had likely been able to purchase the site for less money, and with more ease, than if the property owners knew who really wanted the land. As the Eagle pointed out, if owners realized the land was for a stadium, “some of the owners might have ‘hung up’ the purchaser, who would have been helpless, as he could not have brought condemnation proceedings.” 34 Ebbets Field eventually cost another $750,000 to complete and opened to the public in 1913. After its inaugural game, Ebbets Field was called “the handsomest and best-arranged home of the national game in these United States.” 35

One of the things that made Ebbets Field unique was the fact that Ebbets hired

“members of a newly-organized special police force,” that was known as “The

Doughertys” to handle security at the park. The Brooklyn Eagle claimed that all members of this special force were military veterans and “more than six feet tall.” In other words, patrons at the ballpark may think twice about causing trouble with this security force on the scene. The Doughertys were supposed to “suppress disorder by ejecting the perpetrator” in order to eliminate any disruptions at the ball park. 36 There were stories about rowdy crowds at the Dodgers’ early wooden stadium in Washington

Park and Ebbets supposedly wanted to attract “respectable people” at his new concrete and steel park. While baseball teams in the twenty-first century still rely upon private security forces within the stadiums, there is also a municipal police presence both inside and outside of the venues.

In many ways the design of Ebbets Field reflected Ebbets’ desire to attract a more respectable, wholesome crowd to baseball games. The large rotunda inside the main

34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid, 18.

41 entrance of the ballpark included an Italian marble floor, and a chandelier that hung from the ceiling. It actually made Ebbets Field look more like the entrance to a theater or an opera house than a sports stadium. Ebbets also borrowed other features from the design of opera houses – the seats had an arm rest and a curved back, rather than the straight backed seats seen in the earlier wooden parks. There were also coat check rooms, women’s restrooms, and dedicated parking that even offered a valet service for both automobiles and carriages. The Brooklyn Eagle implied that the new Ebbets Field actually enhanced the overall image of Brooklyn. 37

The praise for the new ballparks did not stop in Brooklyn, however; the new concrete and steel parks were welcomed and praised in cities across the country. When

Shibe Park opened in Philadelphia in 1909, more than 30,000 fans attended the first game between the Athletics and Red Sox. In fact, the gates were closed an hour before game time because the stadium was already full. 38 The owner of the park, Ben Shibe, purchased land for his new stadium in a manner similar to Ebbets. He had his general contractor, Joseph Steele, serve as the buyer for the separate tracts of land he wanted to purchase in an undeveloped portion of Philadelphia. That way the land owners did not know that a team owner hoped to purchase the land for a stadium. One of the reasons the land in this portion of Philadelphia was cheap and undesirable was because it was near a hospital for contagious diseases, including smallpox victims. However, when Shibe was purchasing the land, he understood that the city planned to close the hospital in the near future. Within the first few months of Shibe Park’s existence, the hospital closed. 39 This was a prime example of how team owners utilized their ties to urban politics to their

37 Ibid. 38 “30,000 In New Shibe Park,” New York Times, April 13, 1909. 39 White, 21.

42 benefit. Shibe was able to obtain information about this land before this information was made available to the general public.

When Cleveland reopened the new League Park in 1910, it was called “the greatest baseball plant in the entire circuit,” and it was said that it “can be considered a pride to any city.” The $300,000 stadium seated 21,000, with more than half of those seats free from an obstructed view. It was said that a problem in many other “modern parks” was that many of the stadium’s seats did not offer an unobstructed view of the field. Fans always had to worry about support columns blocking their view of the game, or seats that did not afford a clear view of the action on the field. The opening of the new

League Park was such a major occasion, that several factories in Cleveland closed so their workers could attend the game against Detroit. Officials expected a capacity crowd of 21,000 at the new League Park. The old, wooden League Park actually had a record

20,720 fans at one of their games, but several thousand of those fans had to stand on the field. 40

When National Park (later renamed Griffith Stadium) opened in Washington,

D.C. in 1911, it was said that “none yet built will equal it in beauty” and that fans would be surprised and pleased by all the park had to offer. Joe S. Jackson of the Washington

Post said that the players would like the new park as well, “The Nationals ought to sing paeans of praise, for they finally have a big league lot, and their dressing room, with its showers and needed baths and sanitary lockers, makes the old clubhouse look like a relic of the dark ages.” 41 The park brought modern amenities to both players and fans, and was a vast improvement over their prior wooden stadium. As a symbol of baseball’s

40 “To Open Finest Plant In The League,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 21, 1910. 41 Joe S. Jackson, “Parlor Ball Park Of Land What Washington Will Have,” Washington Post, July 23, 1911.

43 growing popularity in the nation’s capital (and across the country), in 1910 President

William Howard Taft became the first United States president to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game at National Park. It was a tradition that was repeated well into the twenty-first century. Prior to 1910’s opening day game, even the

U.S. Congress took the afternoon off to attend the baseball game. 42

It was easier to design seating for events like boxing, football, or track and field events, since a circular seating structure usually sufficed. Fans were able to view the action fairly well for those events from any vantage point. With baseball, the seating design was a bit more complex. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the game of baseball was in what was called the “dead ball era.” There were very few home runs hit during this period, and many hitters slapped the ball down on the infield and attempted to run out the play. This meant that much of the action took place in the half of the field closest to home plate, which made the seats closest to the infield the most desirable with the best vantage point. Some early parks did not even bother with seats in the outfield, and instead focused on a U-shaped section of seats behind home plate and down the foul lines. Once the concrete and steel parks came along, team owners had the idea to add a second story above these desirable seats, so more fans could sit closer to the action. Forbes Field in Pittsburgh actually had a few portions of the park with three stories; when Yankee Stadium was constructed in 1923 it had three separate decks. 43

According to White, owners did not consider future growth when they designed the old ballparks. Few planned for parking for automobiles or even carriages at the time,

42 Mark Jones, “President Taft Starts a Baseball Tradition in Washington, 1910,” Boundary Stones, weta.org, April 13, 2015 < https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/2015/04/13/president-taft-starts-baseball- tradition-washington-1910> (Accessed November 20, 2017). 43 White, 13-15, 25-28.

44 and tended to rely on the proximity of streetcar lines. This became an issue after World

War II as more people owned automobiles, and as more people moved to the suburbs and returned to the city for work or leisure activities. Owners also did not typically plan for growth or expansion of their stadiums. In some cases the ballparks were fit into an existing neighborhood, which meant that their shape and size had to conform to the available lot size. In other cases, the ballpark was there first and the neighborhood grew around it. In conceiving and constructing these parks, team owners rarely secured additional land beyond the existing boundaries of their new stadiums. This meant that homes and businesses were often constructed literally next door to the park’s outer walls.

This made expansion nearly impossible – the owners could not make the stadium larger or add additional seating. Theoretically the team owners could purchase land around the ballpark after the fact, but once the neighborhood developed around the park it was likely too expensive and complicated to purchase land and evict home and business owners.

This was also one of the reasons that the early ballparks varied so widely when it came to field shape and dimensions. The design often conformed to the land, rather than the design dictating how much land was necessary. 44

The final baseball park of this era to open was Yankee Stadium in 1923, eight years after the construction of the other concrete and steel parks. The Yankees, originally known as the Highlanders, played in a wooden stadium called Hilltop Park until the 1913 season, when they moved into the Polo Grounds with the Giants. Tillinghast Huston and

Jacob Ruppert purchased the Yankees in 1915 from Frank Farrell and William Devery and immediately considered building a new stadium for the team in the borough of

Queens. Huston and Ruppert were criticized for the decision, and observers told them

44 Ibid, 28-29.

45 they were crazy to move the team out of northern Manhattan. As the population of New

York City continued to grow, it meant there was less available land in Manhattan. Plus, there were trolley and subway lines that went from Manhattan to Queens, which meant it was not difficult to reach the borough. While Huston and Ruppert looked at a number of sites across Manhattan and Long Island City, they eventually purchased a ten-acre site in the Bronx, just across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds. 45

In many ways, Huston and Ruppert had the benefit of hindsight when they hired

Osborn Engineering to design their new ballpark in the Bronx. Since the construction of the other new concrete and steel parks all took place between eight to fourteen years prior, they considered what worked for other teams and what they could improve in their own stadium. The pair still wanted to ensure that their new ballpark was constructed near mass transit lines, much as the earlier parks did. Huston and Ruppert did not want their ballpark to blend into the fabric of a neighborhood, much as the other parks. They wanted Yankee Stadium to stand out and make a statement, and also serve as something that could host events other than baseball games. Huston and Ruppert actually borrowed on ideas taken from large college football stadiums like the Yale Bowl and the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field. When the architects designed the new stadium, they used a “cantilever technique,” which allowed for better views and a larger capacity through more steeply sloped seating. There were also a large number of seats constructed in the outfield at Yankee Stadium, in part due to slugger Babe Ruth. The team banked on the popularity of his home runs to fill those previously undesirable seats. While the stadium was larger, it also meant that fans were a bit more removed from the action. 46

45 Ibid, 38-39. 46 Ibid, 39-41.

***

For the most part in the United States, stadiums were not constructed with municipal money until the 1950s and 1960s. However, there were several municipal stadiums constructed in the 1920s, two of which hoped to lure the Olympics to their cities. The two stadiums with Olympic ambitions included the Los Angeles Coliseum, which was opened in 1923, and Solider Field in Chicago, which opened in 1924. The third municipal stadium constructed at this time was Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which opened in 1931. All three were designed to be large, multi-purpose structures that could be used for a variety of sports and other events. For example in Cleveland, the city put a bond issue up for a public vote in 1928. The advertisement for the bond issue claimed that the stadium would be able to host “over sixty kinds of sport activities and entertainments…including pageants, drama, band and orchestra concerts, civic mass meetings, expositions and amateur and professional athletic contests of every description.” The advertisement also claimed that the new stadium “will bring to our city wonderful outdoor events now denied to Cleveland because of lack of facilities” and would “pay for itself with the revenue it produces.” 47

In Los Angeles, the Coliseum was originally conceived as a memorial to World

War I veterans, but its true intent was to draw the Olympics to Los Angeles. One of the men that drove the construction of the Coliseum was real estate developer William May

Garland, who was named to the International Olympic Committee in 1922. Garland was also president of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and was the head of the new stadium

47 “For All the People – A City-Owned Stadium,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 4, 1928.

47 project. 48 The father-son team of John and Donald Parkinson were the architects in charge of designing the stadium; the pair already had designed several “Romanesque

Revival” buildings at the University of Southern California. 49 Los Angeles was awarded the 1932 Olympics in 1923, almost assuredly thanks to the new stadium that was near completion at that time. Garland said that “We have built a gigantic stadium at Los

Angeles, capable of seating 75,000 people, and we can assure all the facilities worthy of a great athletic event like the Olympics.” The structure cost just under $1 million to complete. 50

When the Olympics arrived in Los Angeles, it was called “the biggest migration to California since the Forty-niners,” and it was said that it “made Los Angeles the cosmopolitan capital of the world.” 51 The new Coliseum was viewed as a major point of pride for the games, as it was said that the athletes were “competing in an athletic plant that dwarfs the imagination, along with the coliseums and stadiums of the ancient Greeks and Romans.” 52 Even though there was a lot of hype about the new Coliseum, it was not considered the sole venue of the Olympics. Articles focused on the other new buildings constructed for athletes and athletic events, as well as other famous sites in Los Angeles like Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Despite the fact that the Olympics took place in the midst of the Depression, the games drew more than 100,000 spectators and actually made

48 “Garland Named On Olympic Committee,” Washington Post, March 18, 1922. Garland was one of the two Americans on the IOC; the second was Professor William M. Sloan of Princeton. 49 Joe Mozingo, “Can L.A.’s aging Grand Dame, Memorial Coliseum, take center stage one more time?” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2016, (Accessed November 1, 2017). 50 “Los Angeles Gets Olympics of 1932,” New York Times, April 10, 1923 51 Allison Danzig, “Thousands Crowding Into Los Angeles For Opening of Olympic Games Tomorrow,” New York Times, July 29, 1932. 52 Ibid.

$1 million in profit. The infrastructure from the 1932 games made it easier for Los

Angeles to win a second bid for the summer Olympics in 1984. 53

The Coliseum served as a home for sports and a myriad of other events in its nearly one-hundred year history. During the facility’s first year in existence, the

University of Southern California Trojan football team played in it (and still does in the twenty-first century), and there were several Jack Dempsey boxing matches as well.

Athletic pioneers competed at the Coliseum, as Jesse Owens ran track at the stadium for

The Ohio State University, and Jackie Robinson played football for the University of

California at Los Angeles. General George S. Patton celebrated the defeat of Germany in

World War II with returning soldiers at the Coliseum as 105,000 people gathered in the stadium that day as B-29 bombers flew overhead. John F. Kennedy gave his “New

Frontier” speech on the steps of the Coliseum to celebrate his nomination as the

Democratic candidate for president in 1960. Professional football’s Rams played at the

Coliseum when they moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and professional baseball’s Dodgers played there from 1958-1961 while they waited for the completion of Dodger Stadium.

There were films shot at the Coliseum, and religious events - Pope John Paul II once led a

Catholic mass at the stadium, while evangelist Billy Graham led a service. The facility was also host to a number of music acts over the years, including groups like the Rolling

Stones and Bruce Springsteen. USC football remained the one consistent tenant over the

53 Ibid; “Los Angeles to Enlarge Coliseum to Seat 105,000 for the Olympic Games of 1932,” New York Times, January 4, 1930; Joe Mozingo, “Can L.A.’s aging Grand Dame, Memorial Coliseum, take center stage one more time?” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2016, (Accessed November 1, 2017).

49 life of the stadium, although the Rams actually returned to the Coliseum in 2016 while they awaited the construction of a new venue after their move back to the city. 54

When Chicago officials first conceived the idea of a major municipal stadium, they immediately tried to lure the Olympics to Chicago. In 1920, when their stadium was still in the early planning stages, officials attempted to secure the 1924 Olympics

(eventually awarded to France). 55 While the stadium was under construction, one article noted that “Chicago is dreaming of the day when it will be the most beautiful city in the world and, incidentally, the athletic capital of the nation.” 56 One of the features of the

“City Beautiful” was the large municipal stadium planned on the lakefront in Grant Park that would only be rivaled by the Yale Bowl and Harvard Stadium in size (since the Los

Angeles Coliseum was not yet complete). The Chicago stadium, eventually renamed

Soldier Field, was 1,000 feet long and 550 feet wide, and could hold as many as 100,000 people. In comparison, the media at the time pointed out that “The Roman Colosseum, one of the mightiest structures of the ancient world, was only 607 feet long and 512 feet wide. In the days when gladiators fought in its arena it seated 87,000 people in its triple- decked interior.” 57 In the end, the $10 million Soldier Field was 1,314 feet by 680 feet, and took several years to complete. 58

While much of the early focus on Soldier Field involved the Olympics, officials also claimed that the stadium would “lend itself to every form of track and field sports,” and also host events like pageants, spectacles, musical events, speeches, “and every kind

54 Joe Mozingo, “Can L.A.’s aging Grand Dame, Memorial Coliseum, take center stage one more time?” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2016, (Accessed November 1, 2017). 55 “Chicago Wants Olympiad,” New York Times, February 1, 1920. 56 Walter Noble Berns, “Capital of Sports,” New York Times, September 3, 1922. 57 Ibid. 58 “Chicago’s Big Stadium 1,314 by 680 feet; Its Crest 109 Feet Above Playing Field,” New York Times, November 26, 1926.

50 of entertainment on a great scale that can be held out of doors.” 59 While Soldier Field was labeled an important component of Chicago’s City Beautiful plan, it was not the only component. City officials wanted Chicago to be “the most beautiful city in the world,” and part of that beautification plan included the redesign of the waterfront land along

Lake Michigan. The new stadium was designed to sit next to the Field Museum and a brand new Illinois Central Station, and parks were designed to extend north and south from their location along the lakefront. 60

When Cleveland Municipal Stadium was completed in 1931, it was called “a monument to the progressive spirit of the city’s people.” 61 At a cost of $2.5 million the stadium, designed by Osborn Engineering, seated nearly 80,000 and could accommodate

“outdoor gatherings of every description.” 62 The idea of a public stadium in Cleveland was discussed as early as 1917, and a plan was put into action once William R. Hopkins became city manager. City officials negotiated with the railroads that controlled much of the lakefront land, and the railroads made a number of concessions in order to help reserve the land for the potential stadium. 63 The downtown site was considered a major benefit for a new stadium. When it opened in 1931, Cleveland Municipal was one of just a few major stadiums that were in a city’s downtown. Alva Bradley, then owner of the

Indians baseball team said, “With our stadium the business man can work until 2:50 and be in his seat in time for a ball game at 3 o’clock.” 64

59 Walter Noble Berns, “Capital of Sports,” New York Times, September 3, 1922. 60 Ibid. 61 “Most Modern Stadium in World, and One of the Most Beautiful,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 3, 1931. 62 Ibid. 63 “Stadium Dream Did Not Come True Of Itself – Was a Fight,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 3, 1931. 64 “Downtown Site of Stadium Is Big Advantage,” Cleveland Plain Dealer July 3, 1931.

There was opposition to the stadium in Cleveland both before and after the vote on the bond issue. Opponents to the bond issue believed that a new stadium was not necessary, and wanted the issue to fail; it still passed even with their protests. After the bond issue was approved, a lawsuit was filed to try and stop the city from building the stadium. This lawsuit claimed that the city should not spend public money on a stadium, and it also argued that city officials did not hold a formal title for the proposed stadium site. However, an injunction to stop the stadium’s construction was denied and plans moved forward. 65 There was opposition from the African American community in

Cleveland as well. An article in the weekly Cleveland Gazette argued that taxpayer dollars should not go toward a stadium that hosted a segregated team. 66 When the stadium was completed in 1931, it was heralded as a major moment for Cleveland. John

M. Sulzmann, the Sheriff of Cuyahoga County said, “If the new Stadium were merely an arena where important events might be witnessed, it would still be famous for its beauty and its usefulness; but it is far more than that, for it is the ‘Spirit of Cleveland.’ It is from my heart that I offer these few words of appreciation for what the dominant spirit of her citizens has done for the city I love.” 67

By 1931 there were more than one-hundred stadiums across the country, when one took into account the baseball stadiums, college football stadiums, bowls, and these new municipal facilities. Out of these one-hundred stadiums, more than forty seated

20,000 to 125,000 people. The largest was Chicago’s Soldier Field at a capacity of

125,000. 68 As Cleveland Municipal was about to open its doors, the Plain Dealer said

65 “Stadium Dream Did Not Come True Of Itself – Was a Fight,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 3, 1931. 66 “Prime Sport News – A Stadium For Cleveland?,” Cleveland Gazette, April 7, 1928. 67 Statement from Sheriff, Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 3, 1931. 68 “U.S. Has More Than A Hundred Stadiums Now,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, Friday, July 3, 1931.

52 that the “renaissance” in stadium construction came with the revival of the modern

Olympic games in 1896. The article cited the modern Panathenaic Stadium that had been constructed in Athens for the games, with a seating capacity of 60,000. The article claimed that it took a few years for this trend to reach the United States, where it was driven by increasing attendance at baseball games and college football games. 69

While these early municipal stadiums were portrayed as engines to drive their city’s growth, and a center of pride for its citizens, it was different than the image used to promote the construction of the post-World War II multipurpose stadiums. These early municipal stadiums were often compared to ancient stadiums, like the Colosseum in

Rome. There were references to the ancient Olympics as well, with the attempts to earn bids for the modern Olympics in their cities. Early municipal stadiums were viewed as engines that would draw concerts, meetings and other events in the city, and were not connected to a specific team. With the later multipurpose stadiums there was a direct connection to the professional sports teams in the city. The multipurpose stadium was a vehicle to obtain or maintain a professional franchise, and the facility’s identity was intertwined with the sport teams of the city. The older municipal stadiums were points of pride due to their majestic size and because they were a central meeting place for citizens of the city. These early municipal stadiums were also constructed on vacant land or existing park land, while the later multipurpose stadiums and arenas were typically connected to an urban renewal plan that claimed land already in use.

The growing popularity of professional football was one of the reasons that cities looked to build large, multipurpose parks during the 1950s and 1960s. The need for such facilities was fully catalyzed by one of the policies that formed the basis of the 1966

69 Ibid.

53 merger between the National Football League and the American Football League. It dictated that teams had to play in a stadium that seated at least 50,000. If a football team rented space in an older, baseball-oriented park, it meant that seating was likely capped at around 30,000 to 35,000. 70 Interestingly, professional football garnered comparably little attendance in the first half of the twentieth century when compared to college football. The college game was viewed as driving the financial success of athletic departments in the first decades of the twentieth century, and attendance skyrocketed during the 1920s. The construction boom started with Harvard Stadium in 1903 and the

Yale Bowl in 1914, and by 1930 there were eight college football stadiums (including

Yale) that held 75,000 or more fans. Dozens more colleges had stadiums that could hold

30,000 or more. 71

The construction of these college football stadiums dovetailed with the construction of the early baseball parks, even though the design was quite different. In a

1926 Scientific American article, Oscar Lewis discussed the popularity of the college game and its impact on the design of stadiums. Lewis said that around the year 1900 a crowd of 10,000 fans for a college football game was considered quite large, and there were very few venues that could hold that many people. These early football stadiums were considered “a modest affair,” both in size and construction. 72 The seats extended down the sides of the football field, but did not always reach the end of the field. Both of the end zones were open, rather than enclosed by seats as seen in more modern stadiums.

70 “History of Solider Field,” Illinois Sports Facilities Authorities, (Accessed November 1, 2017). 71 Richard O. Davies, Sports in American Life: A History, (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 138. 72 Oscar Lewis, “New Arenas of Sport,” Scientific American 134, No. 4 (April 1926): 244-245.

Lewis said that stadium designers did not consider enclosing the end zones because there simply was no need to do so because of the relatively smaller crowd sizes. 73

Much like the early baseball stadiums, early college football stadiums were made of wood, “which was used for posts, sway-bracing, joists and the planking for risers and seats.” 74 The seats were very narrow, which left little room for each individual that attended the games. As Lewis explained, the narrow seating “required some acrobatic ability to fit oneself into the conditions, and avoid overflowing one’s neighbor or ramming one’s knees into the back of the fellow in front!” 75 These older wooden venues were replaced by concrete and steel structures in an oval shape, so seats completely surrounded the field. The seats were arranged in a sloped tier so that large crowds of people all had a good view of the field, even when there were as many as 100,000 spectators. Lewis referred to the new concrete behemoths as “bowls” and said they were a permanent answer for football and other collegiate sports on campus. 76

While some of these large concrete and steel stadiums were constructed above ground, there were others – like the Yale Bowl – that were constructed through a “cut and fill” procedure. Dirt was excavated from the center of the stadium site, and then banked along the sides to form the lower portion of the seating area. Large stadiums such as this were constructed with numerous entrances around the structure in order to quickly get fans in and out on game day. There was also a great deal of attention placed on care of the field, in terms of drainage and the turf itself. These stadiums were not cheap – it would cost a university at least $1 million to construct a large concrete and steel football

73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid.

55 stadium during the 1920s. As Lewis pointed out, the new Coliseum in Los Angeles cost about $1.25 million. 77

The first wave of stadium construction in the United States led to dozens of new steel and concrete stadiums both in cities, and on college campuses. These new structures were a product of their times – with the increasing popularity of sport, team owners wanted to capitalize on that popularity by constructing large, permanent venues to host their ever-increasing fan base. While these team owners often utilized political connections in their respective cities, they stopped short of requests for municipal funding or for formal municipal assistance in constructing their stadiums. This differs from later waves of stadium construction, where team owners often aimed to extract as many concessions from city officials as possible. While there were municipally funded stadiums constructed toward the end of this period, they were built without a specific team in mind and designed to host a wide variety of events connected to sports and entertainment. The early municipal stadium was viewed as a public benefit to the city, and a feat of modern engineering, rather than a perk for a private team owner. None of these early parks sought to displace large numbers of people; the land was “legitimately” purchased by team owners, and often the desired piece of land was already vacant. These parks were often woven into the fabric of their communities as part of the neighborhood, rather as a dominant force within that neighborhood. By the mid-twentieth century, team owners would tire of this design and looked again to modernization. However, that modernization would be more dramatic – and damaging to the urban environment and its inhabitants – than this early phase of stadium construction.

77 Ibid.

Chapter 2 – “Pride of Pittsburgh” or Scourge of the Community: The Construction of the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh’s Hill District Neighborhood

Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood was a bustling African American community situated on the edge of the city’s downtown. One of the things that made it unique in terms of sports was that it was home to one of the few team-owned Negro

League baseball stadiums in the country. The owner of the team and stadium, Gus

Greenlee, also owned a popular jazz club in the neighborhood named the Crawford Grill.

Both the stadium and the club were places where people from the neighborhood could come together as a community and were great sources of pride for Hill District residents.

However, ambitious plans by officials from the city of Pittsburgh would eventually play a role in eliminating both of these neighborhood institutions. Greenlee Field was demolished in 1938, just six years after it initially opened, and public housing was built in its place. The Crawford Grill would disappear by the early 1950s for a project seemingly altruistic, but no less political.

Officials in Pittsburgh were often concerned with the way their city was viewed by outsiders. These officials often referred to portions of the Hill District closest to downtown as “blighted” and frequently spoke of “slum removal” in that part of the city.

Pittsburgh officials believed that land inhabited by low-income African American residents would be better utilized by private commercial enterprises, in order to benefit the downtown area. Like cities across the country, officials in Pittsburgh attempted to displace and remove the Hill District residents. Thanks to restrictive housing covenants that negatively impacted black residents in the post-World War II United States, the

57 residents of this neighborhood did not have a great deal of choices when it came to leaving the Hill District. It meant that these people were forced to move to places where the housing market either would not, or could not, accommodate them. Rather than attempting to repair some of the root causes of the problems in the Hill District, namely poverty and discrimination in housing across the city, Pittsburgh instead decided to simply move those residents away from the downtown area.

At the end World War II the City of Pittsburgh embarked on an aggressive urban renewal campaign. Dubbed the “Renaissance,” this plan was supposed to dramatically change the landscape of the city and improve its image on a national scale. It included a number of ambitious construction plans around the city, as well as a program of smoke and smog removal. Much of the Renaissance was designed and implemented by long- time Pittsburgh mayor (and later Pennsylvania governor) David Lawrence in conjunction with local banking magnate Richard Mellon. For the first ten to fifteen years, the program primarily focused on the construction plans of new downtown structures, while ignoring any social implications to the city’s residents – particularly those who were poor and African American. It also placed an emphasis on projects connected to professional sports teams, with plans to provide them with new homes at public expense.

One of these projects called for an indoor sports arena that was also supposed to serve as a home for the Civic Light Opera. Dubbed the Civic Arena, city leaders eventually selected the Lower Hill District as a home for the arena, as well as a luxury apartment complex and shopping. The Hill District, the same neighborhood that was so desperate for housing that the city argued it needed to demolish Greenlee Field, would lose thousands of homes in favor of this new arena project. To add insult to injury, the

58 new luxury apartments planned for the area were not something that Hill District residents could likely afford. Their target buyers were white professionals who worked downtown and wanted to live close to their job. Thousands of low-income people would lose their homes when the Lower Hill was demolished, and the original home of the famous Crawford Grill would disappear in the development as well. Community institutions disappeared in favor of construction meant to attract primarily suburban whites to the area. The new development was not integrated into the fabric of the Hill

District, nor would it provide jobs to many neighborhood residents who needed them.

The Hill District was a neighborhood that saw a great deal of growth and change as African Americans migrated north to industrial cities. Near the turn of the twentieth century a large portion of its residents were white immigrants from Europe, but after

World War I there was an influx of black residents. The white residents started to move to other neighborhoods and the makeup of the Hill District shifted to primarily black residents by the 1930s and 1940s. The city of Pittsburgh gained about 60,000 African

American residents in the Great Migration following World War I. 1

One of those southern migrants was a man by the name of Gus Greenlee, who came to the city of Pittsburgh in 1916 at the age of nineteen to join an uncle already in the city. Greenlee worked numerous jobs in Pittsburgh, including driving his own taxi, before he joined the military and was shipped overseas with the 367th Regiment during

World War I. When he returned to Pittsburgh in the midst of Prohibition, he continued to drive the taxi he purchased before he left to fight in the war. In addition to his human passengers, Greenlee also started to transport bootlegged liquor around Pittsburgh and to

1 Joe W. Trotter and Jared N. Day, Race and Renaissance: African Americans in Pittsburgh Since World War II, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010), Kindle edition, Loc 563.

59 some of the surrounding mill towns. He also began to sell alcohol at his first bar/speakeasy, The Paramount Club.2 This was just the beginning of his small business empire in the Hill District, one that was built upon both legitimate and illegitimate ventures.

Greenlee’s most famous establishment was the Crawford Grill, a night club that opened in 1933 where jazz played and drinks served to everyone from Negro League baseball players and famous musicians to mill workers. The club served black patrons of all classes, as well a number of white patrons from all classes. Greenlee was also involved with some illegal activities, such as the numbers game he ran out of the

Crawford Grill. 3 The African American community in Pittsburgh saw Greenlee as a major sports figure and businessman, and as someone who was vital to the neighborhood.

Greenlee helped Hill District families with their rent and bills, paid for several students to go to college, and also distributed food to hundreds of families at Thanksgiving. He even ran a Depression-era soup kitchen across the street from the Crawford Grill, and some residents remember Greenlee cooking food himself and handing it out to the needy. He was referred to as “friend of the little man,” and the Pittsburgh Courier, the city’s

African American newspaper, once said that his generous Christmas parties at the

Crawford Grill were so famous, they were known across western Pennsylvania, eastern

Ohio, and northern West Virginia. 4

2 Rob Ruck, Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 137-138; Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933- 1953 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 9. 3 Ruck, 139, 140. 4 Ibid, 149-150; William G. Nunn, Sr., “Hundreds Mourn Gus Greenlee: Sports, Political Figure Dies Quietly at Home, Pittsburgh Courier, 12 July 1952, 1.

At first, Greenlee did not set out to get involved in Negro League baseball. A local sandlot baseball team that called itself the Crawfords first approached Greenlee about purchasing their team in 1930, but he declined and claimed that he did not know enough about sports to do so. A week later Greenlee reconsidered and agreed to buy the team; he even placed the players on salary, which thrilled the men. One explanation for

Greenlee’s change of heart was that he wanted to use the team for political influence.

Supposedly, he considered using the Crawfords’ uniforms for political slogans to convince people in the community to vote for certain politicians. While that particular plan never came to fruition, the team would help disguise some of Greenlee’s illegal enterprises and help him funnel money through a venture that was less likely to attract the attention of federal officials. 5 Despite his potential criminal connections, Greenlee maintained a reputation for his generosity toward his players and the neighborhood’s residents.

Not long after he purchased the Crawfords, Greenlee decided to construct a ball park in the Hill District for his team. The reason that Greenlee opted to construct his own stadium, rather than rent playing space as most other Negro League teams did, was due to the high rental fees teams were charged for often inadequate grounds. When black teams rented major league ballparks, the white teams would often refuse to let them use their clubhouse before and after games. Greenlee figured that a stadium so close to the city’s

African American population would be a profitable venture, and would actually be better for the players. 6 Greenlee eyed a piece of land on Bedford Avenue in the center of the

Hill District that was owned by the Entress Brick Company, a business hit hard by the

5 Ruck, 152-153, 155. 6 John L. Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 December 1938, 17.

Depression. Business was so poor for the brick company by the 1930s, the shareholders were more than willing to sell. The principal stockholder of Entress was a white physician named Dr. Joseph F. Thoms; Thoms also owned the deed to the land. In order to ensure that the two men had enough money to construct the ballpark, they formed the

Bedford Land Company with a third partner, Latrobe Brewery owner Joseph Tito

(another white man). Tito and Greenlee supposedly did business together in the past, with rumors that Tito was involved with Greenlee’s numbers organization. There were a number of critiques that Greenlee Field did not employ enough black workers, particularly when the primary clientele were the Hill District’s black residents. As part owner of the stadium though, Greenlee was not responsible for staffing the park.

Greenlee acted more as a “charismatic front man” when it came to the day-to-day operations of the park, allowing his white partners to manage many of the bookings and financial aspects of Greenlee Field. 7

When Greenlee Field opened to the public in 1932, newspaper reports called it one of the best baseball diamonds in the United States, even including parks used by white organized baseball teams. Like Forbes Field in Oakland, it was constructed of concrete and steel and cost more than $100,000. Its location on Bedford Avenue in the center of the Hill District neighborhood meant that more than 10,000 black fans were within a brief ten-minute walk from the park. Greenlee Field also hosted night baseball games as early as 1932; white major league baseball did not host its first night game until

7 Geri Strecker, “The Story of Greenlee Field,” Black Ball, Fall 2009, p.37-67; John L. Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 December 1938, 17; Roberta J. Newman and Joel Nathan Rosen, Black Baseball Black Business: Race Enterprise and the Fate of the Segregated Dollar, (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2014), 90; Shane White, Stephen Garton, Stephen Robertson, Graham White, Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars, (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2010). Greenlee started his numbers business in 1926 and had connections to the numbers game in New York. This likely included connections to Alex Pompez, who was also involved with Negro League Baseball.

1935. 8 There were numerous events held at the field other than baseball, including boxing matches and contests like a 1932 Wilberforce College football game. During

Greenlee Field’s first season in 1932, 119,000 people passed through the gates, sixty percent of them to attend baseball games. Even though figures for all seasons were not known, in 1933 and 1936 the Crawfords drew more than 200,000 fans. Greenlee boosted attendance through a number of promotions like season passes, automobile giveaways, and promotions with track star and 1936 Olympic gold medal winner Jesse Owens. The ballpark often hosted benefit events as well. 9

Greenlee’s involvement with the team and the new stadium solidified his ties to the African American community in the Hill District neighborhood. The team also provided him with a means to launder the profits he raised in illegal ventures like the numbers game. Greenlee’s sudden business dominance in the city created a struggle between him and Cum Posey, African American owner of the rival Negro League

Homestead Grays. The two men fought over business and sports territory, while Posey often felt threatened by Greenlee Field’s existence, since he did not own his own stadium.

Since it was located in the heart of the African American community it provided a more convenient site to watch baseball for fans than Forbes Field, home of the Pittsburgh

Pirates, which Posey rented for games. Posey intentionally excluded the Crawfords from his short-lived East-West League, but reconsidered and scheduled Grays games against the Crawfords as the league struggled during the Depression in the early 1930s. 10

8 John L. Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 December 1938, 17; “Greenlee Field Installs Lights,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 September 1932, A5. 9 Ruck, 156-157; Strecker, p.37-67 10 Neil Lanctot, Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 10-12.

When Rube Foster’s original Negro National League failed in 1931, and Cum

Posey’s short-lived East-West League failed in 1932, it was Greenlee who was responsible for the re-creation of the Negro National League in 1933. Many feared that this league could fail as well, particularly because of the economic challenges of the

Depression. Greenlee was credited with helping the new league survive its first season and sportswriter Ross Cowans said that “without his assistance, this year organized baseball would have been a greater flop than it is.” Even though Greenlee lost $6,000 on the Crawfords, he managed to loan other owners in the league money to stay afloat in

1933. Even Posey admitted that Greenlee did everything expected of him in his position at the head of the league. 11 Because of Greenlee’s stature, it meant that Pittsburgh was often considered one of the centers of Negro League baseball.

Despite the success and prominence of the Crawfords, during the latter half of the

1930s, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority started to eye the property under and around

Greenlee Field for a public housing project. The city received a federal grant to contribute to the cost of three housing projects for both white and black residents throughout the city. Supposedly, the government made the three partners in the Bedford

Land Company an initial offer of $60,000 for the property, far less than the structure’s original $100,000 price tag just six years earlier. Through the process of negotiations, the final offer for the property eventually dropped to $38,000, but it was unclear as to why that happened. Greenlee and his partners were eventually forced to take the low offer for the property. They feared that the government might declare eminent domain and take

11 Ibid, 22.

64 possession of the private property for public use; and then the park owners would get nothing, or next to nothing, for the land.12

A few years after the sale, the Pittsburgh Courier bitterly stated that Greenlee

Field “was one of the better equipped baseball fields in the city but since it was not used by white clubs, became more and more of a liability until the U.S. Government bought it, without profit to Greenlee, to build the Bedford Dwellings.”13 Greenlee’s contributions were heralded within the community, as one Courier columnist said that someone should write a biography on Greenlee, “the man who brought promotion of Negro sports events out of the yokel class and placed it in the bigger time.” 14 The Crawfords did struggle to draw fans by the late 1930s and Greenlee was unable to find enough additional investors to help secure adequate financing to run the park. This fact probably helped to convince

Greenlee to sell the park; it was simply too difficult to find investors and fight the city government. 15

The Hill District did desperately need additional housing. There were housing shortages throughout the neighborhood and much of the housing stock was run down and dilapidated. It is unclear as to why the government chose to demolish the Greenlee Field in order to build this much-needed housing in the Hill District. While Negro League baseball did struggle as a whole during the Depression, the worst of the league’s struggles were mostly over by 1938, the year that Greenlee Field closed. The Crawfords

12 “Greenlee Field!: Housing Authority to Buy Ball Park For Low-Priced Housing Project; Offer $50,000,” Pittsburgh Courier, 23 June 1938, 6; John L. Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 December 1938, 17. Financial records from the Housing Authority claim that $271,960.31 was spent on land acquisition for the Bedford Dwellings project as of December 31, 1938. However, there were numerous parcels purchased in that part of the Hill District and it doesn’t list them separately. Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh Records, 1937-1953, AIS.1966.08, Box 1, Folder 1, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 13 “Tells Council ‘Gus’ Deserves ‘Break’,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 February 1945, 3. 14 Randy Dixon, “The Sports Bugle,” Pittsburgh Courier,” 4 February 1939, 17. 15 Newman and Rosen, 90.

65 lost players in 1937 when a number of Negro League players left to play in the

Dominican Republic. However, a number of these departed players returned to the

United States by 1938, so the Crawfords did not suffer too great of a loss in terms of their roster. Greenlee did lose money in the stadium’s later years, but it is unclear as to whether or not the debts were great enough to cause the collapse of the team and the ballpark. While the Courier claimed the park was targeted because it was a black institution, there was no direct evidence this was true. In an economic study of the land used for the Bedford Dwellings conducted in 1944, University of Pittsburgh Economist

Russell A. Dixon said that one of the reasons the area was targeted was because the site was a long, flat piece of land that would be good for a large development. Dixon noted that there were a number of parcels purchased for the project, and that the stadium site was just one of them. He seemed to imply that the stadium parcel was appealing to

Pittsburgh officials because it was empty other than the stadium – there was no need to acquire and demolish a number of different buildings. 16

Greenlee’s other prominent and legitimate business venture in the Hill District was the Crawford Grill. The jazz club opened in December of 1933 at the intersection of

Wylie Avenue and Townsend, the first restaurant in the neighborhood to receive a liquor license after the repeal of Prohibition. The Crawford Grill proved so popular, that

Greenlee opened a second location in 1943 at the corner of Wylie Avenue and Elmore

16 John L. Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, 10 December 1938, 17; Russell A. Dixon, “Statistical Land Study, Bedford Dwellings and Terrace Village I and Terrace Village II,” September 1944, Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh Records, 1937-1953, AIS.1966.08, Box 2, Folder 1, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. However, in his introduction on housing projects in general (not just reserved for the Bedford Dwellings) Dixon said that “public housing has a duel objective – the abolition of slum areas and the replanning and rebuilding of these so as to prevent their recurrence.” Dixon added that while new construction would improve the lives of tenants, “it would do little to remove the forces which made the district a blighted area.” That comment seems to imply that in addition to providing housing, officials likely wanted to change the makeup of the area.

Street in the same neighborhood. There was a third location attempted in Pittsburgh’s

Manchester neighborhood that only survived for seven years from 1948 to 1955. The original Crawford Grill location was damaged by fire in 1951; the building was eventually demolished during the city’s aggressive urban renewal program in 1958. The second Grill location actually survived to the twenty-first century. However, the neighborhood and the atmosphere of the club changed dramatically after the start of the urban renewal programs.

Prior to the urban renewal programs, the Hill District was described as “a bustling, self-sufficient business area that attracted people of all races.” Alfonso Lawson, a longtime resident of the neighborhood, said that prior to urban renewal Wylie Avenue started at Herron Avenue in the Hill District and ran all the way downtown to the court house. Lawson continued by saying “And there was nothing but black businesses. You didn’t have to go downtown to the department stores. They had all the stuff here. People don’t believe it, but it was the most affluent neighborhood.” When the Lower Hill was destroyed during urban renewal, the new construction of the Civic Arena completely cut

Wylie Avenue off from downtown. 17 By most accounts, the clientele of the Crawford

Grill was split at about fifty percent between white and black patrons as late as the mid-

1950s. During John F. Kennedy’s administration, his sister-in-law Ethel Kennedy was a customer at the Grill on at least one occasion. She even provided a memorable kiss on the cheek to one of the black staff members as thanks for his excellent service. 18

Betty Brown, another long-time Hill District resident who lived for many years above the second Crawford Grill, said that the club was “the hottest spot for jazz in the

17 Mike Shanley, “On the Upbeat: The life and times of the Crawford Grill, where jazz and history reside and renew,” Crawford Grill File, Heinz History Center. 18 Ibid.

67 city,” prior to the urban renewal projects. The Grill was packed at least six nights a week and crowds would line up around the building for shows on Fridays and Saturdays. The neighborhood thrived as well; “When we moved here [to the Hill District] you could find anything you needed. There was a butcher shop on Central Avenue that had beautiful fresh meat. There were all kinds of small but great businesses. But that’s all gone. Now, we have to go to Shadyside or the South Side. The arena [part of urban renewal] ran off all the people and the businesses. Things were much nicer the way they were. It was old, but nice.” Brown said that after urban renewal it was impossible to even purchase a spool of thread somewhere within the Hill District. 19 When it came to housing, after

World War II ninety-seven percent of Hill District residents rented, rather than owned their property. The percentage of renters was far lower in white ethnic neighborhoods – seventy-five percent in Polish Hill, and fifty percent for the Italian enclave of Bloomfield.

Sala Udin, Pittsburgh city councilman from 1995-2006 and Civil Rights-era

Freedom Rider, grew up in the Hill District and recalled the vitality of the neighborhood prior to urban renewal. He described women walking through the neighborhood in gloves and hats, while men wore suits and ties. Rows of cars were parked up and down

19 Kevin Kirkland, “Long-dormant center of Hill jazz scene seeks a new life,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1 July 2007, from Crawford Grill file, Heinz History Center. 20 Trotter and Day, Loc 1050, 2718; Beryl Satter, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009). In Family Properties, Satter discusses the hindrances to black property ownership in Chicago, problems that existed in cities across the country. Thanks to prejudicial lending policies, namely that African Americans were unable to get mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Authority, it meant that African Americans were forced to rent or to purchase homes “on contract.” People that purchased homes “on contract” often paid far more than what the property was worth, and it could be confiscated by the original seller/financier for as little as one missed payment. Speculators took advantage of this fact in African American neighborhoods, while the African American owners were often forced to subdivide and house other tenants in order to make the steep payments. Often these buildings fell into disrepair; either because speculators did not care about maintaining the condition of the buildings, or because the owners had no money left after their steep payments in order to conduct repairs. Trotter and Day also mention that displaced business owners in the Hill District had a tougher time starting over in another location compared to the displaced residents.

68 the streets, while trolleys roared through the neighborhood full of passengers. Someone walking down the street would hear strains of jazz music and smell the delicious foods cooking at neighborhood restaurants. There were numerous jazz clubs scattered throughout the Hill District, and Udin described how he and friends would prioritize which ones to visit based on who performed there on any given night. Legendary musicians performed at the Crawford Grill and other neighborhood venues, names like

Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab

Calloway, and Duke Ellington. 21

While these renewal programs were most destructive to the Hill District neighborhood, city officials set out to make major changes in numerous places in the city of Pittsburgh. After World War II, there were several pieces of legislation that helped to shape the plans for the “Renaissance” in Pittsburgh. In 1945 Pennsylvania enacted a housing and redevelopment law that allowed municipalities “to establish redevelopment authorities that could acquire and clear land in areas certified as blighted by the city planning commission.” This included the acquisition of property through methods like eminent domain. 22 This was followed in 1947 by what came to be known as the

“Pittsburgh Package” legislation, which included 10 bills before the Pennsylvania state government. The bills addressed issues like the regulation of railroads and building incinerators in order to manage pollution in the city. They also included the establishment of a Parks and Recreation Department, the ability to establish a Public

21 Kate Benz, “Music in the Hill was a way of life until ‘progress’ silenced venues,” Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 20 February 2015, < http://triblive.com/aande/music/7660763-74/hill-district-crawford> (Accessed 15 December 2016). 22 Roy Lubove, Twentieth-century Pittsburgh: Government, business, and environmental change (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), 122; Jeffrey Richardson, “Eminent Domain: The Power (Plan) To Destroy The Hill’s Black Community?,” Pittsburgh Courier, 27 August 1983, 1.

Parking Authority, and it gave the County Planning Commission control of subdivision plans. 23

William R.B. Froehlich, one-time head of the Southwestern Pennsylvania

Regional Planning Commission and the first executive director of the Public Parking

Authority of Pittsburgh spoke about the impact of the Pittsburgh package on redevelopment in the city of Pittsburgh in a 1972 public lecture. Froehlich said that there were three important pieces of legislation that came out of the 1947 bills, one of which was a change in the urban redevelopment law that permitted insurance companies to invest in urban development activities. This meant that these companies could invest in new construction in the city, in order to house their offices. The second piece of legislation involved smoke pollution control, and expanded it from just the city of

Pittsburgh to all of Allegheny County. The more stringent enforcement of the anti- pollution measures significantly curtailed the smoke that hung like a thick blanket over the city. The third major issue was the legislation that created the city parking authority and permitted the parking authority to condemn properties in the city. 24 Upon recommendation of the Allegheny Conference in 1946, and thanks to this new legislation,

Mayor Lawrence formed the Urban Redevelopment Authority. John J. Grove, who managed public relations for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development,

23 Philip S. Klein and Ari Hoogenboom, A History of Pennsylvania, (University Park and London: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1980), 473. 24 Lecture by William R.B. Froehlich, October 2, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book C-F, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

70 called it “a very important vehicle” in carrying out urban redevelopment in the city because it had the power of eminent domain. 25

The two primary architects of the Renaissance involved a public-private partnership between Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence and local businessman

Richard King Mellon. Lawrence, a Democrat, was elected in 1945 with the promise of building a coalition across party lines, both in the public and private sector. Lawrence had to deal with Pittsburgh’s city council, whose members were elected at-large from across the city. Even though council members typically prided themselves on their independence, and clashed with previous mayors, Lawrence worked to bring them together on his side of the issues. He held private meetings with the council in an attempt to develop compromises to solutions before public meetings and votes. Lawrence boasted that in his thirteen years as mayor of Pittsburgh, he never once had to veto a piece of legislation thanks to nearly unanimous agreement between him and the council.

It is likely that these disagreements were hashed out in the private meetings before discussion of legislation even reached the public. 26 There were some within the city of

Pittsburgh who criticized Lawrence for placing too much focus on downtown at the expense of the neighborhoods. However, Lawrence felt that it was the job of neighborhood politicians to deal with issues in their part of the city, and to come to him with any problems. 27

25 Interview with John J. Grove, September 16, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 26 Michael P. Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss: David L. Lawrence, Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Mayor (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), 235-236. 27 Interview with Walter Giesey, conducted by Nancy Mason, 20 December 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh; In The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) Thomas Sugrue argued that the period

Richard Mellon, a military veteran of both World Wars, started his career as a messenger in his family’s banking empire, and worked his way up to president of the bank by 1934 after the death of his father. Mellon’s close business associate and friend for forty-years, Frank Denton, spoke of Mellon’s love for his hometown and said that he

“grew to love the city and devoted his life to developing it in every way.” Denton also claimed that Mellon approached the idea of helping the average citizen with almost

“religious devotion.” 28 When it came to the Renaissance, Denton emphasized Mellon’s influence and said that, “From the business side of the thing, Dick Mellon was the spark plug. He was in a position where he could influence various companies, in which the family had substantial interest, to participate.” 29 Senator Robert Fleming once said of

Mellon “He made up his mind that he was going to do everything he could, not only for the industrial growth of Pittsburgh but also the cultural and social growth of it.” 30 When

Mellon died in 1970 at the age of seventy, the Post-Gazette called him the “Symbol of

Renaissance” when they spoke about his life’s work. There were estimates that through direct pledges and foundations, the Mellon family had pumped as much as $700 million into the city of Pittsburgh by the time of Richard Mellon’s death in 1970. 31

The relationship between Lawrence and Mellon was viewed as necessary by people in both government and the private sector. Local businesses needed the from the 1940s to the 1960s set the stage for the challenges facing urban areas today. Jobs left the Midwest and Northeast, and moved to suburban or rural areas, or moved south to the Sunbelt region. Once these jobs moved, they typically utilized lower-wage, often non-union labor. When it came to the attempts to integrate homogenous, white neighborhoods in Detroit, the residents resisted what they deemed encroachment and racial invasions. 28 “Richard King Mellon Dies at 70,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 4, 1970, 1. 29 Interview with Frank Denton, conducted by Nancy Mason, September 26, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book C-F, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 30 Interview with Senator Robert Fleming, conducted by Nancy Mason, August 10, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book C-F, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 31 “Richard King Mellon Dies at 70,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 4, 1970, 1.

72 cooperation of the city in order to build roads and handle various zoning issues connected to their interests. At the same time, the city government needed the support of the private sector in order to keep corporations in the city of Pittsburgh so the tax base and jobs did not leave to go elsewhere. 32 Mellon and Lawrence were never necessarily “friends,” and they often communicated with each other through intermediaries. But they both had a shared goal, and that was the redevelopment of Pittsburgh. 33 Lawrence, a Democrat, and Mellon, a Republican, were able to get members of both of their respective parties on board for the renewal plans. Michael P. Weber, Lawrence’s biographer, said that “The battle to pass the Pittsburgh Package perhaps best illustrates the cooperative spirit of the public and private sectors in the redevelopment process.” 34

Another person who was considered important to the plans of the Renaissance was Wallace Richards, a man who was often called “the visionary of the Renaissance.” 35

Richards began his career as a reporter and later entered government. In 1937 he arrived in Pittsburgh to direct the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association. Richards developed a relationship with Mellon and earned Mellon’s support in establishing the Allegheny

Conference on Post-War Planning in 1943 (which changed its name to the Allegheny

Conference on Community Development in 1944). The conference would be behind a number of the Renaissance projects in Pittsburgh, including the support of the new Civic

Arena and Three Rivers Stadium. By the 1990s, the ACCD supported a half-percent sales tax that would go toward funding new stadiums for the Pittsburgh Pirates and

32 Weber, 239-240. 33 Ibid, 241-242. 34 Ibid, 245. 35 Ibid, 237.

Steelers in order to replace Three Rivers Stadium, but that was many decades and stadium discussions away. 36

Mayor Lawrence and Richards developed a good relationship not long after they first met, as Lawrence loved Richards’ visions for the city, and Richards admired

Lawrence’s ability to get things done among public figures in the city. 37 Lawrence was mayor from 1946 to 1959; at which time he was elected as Pennsylvania’s governor, a role he served in until 1963. The Renaissance programs continued under Lawrence’s successor, Joseph M. Barr, who was mayor from 1959 to 1970. By the early 1970s, when

Mayor Peter F. Flaherty took office, most of the active plans were complete and few new ones were proposed.

One issue that was always present for the architects of Renaissance was the image of Pittsburgh among its residents and the outside world. Grove, the spokesman for the

ACCD, claimed that people were hesitant to return to Pittsburgh after WWII, or were even hesitant to take a job there in the first place if they were not from the city. Much of the country was aware of Pittsburgh’s bad environmental conditions; a thick cloud of smoke hung above the city. People also believed that the city “seemed to have no bright prospects for the future” and that a “general weariness” existed in Pittsburgh. Grove talked about the battle to combat these negative images, as he said “I think there was a prevailing mood of pessimism among Pittsburghers and among Allegheny Countians about the future of the City.” He claimed that image slowly started to change as people

36 Ann Belser, “Allegheny Conference chief aims for growth,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 29 March 2009 < http://www.post-gazette.com/business/businessnews/2009/03/29/Allegheny-Conference-chief-aims-for- growth/stories/200903290172> (Accessed, February 5, 2017). 37 Weber, 237-238.

74 realized that the public and private leadership were deeply committed to doing something about the dismal conditions in the city and greater county.38

The first issues that Pittsburgh wanted to tackle involved flooding, smoke pollution, and new development, particularly at “the Point” where the three rivers joined together at the tip of downtown. Pittsburgh’s location at the intersection of the

Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers meant that much of the city was prone to flooding. In 1936 the city suffered from a devastating flood on St. Patrick’s Day, which gained it international attention for all of the wrong reasons. Downtown was completely underwater, as flood waters reached the second floor of some of the city’s major department stores. While Pittsburgh experienced regular flooding every couple of years, none were as catastrophic as the 1936 floods. 39 Pittsburgh officials knew that within the next several years, they would be forced to implement programs to limit and control the flooding for both residents and the industries located within the city. Plus, without a solution to the flooding, planned redevelopment at Pittsburgh’s Point would certainly falter. 40

The other environmental issue that Pittsburgh faced after World War II was serious smoke pollution throughout the region. Stories abound of clouds of soot that blocked the mid-day sun and nearly turned the day to night. Businessmen often brought a

38 Interview with John J. Grove, September 16, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 39 “The Great St. Patrick’s Day Flood of 1936,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 15 March 2013 (Accessed January 10, 2017). 40 Interview with John J. Grove, September 16, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book 2, Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh; Joel A. Tarr, ed., Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). The essays in Tarr’s edited volume look at issues connected to water and air pollution in Pittsburgh and some of the policies enacted to deal with these problems.

75 second white shirt with them to the office in the morning, because their original shirt would be gray with soot by the afternoon. City leaders feared that rather than projecting an image of industrial strength and productivity, the smoke pollution instead made

Pittsburgh look undesirable to outside companies and job candidates. Lawrence and city leaders started to implement the smoke control plans in 1947, where businesses and homes would have to convert to smokeless coal. By 1948 the city already saw results from the effort – they received thirty-nine percent more sun than the prior year and

“heavy” smoke decreased by almost fifty percent. By 1954, they achieved a reduction in heavy smoke by more than ninety-eight percent, a dramatic turnaround from just seven years of the new policy.41

Pittsburgh fought to alter its image and wanted the world to know that there were changes taking place in the city. An editor of Newsweek called City Hall in Pittsburgh and expressed interest in writing a major article on Pittsburgh, and they planned to send a reporter and photographer to the city. Newsweek’s editor was clear that they did not want to come to the city if there was not actual renewal work taking place – they had visited other cities where highly-touted renewal programs were actually still in the planning stages. Grove told the editor that they would be amazed by all of the activity in the city at that time. To ensure that the magazine did not miss any of this activity, Grove called the William Penn Hotel, where the Newsweek reporter and photographer planned to stay.

He requested that they place the people from Newsweek in a room facing the corner of

Oliver Avenue and William Penn Place because that was the location of round-the-clock construction of the new Mellon-U.S. Steel Building. It was so noisy that the reporter and photographer asked to be moved, but the plan worked. They definitely noticed the

41 Weber, 251-252.

76 development in the city and were impressed. Grove added that city residents took pride in the redevelopment as well, and said that “Pittsburghers became sidewalk superintendents and began to take tremendous pride in the reconstruction of the City.”42

One of the first big construction projects planned by the Renaissance was the

Gateway office complex near Pittsburgh’s Point at the intersection of the three rivers. In addition to the new buildings, officials wanted to turn the Point into a public park (it eventually became Point State Park in 1974). The proposal would provide downtown with some park space, and was also viewed as something that could enhance the beauty of the area. In order to make this dream a reality, the city needed to first acquire the property, which was a massive complex of train terminals and industrial space. When the city first approached the owners of the property, they were not anxious to sell. But the city actually caught a lucky break – a massive fire at the terminal complex in 1946 meant that the primary landholder, the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad, was much more willing to sell. It was an incredible coincidence, as the fire was never labeled suspicious in any way. Once officials convinced them to sell, smaller property owners would follow. 43 Walter Giesey, a public relations secretary and executive secretary at City Hall admitted that without the terminal fire, the Gateway Center project likely never got off the ground. 44 One of the issues from the Pittsburgh Package legislation that proved to be vital to this project was the fact that a change in the law permitted insurance companies to invest in urban development activities. The Gateway project was funded by The

42 Interview with John J. Grove, September 16, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 43 Weber, 260. 44 Interview with Walter Giesey, conducted by Nancy Mason, December 20, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. .

Equitable Life Assurance Society, something that was forbidden under Pennsylvania law before the legislative changes in 1947. Prior to the “Pittsburgh Package” legislation, insurance companies were forbidden from funding development projects. 45

Just a few blocks across downtown from the Gateway project was the Hill

District, and by the 1950s Pittsburgh city leaders wanted to make changes to the neighborhood. Home to a large percentage of the city’s African American population, there were complaints from city officials that there was substandard and dilapidated housing, particularly in the Lower Hill section closest to downtown. There were reasons for this deterioration – one was that primarily absentee (often white) landlords did not have an interest in maintaining the buildings for their tenants. Even when black residents of the neighborhood were able to purchase their own homes, they were often taken advantage of by unscrupulous sellers and real estate agents, meaning that they drastically overpaid for the property. Because they spent a disproportionate share of their wages just to pay the mortgage on their home, it left no money for maintenance or repair. 46

Robert R. Lavelle, an African American real estate agent and founder of the Hill

District’s Dwelling House Savings and Loan, talked about how the landscape of the Hill

District started to change negatively in the early twentieth century. Workers in many of the downtown factories initially wanted to live in an area close to their job, but eventually they wanted to get away from the smoke and congestion of the city, so they sold their homes to someone of lower income. Then those people eventually moved and sold to someone of lower economic status, on down the line, “so by the time there was no lesser

45 Weber, 260. 46 Interview with Frankie Pace, conducted by Gary Walters, April 8, 1975, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book P-Re, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. See also Beryl Satter, Family Properties.

78 advantaged white person to buy, that’s when a black person becomes the occupant, not the owner, however.” Lavelle added “Of course the black person is the victim of it and not the cause, but he is blamed for it because it is always easier to blame someone than to recognize your own responsibilities.” 47

It was no coincidence that the city targeted the Hill District in its plans for renewal. Pittsburgh’s downtown was bordered on three of four sides by water. The only direction the city could expand its downtown area was to move into the Hill District, starting with the Lower Hill. At one point John Grove said that the most logical place for the Gateway Center development appeared to be the Hill District. It meant that the new skyscrapers would be just a few blocks from the court house, the City-County Building, and federal buildings. 48 City Councilman George E. Evans represented city officials’ views of the Hill District in 1943 when he said, “The Hill District is probably one of the most outstanding examples of neighborhood deterioration…yet it is within a stone’s throw of the largest office buildings in the Downtown. The geographic advantages of the

Hill District are every bit as comparable to the geographic advantages of Nob Hill in San

Francisco where only the well-to-do live.” 49 The Hill District was considered prime real estate, and city officials obviously saw numerous advantages to forcing the poor and working class blacks out of this area. 50

47 Interview with Robert R. Lavelle, conducted by Lawrence Howard and Gary Walters, March 26, 1973, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book He-Love, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 48 Lecture by John Grove, October 16, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 49 Thomas M. Hritz, Marcia Henderson, and Dave Leherr, “Blacks Still Fear Renewal Threat on Hill,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 1975. 50 In Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1983) Arnold Hirsch argued that much of the framework for urban renewal across the country had roots in the racial struggle that took place on Chicago’s South Side. White residents reacted

The city also had interest in building an arena that could house the Civic Light

Opera, sports, and other performance events. In 1949 department store owner Edgar J.

Kaufmann wrote to Mayor Lawrence to pledge $500,000 toward a potential arena and suggested that his gift should be matched with funds from the city treasury. Kaufmann suggested a joint project between his foundation and the Allegheny Conference, while the city was tasked with finding a location for the arena. Lawrence was on board with the concept and just days after he received the letter from Kaufmann he asked city council to accept the monetary gift and work toward preliminary plans for an arena. The city actually considered a number of different sites for the arena but zeroed in on the Lower

Hill District in 1951. Kaufmann eventually upped his pledged contribution to $1 million in order to help pay for the new arena to have a retractable roof. The documents finalizing the project stated that Edgar Kaufmann promised $1 million as long as the arena was constructed in the Hill District and could serve as a home for the Civic Light

Opera. Even though Kaufmann emphasized the importance of the CLO, and his donation was based on its inclusion in the project, the 1953 paperwork finalizing the project plans listed sports as the number one function for the new arena. The city planned to host hockey, basketball, boxing, and wrestling at the new arena. 51

Through the plan for the Hill District, 105 acres of land were acquired, an area city officials designated as “blighted,” containing both residential and commercial

“slums.” Through the Allegheny Conference on Community Development,

with anger as African American migrants moved to their neighborhoods from the South. Local businesses, institutions, and the government often seized land that they believed would benefit their development plans. This left African Americans trapped in specific areas of the city, unable to leave thanks to segregation, and the use of surrounding land for public and private interests. 51 Weber, 270-275; “Documents on Edgar J. Kaufmann Trust agreement,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 133, Folder 4, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

80 redevelopment officials intended to demolish all of the present structures and rehouse the residents somewhere else in the city and planned to “completely change” the street patterns and utility systems. With the now cleared and vacant land, the city could construct a “cross-town parkway,” a Civic Auditorium that would be a home for winter sports and the Civic Light Opera in the summer. Initially, it called for five or six private garden apartment developments that would be owned by private developers. The city planned to fund the project through a $23 million loan from the federal government to the

Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh. This money would cover the purchase of the land and buildings, as well as the demolition and clearance of the area. At that point, the URA would re-sell the land to developers, and that money would be applied to the federal loan. The Public Auditorium Authority would then be responsible for everything connected to the new Civic Arena. 52 In 1954 Pittsburgh’s Public Auditorium Authority was granted a charter under Pennsylvania law, which meant that work on the arena could begin in earnest. This included working with the Urban Redevelopment Authority in order to acquire the necessary land, and working with architects on preliminary drawings and plans for the new structure. Even though this was an idea that was suggested starting in the late 1940s, the bureaucratic hurdles meant that the project’s formal beginnings were pushed to 1954. In these early estimates, officials thought the building would cost at least $8 million, while the development surrounding the arena would cost about $7 million. At this point, the city still hadn’t decided whether or not the new arena would

52 “Lower Hill Redevelopment – Land Guarantee,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 133, Folder 1, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

81 include convention or exhibition space, or if its sole purpose would be as a sports and performing arts venue. 53

By 1955, the city started to demolish the businesses and homes in the Lower Hill

District. The new plan for the area called for the Civic Arena, Crosstown Boulevard highway system, luxury apartments, and a new business complex. Even though it meant that portions of this land would be handed over to private commercial interests, there were limits on what types of businesses could open as part of the new development.

Permitted were auto sales agencies, art and antique shops, business colleges or private schools, financial institutions, hotels, interior decorating shops, libraries, museums, music conservatories or studios, business or professional offices, radio or television stations, restaurants, artist studios, theaters, and wholesale merchandise brokerages. The types of businesses that would be banned included auto service stations, blue-printing establishments, boarding houses, cleaning and dressing of poultry or animals, feed stores, funeral homes, veterinary hospitals, pawn shops, pet shops, rescue missions, second-hand sales shops, and trailer sales and supply. A number of the “forbidden” businesses were ones that existed in the Lower Hill District prior to renewal, so it was obvious that they did not want those people to stay in the area and reopen their businesses as part of the redeveloped area. 54

The more than one-thousand people who were displaced by this project were forced into other parts of the city. Some were lucky enough to find housing in the already crowded Middle Hill section of the neighborhood, while others were forced east

53 “Way Paved For Building Auditorium,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 19 February 1954, from Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 133, Folder 1, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 54 George Barbour, “Word on Lower Hill: ‘Say Goodbye Next Spring’,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 27, 1955.

82 to communities like Homewood and Wilkinsburg. Grove discussed the relocation plans that were connected to the urban renewal programs in Pittsburgh and said that in the case of the Lower Hill, where there was already a serious housing shortage, the Housing

Authority of the City of Pittsburgh became the “relocation agent” for the Urban

Redevelopment Authority. The Housing Authority was tasked with finding new housing for the families who were removed for the Lower Hill development, an area of the neighborhood less than a mile from the site of the former Greenlee Field. Grove said that

“because this project represented a total clearance project and the Housing Authority had to press forward with a construction program of new, low-cost housing communities to help relocate needy people and at the same time maintain a very rigid schedule, making the property available to the Redevelopment Authority for clearance so that work could proceed on the Civic Arena and the new street pattern in the Lower Hill.” 55 Because of this rushed schedule, it meant that many of these decisions were hastily made and did not provide enough help to the people who were displaced.

It also caused major problems in the Homewood neighborhood, where many of the Lower Hill’s residents were forced to move after the construction of Civic Arena began. There were a number of large, single-family homes available as the neighborhood’s residents moved to the suburbs. To manage the influx of new, low- income residents, landlords subdivided houses, sometimes multiple times, in order to handle the former Hill District residents. Similar to what originally happened in the

Lower Hill, negligent landlords did not provide regular maintenance to the dwellings, which already held many more people than originally intended. The buildings continued

55 Interview with John J. Grove, September 16, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book 2, Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

83 to deteriorate, and by the 1980s there was a situation similar to what was in the Lower

Hill in the 1950s. There was white flight from the Homewood neighborhood that escalated between 1950 and 1960, as the Hill District residents began to move in. White families remained in one southern portion of Homewood, and actually changed the name of that area to Point Breeze. The name change “was a way for whites to dissociate themselves from the rest of Homewood which was now ruinous and undeniably black,” according to Courier staff writer Pamela E. Foster. 56

After land was cleared for the Civic Arena and the other planned buildings, the city announced that they acquired another 10 acres above the arena with plans to use the land as a playhouse/theater, symphony hall, or convention center. The theater ended up elsewhere, in the downtown area’s theater district and the piece of land next to the arena remained vacant for decades. At one point, city planners considered a massive, seven- hundred-acre renewal plan that would encompass the entire Hill District. A planner involved in mapping out the project said that “The final result will be a modern, park- type community connecting the “Golden Triangle” with the Oakland cultural center.” 57

This plan would have completely eliminated the Hill District, providing a direct connection between downtown and the universities on the east side of town.

During the initial planning phases, city officials implied that the main purpose for the Civic Arena was to serve as a home for the Civic Light Opera. That was, after all, the reason that Edgar Kaufmann donated money to the plan. However, there were several

56 Pamela E. Foster, “Change Has Brought Homewood To Where It Is Today,” Pittsburgh Courier, 9 December 1989, 3. 57 Thomas M. Hritz, Marcia Henderson, and Dave Leherr, “Blacks Still Fear Renewal Threat on Hill,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 1975. Pittsburgh’s downtown was referred to as both “the Point” and the “Golden Triangle” due to its triangular shape at the confluence of the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers. The Oakland neighborhood was east of downtown and home to the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon universities, as well as cultural institutions like Phipps Conservatory, the Carnegie Natural Museum of History, and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

84 planning documents from both before and after the arena’s opening that emphasized its purpose as a sports arena. In Allegheny County Community Development documents from 1962, there was consideration for the arena to double as a convention center. One of the documents stated, “The Civic Arena was designed as a sports arena and cannot be expected to be secondly an excellent exhibition hall.” The ACCD estimated that the arena could handle smaller shows, but that there would be traffic flow issues if they tried to hold larger convention events. There were claims that the arena was designed specifically with the Civic Light Opera in mind – that was the reason for the retractable roof. But ACCD documents again claimed, “Designed to be a Sports Arena first and foremost the exhibition hall has the appearance of being an afterthought, and therefore is quite inefficient.” The arena was “a building for ‘show,’ not for people.” 58

With plans to construct a new convention center lagging, Pittsburgh city officials still touted the idea of the Civic Arena serving that purpose in promotional materials.

These materials called the structure an exhibit hall/convention center and noted that

“Pittsburgh’s pride is bubbling over the Civic Arena-Exhibit Hall where once 95 acres of the worst kind of residential slum decayed the Eastern fringe of its famous Golden

Triangle” thanks to the structure’s location just east of downtown. The booklet touted the fact that the arena’s domed roof was the largest dome in the world, three times the size of

St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Civic Arena’s opening was “a milestone in a series of accomplishments which have lifted the city to new heights of modern living.” According to the booklet, this was not just an average building; it changed the whole shape of the city. A symbol of modernity that would put the city of Pittsburgh on the map, the only

58 “Internal Correspondence, Re: Pittsburgh Civic Arena,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 133, Folder 2, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

85 cost was “the worst kind of residential slum” – a worthy price to pay. This area was, as the booklet claimed, “Pittsburgh’s back yard,” and was necessary for the redevelopment of the city. 59

There were no attempts to integrate the new development into the fabric of the

Hill District; it was pretty clear that the arena and other new buildings were viewed as more of an extension of downtown. The sea of parking lots that surrounded the Civic

Arena acted almost like a moat when the venue opened in 1961, while the tall buildings in the Chatham Center (opened in 1966) and Washington Plaza (opened in 1964) acted like a giant wall between downtown and the remainder of the Hill District neighborhood.

State representative K. Leroy Irvis called the Civic Arena, Chatham Center, and the

Washington Plaza apartments “a veritable perimeter of defense,” in terms of walling off downtown from the rest of the Hill District. Irvis claimed that at some point the city

“decided that never again would Downtown Pittsburgh merchants be exposed to attack from rampaging blacks from the Hill District.” 60

Shortly after the Civic Arena’s dedication ceremony in 1961, the Pittsburgh

Courier published an article entitled “’Ole Jim Crow’ Hovers Over Civic Arena

Dedication as No Negro Employees Seen.” The author of the article was upset by the fact that the city’s black political and religious leaders, particularly those from the Hill

District, were noticeably absent from the stage at the dedication ceremony. Blacks in attendance at the ceremony noticed that almost all of the ushers, guides, concessions workers, and parking attendants employed at the arena were white. “This can’t be! Not

59 “A Civic Arena-Exhibit Hall For Pittsburgh and Allegheny County,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 133, Folder 3, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 60 Thomas M. Hritz, Marcia Henderson, and Dave Leherr, “Blacks Still Fear Renewal Threat on Hill,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 1975.

86 in the ‘Renaissance City’” the Courier article claimed sarcastically. It turns out that there were a few black employees at the new arena, but they were all relegated to the restrooms and maintenance crews. The Courier article added, “That’s their coat-of-arms…the crossed broom and mop with the dust rag rampant.” 61

All of the hiring for the arena was done by a company named Allied Maintenance, with headquarters in New York; the Stadium Authority gave them a managerial contract to run the arena operations. A spokesman with the company refused to say how many black applicants applied for arena jobs, and swore that there were a few black ushers employed at the arena, even if nobody happened to see them at the dedication ceremony.

The Courier referred to jobs described in this response as “token employment.” Since the arena was publicly owned, the Courier argued that “All jobs, ranging from the supervisory level down to maintenance (including ushers, guards, carpenters, electricians, ticket sellers, vendors, et al), should be open to ALL qualified applicants.” 62 The

Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP, Urban League of Pittsburgh, the Negro American

Labor Committee, and the Greater Pittsburgh Improvement League all charged that there were discriminatory hiring patterns at the new arena, which meant there was a lack of access to jobs for neighboring Hill District residents. 63

There was “systematic discrimination,” when it came to ticket sales for certain concerts at the Civic Arena, according to Charles Harris, African American chairman of the Greater Pittsburgh Direct Action Coalition, an organization focused on advancing civil rights in the city, with the best seats at Civic Arena events reserved for white

61 “At Dedication Rites and in Employment ‘Jim Crow’ Hovers Over Civic Arena,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 23, 1961, 1. There was no author listed for this article, it was likely written by a Courier staff member or editor. 62 Ibid. 63 “’Hire More Negroes At Arena’ – NAACP,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 7, 1961, 1.

87 patrons. For example, when the Temptations were set to perform at the arena, Universal

Attractions (which booked the event) made an exclusive deal with National Record Mart, a store typically located in suburban malls, for the tickets to be sold in their stores.

However, before the tickets formally went on sale, primarily white staff members from

Universal and National Record Mart traveled to predominantly white establishments and neighborhoods in Pittsburgh to sell advance tickets. This meant that the best seats in the arena were sold to primarily white patrons before the rest of the public had a chance to buy them. Just 10 days before the concert was to take place, the rest of the tickets were placed on sale to fill the remaining seats. Harris said he decided to investigate why every show he attended at the arena appeared to have an all-white crowd in the prime floor seats. That’s when he learned of the policy to sell tickets in specific neighborhoods before they went on sale to the general public. This resembled a history of Jim Crow seating arrangements in theaters, where black patrons were forced to sit in the balcony, rather than the floor seats with a better view of the stage. 64

Black business owner and activist Frankie Pace lived and worked within the same two blocks of the Hill District throughout the neighborhood’s dramatic changes from the

Renaissance renewal. When she first moved to Centre Avenue, and started her business there in the 1930s, many of her neighbors were white and Jewish – both residents and businesses. That quickly changed as those people left the neighborhood and it became a primarily African American neighborhood. Pace and her husband lived in the Middle

Hill section of the neighborhood, further away from downtown and closer to the Oakland neighborhood and the University of Pittsburgh. Even though she did not live in the

Lower Hill District, the part of the neighborhood demolished in order to construct the

64 “Charges Whites Get Best Seats At Civic Arena,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 2, 1970, 1.

Civic Arena, Pace had a front row seat to the destructive forces of urban renewal in her community. She discussed the dilapidated housing in her community, and blamed the

City of Pittsburgh for many of the problems she and her neighbors faced. Pace said, “Of course we got very little city service. We couldn’t get our streets swept and get them watered.” 65

Because of the city’s poor response to the needs of the Hill District, Pace and other residents formed the Home Owners and Tenants Association in 1957. She said,

“We were so disgusted with the poor lighting and dirty streets and the absentee landlords who owned hundreds of apartments and wouldn’t do anything about cleaning them up for anything.” Problems were so severe that some roads in the Hill District were not even paved. The Home Owners and Tenants Association were primarily comprised of the Hill

District’s black residents, but did contain a few white residents who still lived in the neighborhood. Pace and other members of the Home Owners and Tenants Association realized that they could accomplish more if they worked with other community groups in the Hill District. The Citizens Committee for Hill District Renewal (CCHDR) was formed in the mid-1960s out of the joint meetings between these various groups. In

65 Interview with Frankie Pace, conducted by Gary Walters, April 8, 1975, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book P-Re, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh; N.D.B. Connolly, A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2014). Connolly discussed the connections between property ownership and power, and said that residential displacement was an intentional goal in order to contain black people in cities (8). Connolly said that the governance of Jim Crow policies in the United States were about “minimizing the discomforts of white Americans, protecting the political power of property owners, and ensuring that poor people continued to generate other people’s wealth” (3).

89 addition to issues connected to housing, this organization also worked on anti-poverty programs in the Hill District neighborhood, as well as employment training programs. 66

Pace believed that the Renaissance had no benefits to the Hill District community, that it was seen by residents as something developed solely to benefit the city’s downtown. Pace asked John Mauro, Director of Planning and Director of Development for the city, “What are you going to do with the people in the Hill when you put up all these elaborate buildings?” Mauro replied that there were plans for apartments within the planned Hill District development, but failed to emphasize that these were planned

“luxury” apartments that poor people forced from their homes could hardly afford. Pace directly asked him what would happen to the neighborhood’s poorer residents, and claimed he replied by saying “I don’t care where they go because we’re looking to put up buildings where the city can get tax money and if we build these kinds of buildings we can get big tax money for the city, we’re not getting anything from those shacks and things up there.” This response angered Pace. It confirmed residents’ concerns about their dislike and distrust the Renaissance plans and planners. Pace said, “The

Renaissance didn’t give a darn about us.” As far as she was concerned the city leaders thought, “We’re going to take the Hill. We don’t care what becomes of those people up there.” 67

Pace fought against the proposed convention center in the Hill District, a building considered throughout the 1960s but had yet to materialize a decade after the Civic

Arena’s opening. Pace argued that there were better uses for the $20 million earmarked

66 Interview with Frankie Pace, conducted by Gary Walters, April 8, 1975, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book P-Re, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 67 Ibid.

90 for the convention center proposal, and produced thousands of signatures in opposition to the project. She emphasized the fact that city officials completely ignored the community opposition to the Civic Arena more than 15 years before. Pace said that the construction of the Chatham Center, Civic Arena, and Washington Plaza had done nothing to improve the Hill District neighborhood and did not see a proposed convention center offering anything of value to Hill residents. “Those convention delegates are not going to come up the Hill to buy shoes when they can go downtown,” Pace said. She added that she did not want to wait around for the city to help the neighborhood; she wanted Hill residents to take matters into their own hands. Pace proposed a program where neighborhood residents all contribute a small amount of money, perhaps a dollar a month, in order to contribute to development in the Hill on their own. 68

As Pace noted, she acquired thousands of signatures from Hill District residents that were opposed to the new convention center. The Courier talked to a number of these residents, many of whom mentioned the Civic Arena as part of their opposition. Resident

Louis Hilliard said, “What’s the use of spending money on something like that when we have these slum areas. It cost millions to build the Civic Arena. They could have used the money in the Hill to improve housing.” Ellis Wilson said “We need housing quarters.

How much is the convention center going to cost anyway? I don’t necessarily object to a convention hall, but they don’t need to put it where they need houses.” Bobby Bryant also stressed the housing shortages when he said, “They don’t have enough available space for black residents in the Hill District as it stands now.” Greenlee Field was demolished in 1938 in order to build public housing. Pittsburgh city officials exhibited few concerns about leveling large portions of the neighborhood just twenty years later in

68 Thomas Stokes, “Frankie Pace Raps On New Center, Hill,” Pittsburgh Courier, 18 December 1971, 2.

91 order to build facilities primarily used by suburban whites. 69 One resident of the Hill

District named Adrienne Garner suggested that if the city were serious about constructing such a venue, that they do so in a primarily white neighborhood or suburb like Squirrel

Hill, Mt. Lebanon, or Fox Chapel. Garner added, “It should displace some of those people over there, rather than displace just poor people. After all, we do live under a code of equal justice.” 70

There were people that actually wanted to see the convention center, convinced that it may finally bring needed money and jobs to the neighborhood. One resident said that “There’s profit made in everything, & if the people in the Hill will reap some of the profit, ok, put it there.” Resident Joseph Wise thought that it may even lead to the rehabilitation of some of the Hill District homes and said, “They might even come up here and take care of some of these houses and improve the community so the people going to the convention center won’t have to go around the Hill.” City officials had already promised changes and improvements to the Hill District after the completion of

Civic Arena, however; and those changes had yet to materialize by the end of the 1960s.

Theodore Hazlett, attorney for the Allegheny Conference on Community

Development, claimed that the Civic Arena was the most controversial of the various renewal projects connected to the downtown Renaissance plan. While he admitted the

Lower Hill removal was the first time city officials had to contend with large numbers of displaced people, he claimed that “we gathered together everybody in the city that we

69 “Pittsburghers Speak Out On Convention Center,” Pittsburgh Courier, 14 August, 1971, 4. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid.

92 could think of on a committee to work to try and solve the problem.” 72 Hazlett claimed that problems associated with the removal of Hill District residents had been exaggerated by many people in the city. He said, “I feel if you could look and see how those people were living and could then see, as we checked out, that 90% of those people had improved their living quarters.” 73 However, by moving many of these former Hill

District residents to the Homewood neighborhood, or other parts of the Hill District, they just transferred the problem to another location. Homes were hastily subdivided in order to handle the influx of new residents, and overcrowding was still a major issue. Despite his claims that almost everyone was better off, Hazlett admitted that new problems were created thanks to the actions of the Redevelopment Authority and that “we couldn’t then just sweep these problems under the rug, which society had done for so long.” Hazlett said this led to the creation of ACTION-Housing to help deal with housing issues in the city, as it was all too much for the Pittsburgh Housing Association to handle. ACTION-

Housing was established as an independent foundation that would work on issues connected to housing in Pittsburgh. The organization was considered the successor to the

Pittsburgh Housing Association when it was formed in 1957. ACTION-Housing was charged with “improving housing and neighborhood conditions throughout Pittsburgh and Allegheny County,” although it was given a budget of less than $90,000 and had just three staff members at the time of its founding. As of 1958 its board of directors was comprised of notable figures from Pittsburgh’s corporate and political world, like Richard

72 Interview with Theodore Hazlett, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 22, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 73 Ibid. In 1950 the Hill District’s population was listed as 53,648; by 1960 the population dropped to 42,777 and by 1970 it dropped to 29,372. By 1990 the population of the Hill District was just 15,268. Susan E. Stoker and Cecilia Robert, Hill District Community Plan, May 29, 1996, University of Pittsburgh Center for Social & Urban Research (Accessed December 5, 2017).

K. Mellon, Andrew Herskell, the publisher of Life Magazine, David L. Lawrence (by now Pennsylvania’s governor), and Mayor Joseph M. Barr. 74

Pace said that a number of people displaced by renewal projects in the Hill

District initially hoped that they may be able to stay in the neighborhood. These residents believed that the city would build affordable housing for the displaced people, or that they would find a home in one of the Hill District’s public housing complexes, like the

Bedford Dwellings, opened in 1940 on the site of the former Greenlee Field, or Terrace

Village, opened in 1938 at the edge of the Hill District neighborhood. What happened instead is that the poor black residents in the Hill District had to move to other parts of the city, sometimes to far eastern neighborhoods like Homewood or Wilkinsburg. Some of these former Hill District residents complained to Pace that even though they had a nice home in their new neighborhood, they missed being far away from their preferred

Hill District community. Pace quoted one resident as saying “I’m so far away from everything. I don’t have any money to get back and forward to my church. I don’t have the proper transportation.” Pace blamed this forced exodus for the further deterioration of the Hill District neighborhood as she said, “You go down the street here and look at all these boarded up buildings, they’re rotted down – absentee landlords. People collecting rents and doing nothing for them year after year, that’s why now a lot of them have to be torn down. They’re beyond repair. This is what happened in the Hill after they moved out.” Pace said that city officials just wanted to drive people out of the neighborhood and

74 Interview with Theodore Hazlett, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 22, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh; Pamela E. Foster, “Change Has Brought Homewood To Where It Is Today,” Pittsburgh Courier, 9 December 1989, 3; ACTION-Housing, Inc. 1957-1992: 35 Years of Investment in Housing, Neighborhoods and People, ACTION-Housing, Inc. Records, 1957-1992, AIS.2001.11, Box 1, Folder 1, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

94 did not care about the consequences. She said that the city was supposed to come in and make sure everyone was settled into new housing before they started to demolish buildings, but added that people were scared and began to run “like rabbits” to try and find a place to stay before their home was demolished. One of the oldest churches in the city, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was on Wylie Avenue and sat right where the Civic Arena was constructed. Even though the church was eventually relocated, it was forced to sue the city in order to get a decent price for the building.

Despite the money the congregants received, it was not enough to construct their new building and the congregation went into debt.75

In a 1971 interview with the Courier, Pace lamented the fact that few Hill District residents publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the urban renewal programs in the neighborhood. Pace said that the lack of protest led to the Hill District’s current condition, but that they could prevent further changes to the neighborhood. Pace added,

“If we rise up, we, the community, can stop anything that is bad for the Hill.” 76

Residents continued to fear that the city would demolish the entire Hill District in order to connect downtown with the Oakland neighborhood. Pace said during a 1975 interview that she and other members of the community would refuse to let that happen. If the city

75 Interview with Frankie Pace, conducted by Gary Walters, April 8, 1975, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book P-Re, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. In The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017), Kindle edition, Loc. 153, 184, 1275, Richard Rothstein argues that “African Americans were unconstitutionally denied the means and the right to integration in middle-class neighborhoods” and said that “We have created a caste system in this country with African Americans kept exploited and geographically separate by racially explicit government policies.” Zoning rules were created and enforced to isolate African Americans and often these zoning laws allowed dangerous or polluting industry to locate in these neighborhoods. Even when the Supreme Court decided that zoning laws could not be used to legally segregate, governments just found a way around that rule. For example, they may zone one area “single family” homes, and another “multi-family” homes, knowing that thanks to restrictive lending policies the African American families were more likely to live in a “multi-family” home. 76 Thomas Stokes, “Frankie Pace Raps On New Center, Hill,” Pittsburgh Courier, 18 December, 1971, 2.

95 tried to do so, she said “we will form a human wall, you’re going to stop at Crawford

Street, we will not let you take any more of the Hill. If you come with those shovels for redevelopment – now, we will agree to renewal, that’s why we called it the Citizens

Committee of the Hill District for Renewal – but we’re not going to let you level it like you did the Lower Hill. You’ll scoop us up in those shovels!” 77

While Pace was concerned about the demolition of more buildings in the Hill

District, there was an already vacant piece of land behind the Civic Arena that officials planned to fill with either a convention center or a cultural institution. Strong consideration was given to a building that would house a symphony, partially funded by the Heinz family. Pace and some of her Hill District neighbors actually had a chance to meet with Heinz family patriarch Henry J. Heinz, II, whose grandfather founded the H.J.

Heinz Company, and she said “Mr. Heinz, if you want to do something in the Hill, why don’t you build apartments for poor people? You can say the Heinz Apartments, your name will be there and you will be remembered by little children who had a decent place to stay.” 78 The Heinz family ended up purchasing an old theater in downtown Pittsburgh and re-christened it the Heinz Hall for Performing Arts. The building was nearly demolished to allow for the construction of a parking lot in the 1960s, when Heinz and

Charles Denby, president of the Pittsburgh Symphony Society, toured the building and considered it as a potential home for the symphony. The pair believed there were

77 Interview with Frankie Pace, conducted by Gary Walters, April 8, 1975, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book P-Re, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 78 Ibid.

“economic advantages” to remodeling the old theater, as opposed to constructing a new building for the symphony. 79

As for the performing arts community that already existed in the Hill District prior to urban renewal, it splintered after the renewal and never quite recovered to its former glory. Chuck Austin, a trumpet player and president of the African American

Jazz Preservation Society remembered “smoke-filled rooms” that were “packed with people wanting to hear music,” during the golden days of the Hill District jazz scene, prior to urban renewal. Austin blamed urban renewal programs in the neighborhood for ruining the music and entertainment scene, including construction of the Civic Arena, the new luxury apartments, and an office complex, “We as musicians splintered and became a little different,” according to Austin, continuing, “Our attitudes and our relationships were a little different than they were in the beginning.” 80 A long-time patron of the

Crawford Grill, Nick Flournoy spoke of the culture one would find at the club in terms of music and the African art covering the walls: “If you go all around this city, you won’t find anything like this. There was the jazz…and this was the number one place where you could hear it.” 81

A number of Hill District residents remained bitter about the broken promises city officials made to residents. City officials had promised that, “the Hill would profit in the way of employment, spin-off businesses, etc.” This vow was issued again by city officials with the construction of Washington Plaza, the high-end residential component that was

79 “Heinz Hall History,” Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, (Accessed December 5, 2017). 80 Lisa McClendon, “Where is the Jazz?: Pittsburgh Musicians Speak of the Changing Times – Part 1 of 2, Pittsburgh Courier, 10 January 1998, 6. 81 Ibid.

97 completed soon after the Civic Arena. However, by 1970 civil rights groups still fought to integrate employment involved in the new construction. The Courier claimed that

“Hill District residents are not permitted near the high-classed Washington Plaza” when it came to employment opportunities. The city repeatedly promised that there would be middle-income apartment complexes constructed in the Lower Hill District near lower

Center and Wylie Avenues to better serve the housing needs of the neighborhood. The

Courier bitterly complained that there was no progress in this area, and nothing resembling rehabilitation or the construction of new houses. “The smart city fathers know they don’t have to do anything.” The Courier argued that if the city just waited it out, in five years the buildings in that area near the arena would be condemned and demolished, meaning that the officials would not need to move aggressively to improve that part of the neighborhood. While people in the Lower Hill continually had to worry about encroachment from the downtown, people in the Upper Hill began to worry about encroachment from the continually expanding University of Pittsburgh. 82

By the 1980s, there still was no convention center in the Hill District, and none of the promised rehabilitation for the neighborhood had come to fruition. The Urban

Renewal Authority acknowledged that the 1950s era “slum clearance” connected to the

Renaissance was “undertaken in a dictatorial fashion, with little concern given to the interests of Hill District residents or to the effects of rapid displacement of thousands of human beings,” according to a Courier article from 1983. The city still had a desire to develop the land in the Hill, as city and county officials were on the lookout for “ways to establish taxable and capital generating entities” thanks to a national and local economic recession. However city officials never did much more to develop the neighborhood, or

82 Diane Perry, “Hill District Doomed?,” Pittsburgh Courier, 21 November 1970.

98 to repair the damage that was caused by the Renaissance programs, such as the displacement of hundreds of residents and the uneven development in the blocks surrounding the arena. 83

As a realtor with an office in the Hill District, Robert Lavelle saw the damage first hand and said that black residents in the neighborhood needed a voice in the rehabilitation plans. He said that activists in the neighborhood did not deny that the area needed attention just that they had “the right to have a say in what happens to us.”

Lavelle, through his position as a realtor, often helped displaced residents find new housing pro bono. He also served on the County Board of Assistance for seven years, during three of which he was chair of the board. Lavelle said that people would compare public housing with primarily white residents, to public housing that contained primarily black residents. The housing with black families often had broken windows and no elevator service and Lavelle said the Housing Authority would say, “Well, the blacks tear up their own things.” But through his position on the Board of Assistance he saw budgets for both and saw that the housing for white families received a great deal more funding than the other complexes. 84 Lavelle saw a simple solution for the problems in the Hill District – repair the existing housing and hire people from within the neighborhood to complete the improvements. That way the housing is improved, and people have jobs. Lavelle said the problem was that white city leaders always felt that they knew what was best for people, and often didn’t listen to the opinions of others.

“That’s paternalism and that’s condescension and that’s all the things we always had,

83 Jeffrey Richardson, “Eminent Domain: The Power (Plan) To Destroy The Hill’s Black Community?,” Pittsburgh Courier, 27 August 1983, 1. 84 Interview with Robert R. Lavelle, conducted by Lawrence Howard and Gary Walters, March 26, 1973, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book He-Love, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

99 whether it’s government or whether it’s agency or whether it’s institution or whatever it is, it is superimposing these values that they know what is best.” 85 Lavelle claimed that it was his discussions with Heinz that made him decide to house the symphony downtown, because Lavelle convinced him of the damage it would do to a neighborhood already in crisis. 86

The construction of the Civic Arena was already underway by the time Mayor

Joseph Barr took office in 1959, charged with completing the plans his predecessor David

L. Lawrence set in motion. Barr’s family had deep roots in the Democratic Party, with both Barr and his great-grandfather serving as chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic

Party during their lifetimes. Barr served in the Pennsylvania state senate throughout

Lawrence’s tenure as mayor and was supportive of the Renaissance programs. 87 Barr claimed that the city needed a place for “certain types of recreation, like a hockey team,” and that “You have to have sports in a city, people want them – the hockey and the good shows.” Later, Barr said that the Ambassador from Spain was in town when the arena officially opened to the public, and that he took him to the formal ceremony. Of the moment, Barr said “They rolled back that roof and they had the symphony playing and in his heavy voice he said, ‘It’s the eighth wonder of the world’.” 88 Pittsburgh officials wanted to impress visitors to the city when it came to the Renaissance programs. Barr claimed that other foreign dignitaries were impressed by the Civic Arena as well. When he took a trip to West Berlin with a group of American mayors sent by U.S. President

85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Interview with Joseph Barr, conducted by Joel Tarr, July 14, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book A-B, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 88 Ibid.

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John F. Kennedy, Barr claimed that Germans kept asking “who was the mayor of

Pittsburgh?” The Germans supposedly saw a magazine article about the Civic Arena and were impressed by the structure; they wanted to ask Barr more detailed questions about it. 89 Barr admitted that despite the positive international press they received about the arena, the city “never got as much use from it as we thought we would,” on account of the Civic Light Opera choosing a different permanent home. 90

Despite the hype of the arena, and the fact that it was once lauded as the “eighth wonder of the world,” it was considered obsolete in about thirty years. Its seating capacity made it one of the smallest arenas in the National Hockey League by the end of its life in 2010. When the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team moved into the brand new

$321 million PPG Paints Arena across the street from the Civic Arena in 2010, there was still $9.3 million owed by taxpayers on the old arena. The city and county taxpayers are expected to finally repay and retire that debt by 2018, when the new arena will already be eight-years-old. Civic Arena originally cost $22 million in 1961, but underwent a number of refinancing plans and renovations in its nearly fifty years of existence. In

1993 for example, the arena underwent extensive renovations when the leaky roof was patched, antiquated ice-making machinery was replaced, and the seating capacity was expanded from 10,500 seats to 17,528. The Sports & Exhibition Authority (formerly the

Pittsburgh Public Auditorium Authority) sold the naming rights to Mellon Financial

Corp. in 1999 for $18 million and Civic Arena officially became Mellon Arena for the last eleven years of its life. It was demolished in 2011-2012. 91

89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Jeremy Boren,” Pens gone, but Igloo $9.3 million in debt,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 14 May 2010 (Accessed May 20, 2017).

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Pittsburgh’s Renaissance program was focused on constructing flashy buildings in order to symbolize growth and change in the city following World War II. Historian Roy

Lubove once referred to it as the “reverse welfare state” because of the fact that public money went toward commercial and industrial development. 92 One of these buildings developed was the Civic Arena, meant to house indoor sports as well as musical performances. In many ways the arena was a huge disappointment when compared to its lofty expectations. Even though it was supposed to provide a permanent home for the

Civic Light Opera, the CLO soon realized that the building had terrible acoustics and moved elsewhere. The city paid extra in order to install a retractable roof, but found that it was nearly impossible to open the roof thanks to a “chimney effect” wind tunnel it created. Its seating capacity was small when compared to similar arenas, which meant that even the professional teams that played there, were often unhappy with the venue. It never made money for the city as promised, and still carried a large debt burden years after it was demolished. A sleek, silver, domed building (nicknamed the Igloo) the exterior of the building definitely had a look that the city was going for – futuristic. It was supposed to represent Pittsburgh’s move from a filthy industrial city to a city that was on the cutting edge. The sleek exterior masked the building’s true problems, much like the exterior image of the Renaissance was supposed to mask many of the city’s internal problems.

The Civic Arena had no real connection to the Hill District neighborhood, and actually served to create a wall between the neighborhood and Pittsburgh’s downtown. It was never supposed to be a part of that community, however; it was meant to appropriate real estate to expand an already crowded downtown. The people who lived in the Lower

92 Trotter and Day, Loc 1339.

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Hill were simply road blocks, items to be pushed out of the way to other parts of the neighborhood or to outlying communities. The city went from a strategy of constructing low-income housing for Hill District residents around 1940 to a policy of “slum removal” fewer than fifteen years later. Despite the neighborhood’s desperation for housing,

Pittsburgh officials displaced thousands of residents and destroyed community institutions like Greenlee Field and the Crawford Grill. The displacement of residents led to problems of overcrowding and dilapidated housing in other areas of the Hill District, as well as the Homewood community. City officials liked to say that all of the residents were taken care of following the demolition of the Lower Hill, and that they were now in better housing. In reality, they simply moved the problems of deteriorating housing and overcrowding off of downtown’s doorstep to an outlying neighborhood.

In the minds of city officials, solving social problems had no splashy, visible impact to residents in other parts of the city and the nation. Plus that meant that the white suburbanites did not get to enjoy the fruits of a potential urban renewal program that involved improved housing for urban residents, since the benefits would go strictly to low-income, primarily black urban residents. A state-of-the-art stadium seemed much more interesting in the minds of city officials, and would garner more attention on the national stage. Despite the destruction caused by the Civic Arena project in the Hill

District, Pittsburgh continued with plans to build an additional major sports venue near the downtown area. A large multi-purpose stadium intended to house baseball and football, eventually named Three Rivers Stadium, was scheduled to open less than ten years after the Civic Arena. While the reasoning behind the stadium’s construction was similar to that of Civic Arena – to provide a modern, high-tech home to the sports teams

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– the impact of the stadium’s construction was very different than that of Civic Arena.

The story of Three Rivers Stadium will be fully told in the next chapter.

Figure 1: Map of Pittsburgh

Approximate locations of sites mentioned in chapters two and three. On the center left of the map is Point State Park (also referred to as “The Point”) at the intersection of the

Allegheny River (to the north), the Ohio River (to the west, off the map), and the

Monongahela River (to the south). Just north of the downtown area (also referred to as

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“The Golden Triangle”), across the Allegheny River, is the current-day home of PNC

Park, and slightly to its west, Heinz Field. The former location of Three Rivers Stadium is overlaid onto the map, just to the west of PNC Park. To the east of downtown is the

Hill District neighborhood, with the former location of the Civic Arena overlaid onto the map. To the northeast of the Civic Arena site, the former site of Greenlee Field is overlaid onto the map. And finally, to the east of the Hill District is the Oakland neighborhood, which contains the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and many of Pittsburgh’s cultural institutions. The approximate location of Forbes Field is overlaid onto the map. The communities of Homewood and Wilkinsburg were so far east of downtown they are outside the eastern boundaries of this map.

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Chapter 3 – A Multipurpose Misstep: The Controversy Connected to a Dual-Purpose Stadium in Pittsburgh

The city of Pittsburgh sought to change and improve its image through a series of urban renewal programs dubbed the “Renaissance.” City officials implemented bold construction projects that produced tangible, visible changes to Pittsburgh’s landscape.

Two cornerstones of Pittsburgh’s urban redevelopment efforts included the construction of the Civic Arena and Three Rivers Stadium. These Pittsburgh and Allegheny County officials viewed sports as a way to engender civic pride, and as a way to represent

Pittsburgh on the national stage. Moreover, officials feared if they could not provide these sports teams with a state-of-the-art venue, the teams would move to a city that would. The site selected for the new Three Rivers Stadium would not destroy a long- standing neighborhood, as Civic Arena did in the city’s Hill District community.

It appeared that the city exhibited more cautious planning when it came to the plans for Three Rivers Stadium, the multi-purpose stadium that would serve as home to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city’s baseball and football teams.

It is unclear as to whether or not city officials learned their lesson when it came to the destruction in the Hill District, or if there was simply more care in the decision making process thanks to the fact that all parties involved were more wealthy and/or major figures of the community. The site chosen for the stadium on Pittsburgh’s north side, across the river from downtown, included a number of abandoned rail yards and industrial buildings. It was relatively easy for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, one of the main tenants still at the site, to move their dwindling operations elsewhere in the city.

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Even though the Oakland neighborhood lost Forbes Field, it flourished in its absence.

The University of Pittsburgh was able to use the land as part of a planned expansion, and

Oakland became known as a center for education, health care, and culture. Prominent individuals in the neighborhood actually wanted the stadium gone – and they got their wish. Residents in the Hill District, for the most part, did not want to see Greenlee Field removed and did not want a new arena constructed in their neighborhood. The people with power and wealth saw their wishes catered to, while the powerless lost nearly every battle.

In a way, the move to the north side for the Pirates baseball team was a homecoming. The team, founded in 1887, played their first game at Exposition Park on the northern banks of the Allegheny River in 1891. Baseball’s first World Series was held at the wood-frame park in 1903 and crowds completely overwhelmed the small structure. The actual seats at the park filled up well before the start of the first game held in Pittsburgh, forcing fans to stand in the outfield nearly twelve deep in order to watch the game. In an attempt to separate the playing field from the fans, baseball officials strung a rope across the outfield in front of the crowd. 1 As baseball’s popularity continued to grow during the early twentieth century, accommodating all of the fans that wanted to watch the sport would become increasingly difficult. Wood-frame ballparks were prone to fire, and the location of Exposition Park meant that it was vulnerable to flooding. It made sense for the Pirates to consider other options when it came to their playing venue.

Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss ended up purchasing a plot of land for a new park near the entrance to Schenley Park and Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University)

1 “Boston Leads World’s Series,” Pittsburgh Gazette, 11 October 1903, 18.

107 about five miles east of Exposition Park in 1908. The Oakland neighborhood, at the time, was populated by the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Tech, the Carnegie Library, and the high-end Schenley Hotel and University Club. This was a far cry from the industrial waterfront location of Exposition Park. The Pittsburgh Gazette said the deal would give the Pirates “the finest grounds in the country.” The land deal, orchestrated by the

Schenley family estate trustees Andrew Carnegie, John W. Herron, and Denny Brereton, stipulated that anything built at the site had to be fireproof, and had to harmonize with the surrounding buildings in the city’s Oakland neighborhood. Dreyfuss also promised that no “intoxicating drinks” would be sold on the property. 2

One has to wonder if there was an interest in changing the team’s fan base in the move east. Exposition Park’s Northside location was in a somewhat rough industrial area on the water, with the train tracks running just outside of its gates. It reportedly had a number of rowdy crowds; during a game in 1901 the Sporting News referred to the crowd as a “howling mob” that managed to get onto the field and chase an umpire out of the ballpark in anger after he made a call they disliked. 3 At the time of the land deal in

1908, the Gazette claimed that Dreyfuss did not oppose the rather strict terms for the property, “as it is and always has been the intention of the purchaser to provide, right in the heart of the city, an institution solely for the promotion of high-class outdoor pastimes.” When it was not in use by the Pirates, the owners planned to host football

2 “Pirates Get Best Field In Country,” Pittsburgh Gazette, 18 October, 1908, 1, 7; Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Spotlight on Mary Schenley, February 20, 2015 (Accessed December 5, 2017). At one point in the nineteenth century, Mary Schenley was the largest property-holder in Allegheny County. Schenley donated various pieces of land throughout the county for certain causes, including 300 acres on Pittsburgh’s east side. That land eventually housed Schenley Park, the Carnegie Museums, (thanks to industrialist Andrew Carnegie) and at one point, Forbes Field. John W. Herron was chairman of the board of the Commonwealth Trust Co. and agent for the Schenley estate in Pittsburgh, while Denny Brereton was a cousin of the Schenley family. 3 Joe Browne, “Joe Browne,” Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, 1 April 1989, 24.

108 games, and wanted to encourage local university students “to indulge in wholesome outdoor games” on the property. 4 With strict conduct rules and a move across the city, perhaps Dreyfuss hoped to abandon a more “seedy” type of fan element at the games.

The new ballpark’s 25,000 seat capacity, nearly double that of Exposition Park also meant that it was no longer necessary for fans to crowd into the outfield hoping for a glimpse of the game. In fact, at the time the park was designed, Forbes Field was the largest capacity baseball park in the United States. (As a comparison, Greenlee Field held about 7,000). Even though Forbes Field was several miles from the downtown area there were a number of trolley and train lines that passed close to it. While not as convenient for fans who lived in other parts of the city, it certainly was not impossible for them to reach the new location in Oakland. Dreyfuss pointed to the overcrowding at the

1903 World Series at Exposition Park as a reason the new venue was needed. He also said that as the popularity of baseball and football steadily increased in the United States,

Pittsburgh’s sports venues had not kept pace. Dreyfuss added, “England excels us in this respect and has facilities for taking care of more than 100,000 spectators at some of its championship football games.” 5 In addition to a greater seating capacity, Dreyfuss said that the facilities for both fans and players would be the best that money could buy,

“because the new park must provide not only for the present, but also for years to come.”

The completed Forbes Field opened after just six months of construction on June

30, 1909 to a crowd of more than 30,000. Some ticketless fans even camped outside of the park hours before the game in the hope of obtaining entry. Even though the

4 “Pirates Get Best Field In Country,” Pittsburgh Gazette, 18 October, 1908, 1, 7. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

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Pittsburgh Railways Company attempted to place extra trains and trolleys into service on the stadium’s opening day, they did not provide nearly enough trains to handle the massive crowds. Many fans were forced to walk from as far as the East Liberty neighborhood, almost three miles away. The day was still heralded as a success however, despite the transportation issues and the fact that the Pirates lost their inaugural game at

Forbes Field. 7 Fans raved about the ballpark throughout the season, and the Pirates managed to win their first World Series at the end of Forbes Field’s first season. Much like Greenlee Field, Forbes Field was viewed as a pioneer among ball parks. Along with

Shibe Park in Philadelphia, Forbes Field was the first park constructed with concrete and steel in the United States.

While the game of baseball enjoyed immense popularity during the first five decades of the twentieth century, it saw some declines in attendance after World War II.

The commissioner and team owners were worried about the impact of television on the game – would attendance drop further because fans could now watch games in the comfort of their own homes? As the 1950s wore on, several teams left their long-time homes for new cities which amplified fears that cities could lose their beloved teams. In the twenty-first century, major league baseball boasts thirty teams scattered across the

United States and Canada. In 1950, that number was nearly half – just sixteen teams spread across states east of the Mississippi River. Major League baseball officials expressed interest in expanding professional baseball to new cities by the 1950s, in the hopes of drawing new fans from underserved parts of the country in order to provide a boost to the game’s lagging popularity. This was problematic to consider prior to the

7 “New Home Of Pirates Taxed To Utmost By Enthusiastic Crowd,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, 1 July 1909, 1.

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1950s, however, because of logistical issues in transporting teams from the Southeast or

Western United States to play teams located in the Northeast and Midwest. But with the increasing accessibility for commercial airline travel after WWII, it meant that a team could travel across the entire United States in mere hours. It meant that west coast, major league baseball was a distinct possibility thanks to the advancements in transportation.

In 1952 Collier’s Magazine published a story that provided “Baseball’s Answer to

TV.” The magazine suggested brand new, state-of-the-art sports stadiums. The article claimed that fans were tired of dealing with the hassles of attending baseball games in person. Support pillars blocked their views of the field, and massive traffic jams made traveling to games a nightmare. “With a regretful, nostalgic sigh, the baseball fan is ducking the traffic jams, shunning the climb, avoiding the view-obstructing pillar and turning on their television set,” according to the magazine article. 8 The article then shared the ideal new stadium prototype that Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley proposed in

Brooklyn, New York. The stadium would have plenty of seating, able to hold nearly

55,000, and could be used for a wide variety of uses in addition to baseball. Its cantilevered round design meant that there were no obstructed views in the corners and no support pillars to block views of the field. The stadium prototype would look somewhat futuristic, and have a roof in order to enable teams to avoid inconvenient weather delays. It would offer ample parking for suburban fans who planned to drive to games, and its advanced traffic design supposedly meant that traffic jams would be a

8 Tom Meany, “Baseball’s Answer to TV,” Collier’s Magazine, Walter O’Malley Collection, Brooklyn Historical Society, Box 2, Folder 20.

111 thing of the past. Designers estimated that it would cost about $6 million to complete

(more than $55 million in 2017 dollars, considering inflation). 9

Six years after the Collier’s article, This Week Magazine published an interview with baseball commissioner Ford Frick entitled “Ford Frick Says: Super Stadiums Can

Save Baseball.” 10 It was pushed as a cure-all for the problems of the game, as its sub- headline claimed, “The game is in danger. Five clubs have moved, many are losing money, fans are staying home. Baseball’s Commissioner here proposes a dramatic solution: the all-year, all-weather Sports Palace.” 11 Much like the Collier’s article from earlier in the decade, the stadium described by Frick was circular and vaguely futuristic looking, with a roof and ample parking. This design was suggested because, as Frick claimed, “We can’t afford to build the one-sport ball park any more.” The reason for this was “you can’t use it more than half the year, so it’s uneconomical to build. A plant with a roof can be used all year long.” 12 Frick pointed out that five of major league baseball’s sixteen teams had moved cities since 1953, but considered that simply a “stop-gap” to the sport’s fear of hemorrhaging fans. The only way to get fans out to the ballpark, according to Frick, was to build a stadium that resembled his prototype. Baseball needed to make it worthwhile for a fan to come to the ballpark, as opposed to watching the game on television instead. 13 The commissioner’s office feared what could happen to the sport if fans remained at home and stopped filling seats at ballparks across the country.

Baseball was always portrayed as a sport passed down between generations and as a way

9 Ibid. 10 Al Hirshberg, “Ford Frick Says: Super-Stadiums Can Save Baseball,” This Week Magazine, May 4, 1958, Edward Roybal Collection, UCLA Special Collections, Box 46, Folder 1. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid.

112 for fans across different age groups to bond with each other. Attending a game in person was viewed as part of the game’s charm – where fans could sit in a bucolic setting within the city and watch alongside family members.

The author of the piece, Al Hirshberg, asked Frick if his elaborate stadium plans would end up costing a fortune. Frick responded, “Sure, it would cost a fortune…But so does a one-sport ball park. Why spend something like ten million dollars for a park you can’t use in winter or bad weather when, for a few million more, you can build the kind of plant I have in mind? It would pay for itself in a few years.” 14 When Hirshberg asked about the source of funding for these new “Super Stadiums,” Frick said it would come from a cooperative effort. “As a baseball man, you’d go to a city and offer to pay your share. You can’t say, ‘If you don’t build a sports palace, I’ll take my ball club somewhere else.’ But it’s the best plan for assuring both the club and the city a profit.” 15

Even though the article claimed that Frick did not mention any cities that were in danger of losing their teams, its author wrote, “but he might have mentioned Philadelphia,

Washington, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and the Chicago White Sox…He might also have been thinking of Cincinnati’s troubles.” 16 Frick implied that if enough “sports palaces” were built, then perhaps major league baseball would consider expanding to a total of twenty-four teams across the country.

While Frick was careful to never make a direct threat – build a stadium or you lose your team – it was heavily implied that perhaps cities needed to build new stadiums if they wanted to keep their team from packing up and heading to another metropolis. In

14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. Team profits have always been a bit unclear to the general public, since teams aren’t required to make their finances public. 16 Ibid. All of the cities/teams mentioned had new ballparks that opened between 1960 and 1973, except for the Chicago White Sox.

113

1957, two popular teams, the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers announced that they would move to California for the start of the 1958 season. If the nation’s largest city could lose two of its three well-supported teams, it had to make smaller cities nervous and desperate to keep the same thing from happening to them. In 1958, Pittsburgh officials made one of their first formal proposals for a stadium that would potentially replace Forbes Field as the home of the Pirates. It included a circular design, as in the

1952 and 1958 designs published in Collier’s and This Week, but not a roof. The plan would have certainly turned heads though – it called for the demolishment of the

Smithfield Street Bridge in downtown Pittsburgh – and for the bridge to be replaced by a much wider and larger structure. This larger structure would house a sports stadium, as well as parking and at least one office building. Pittsburgh, long viewed as a smoky, dirty, industrial city, would have a stadium suspended on a bridge over the Monongahela

River like something out of an episode of the Jetsons. 17

While plans for the stadium on a bridge never progressed beyond initial drawings,

Pittsburgh was still intent about building a new stadium as part of the Renaissance. The first formal plans were presented by the Allegheny Conference on Community

Development in 1963 for what would become Three Rivers Stadium, at an estimated cost of $45.17 million (more than $358.7 million in 2017 dollars). The price tag was viewed as “the cost for assuring Pittsburgh’s future as a major league city.” 18 The city claimed that funds for the project, which would hopefully be complete in time for the Pirates and

17 Arthur Weinstein, “Pittsburgh once planned a ‘Jetsons’-style stadium on top of river for Pirates,” Sporting News, April 3, 2016 (Accessed, February 1, 2017). 18 Edward Jensen, “Price Tag of Northside Project Bared: Cost of Stadium: $45,170,000,” Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, January 11, 1963, 1.

114

Steelers to enter it for the 1966 season, would come from the sale of bonds, from grants by the Federal, city, and county governments, and through the sale of land to the state for an express highway right-of-way. According to the city, “The outright grants from the governmental units would be used to acquire the 83.5-acre site and prepare it for construction. Funds for erecting the stadium would come from the sale of bonds. 19

As the city started to discuss this potential new ballpark, one of the first ties were severed between the Pirates and Forbes Field. In 1958 the team sold the ball park to the

University of Pittsburgh for $3 million, as the university hoped to use the land for expansion in future years. After the sale, the Pirates paid monthly rent to the university and settled on an initial five-year contract to remain at the site. A very early plan proposed converting the university’s Pitt Stadium into a combination baseball-football venue, since the Steelers played most of their games there by the 1950s. However, it was considered a poor field for baseball, plus it would not solve the problem of moving professional sports away from the Oakland neighborhood in order to make room for university expansion. 20 In one of the early versions of the plan, Pittsburgh Pirates owner

John Galbreath pledged $2 million of the $3 million sale price toward the project. 21

While much of the benefit of the new stadium was framed as helping the run- down north side and downtown area, there were benefits to Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood that were touted as well. Three Rivers Stadium not only would serve as a source of pride for the city and its sports fans, but it would help eliminate Forbes Field,

19 Ibid. 20 “Conversion of Pitt Stadium to a Municipal Stadium,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 237, Folder 4, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 21 “Documents from John Galbreath and Mayor Joseph Barr,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

115 framed as a local burden to city officials. With Forbes Field’s demolition, officials also envisioned an investment of nearly $300 million of public and private funds into the

Oakland neighborhood to make it “one of the world’s great educational, health and cultural centers, surrounded by new residential and commercial facilities.” However, if

Forbes Field stayed, the stadium itself alongside the congestion caused by Pirates games would inhibit the implementation of these plans. 22 In addition to the concerns about crowding and traffic flow, city officials also argued that there were other negatives to the mixing of sports events with medical, educational, and cultural activities in Oakland.

One official asked people to consider “the type of business activity attracted by a sports center.” Business establishments like bars, and rowdy fans who may have spent an evening consuming alcohol, were seen as a detriment to a neighborhood attempting to brand itself as an educational and cultural center. 23

As the formal plans for the new multi-purpose stadium pushed forward in

Pittsburgh, Mayor Joseph Barr gave an impassioned speech to the City Council at the end of 1963 on the importance of a new stadium to the community. Barr evoked images of ancient Roman and Greek sports and said that “I believe that sports events are important to a large segment of our people. Sports attractions have always been popular – from the beginning of our Western Civilization.” With those ancient examples of sports and sports stadiums to support him, Barr claimed that “the public stadium has been as much a part of city life as the forum, the public market square, and more recently, city hall itself.”

22 “Fact Sheet on Proposed City-County Stadium,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 23 “Proposed Northside Stadium & the B&O Railroad Company,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 8, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

116

Barr believed there was the perception that outdoor sporting events brought people from all walks of life together as a community to root for their team, and taught valuable lessons about important issues like fair play and respect of laws and authority to the citizens that participated. Almost as if sports served as a model for a city’s citizens to follow in their daily lives. As Barr explained, “We don’t have to look deep in the archives for the contributions of sports and sport facilities to community health, community spirit and community pride.” 24 The loss of either the Steelers or the Pirates, according to Barr, “would do irreparable harm to our [the city’s] reputation nationally and locally, and in turn, this will impair the economy of this entire area.” 25

The topic of sports was a water cooler discussion, according to Barr, much like small talk about the weather. The people of Pittsburgh talked about the most recent game, “we replay the excitement of the home run, the spectacular touchdown, and the winning goal.” Barr said that people that did not even follow baseball closely watched the Pirates’ run as the unlikely champion of the 1960 World Series. That championship run had another benefit, according to Barr – it placed the city of Pittsburgh front and center on newspapers across the country as fans from around the World watched the

Pirates play the vaunted New York Yankees. 26 The mayor obviously liked the image the series portrayed to the country, a plucky underdog that managed to beat the heavily

24 “Statement by Mayor Joseph M. Barr, Public Hearing on Stadium Renewal Project Before Pittsburgh City Council, Wednesday, December 11, 1963,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 25 “Statement by Mayor Joseph M. Barr, Release of Stadium Urban Renewal Project, January 10, 1963,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 8, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 26 “Statement by Mayor Joseph M. Barr, Public Hearing on Stadium Renewal Project Before Pittsburgh City Council, Wednesday, December 11, 1963,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

117 favored (and powerful) Yankees. The Pirates became the first, and only, team to win a

World Series by a walk-off home run in game seven. To make the feat even more unlikely, the winning homer was hit by Bill Mazeroski, a player that was not known for his power at the plate. It was, in many ways, the perfect metaphor for what the city of

Pittsburgh wanted to accomplish. A dirty industrial town that was looked down upon by others, particularly when compared to a bustling metropolis like New York City.

Pittsburgh was the consummate underdog, fighting for visibility and fighting to be viewed as an equal on the national stage. And when the Pirates managed to win in dramatic fashion, despite the prognostications, leaders like Barr hoped that the rest of the country would equate the city with the Pirates – the plucky underdog that managed to win, despite the odds against them. A city and its sports team, with their identities intertwined on the national stage. In rooting for the Pirates, Barr asked whether or not

Pittsburghers were merely rooting for the team, “Or were they rooting for the name and honor of Pittsburgh?” 27

According to Barr, there was “urgency” across the country when it came to construction of new stadiums. He named eight different cities that constructed stadiums in recent years – Washington, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Milwaukee,

Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Kansas City – and named five others that had plans on the drawing board for new stadiums – St. Louis, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Boston.

Why did Barr note this urgency for new stadiums in cities across the country? According to him, these cities just wanted to find ways to remain competitive and to provide

“interesting and exciting places in which to live and to work.” They also hoped to attract a professional sports team in order to gain “major league status,” a position that

27 Ibid.

118

Pittsburgh held since the before the turn of the twentieth century. By strategically positioning their new stadium on Pittsburgh’s north side, across the river from downtown, city officials argued that it would lead to more development prospects for both the north side and downtown.28

Barr attempted to portray that a new football/baseball stadium would be successful and beneficial to the community. Barr pointed to the Civic Arena, which opened just two years prior to his speech. He said that the slum clearance and construction of the stadium started a chain reaction of events (which events, is unclear) that will benefit the city. In fact, city officials had only just begun to measure the success of the new Civic Arena. Barr claimed that the 2.1 million visitors to the arena since its opening likely would not have come downtown if they did not attend an event there. He called many of these guests “trade and business generators,” although Barr is unclear on what kind of trade and business they generated by attending a sports or music event at the arena. As for companies that decided to come to Pittsburgh thanks to the Civic Arena,

Barr said that the city would not have gotten a new Hilton Hotel downtown. He also pointed to the planned new development around the arena, the hotel and luxury condos to be built adjacent to the structure, although those were listed in early plans as part of the

Lower Hill’s redevelopment plan. To that point, the Civic Arena raised $237,000 in amusement taxes in 1963, as well as $16,000 in parking taxes. Barr also bragged about the jobs created by the arena, before admitting that it created just forty to seventy-five new jobs. 29

28 Ibid. 29 Ibid.

119

Much like the Civic Arena project, there was an emphasis placed on the fact that the new Three Rivers Stadium project would eliminate blight. As David Lawrence pointed out in 1963, “It is significant to note that the underlying purpose of each

[Renaissance renewal] project has been to attack physical blight, both through total elimination and through methods of prevention and containment.” The major difference between the Lower Hill project though was that people were not set to lose homes on the north side as a result of the stadium construction. Much of the north side location was an industrial site, some of which was no longer in use by the time the program was proposed. Lawrence said that the new stadium project was faithful to the city’s overall strategy when it came to urban renewal – “to expend and use public funds to encourage private capital to build and operate effectively in behalf of the community as well as in its own interest.” A statement like this shows that city officials were most concerned about image, as well as the needs and desires of private capital. The riverfront property grew more dismal by the year, according to Lawrence, and was making the city look bad to visitors. With the changes to downtown, and the plans for Point State Park at the point of downtown, officials wanted to avoid a dilapidated industrial site sitting in full view just across the river. 30

At the 1963 public announcement of the stadium plans, Mayor Joseph M. Barr emphasized the project’s contributions to urban renewal, and said that it would “lead to removal of an area now blighted by a jumble of scrap and rail yards, decaying industrial

30 “Statement by David L. Lawrence, Chairman, Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, Public Hearing on Stadium Renewal Project, December 11, 1963,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

120 buildings and obsolete warehouses.” 31 Despite the public funding sources, and the liability of costs and expenditures, the stadium’s operation would be left to a private corporation formed by John W. Galbreath, the owner of the Pirates, as well as the team’s minority owners. In return, for private control over a publicly owned stadium, Galbreath agreed to pay an annual rent of $627,000, as well as provide maintenance of the property.

The over 4,000 adjacent parking spaces would be leased to a second private corporation,

Alco Parking Corp., which agreed to pay $500,000 annually to operate the parking lots, while obtaining all of the profits from the parking. From these two private entities, the city expected to receive approximately $1.217 million in rent, which would be used to pay interest and retire the bonds issued for the stadium’s construction. While Barr and city officials boasted about how the stadium was good for the city and its bottom line, it seemed as if the benefits to the private owners were the more important issue.

Actual ownership of the stadium, and responsibility for its operation and construction belonged to the Public Auditorium Authority, an entity that was a joint creation of the city and county. The Authority already operated the Civic Arena in the

Hill District. 32 Barr said that, “I strongly believe it is essential that Pittsburgh preserve its major league status in every facet of our community growth – whether it be in sports, cultural, health, or educational institutions. The loss of either the Pirates or Steelers would do irreparable harm to our reputation nationally and locally, and in turn, this will impair the economy of the entire area.” 33

31 Edward Jensen, “Price Tag of Northside Project Bared: Cost of Stadium: $45,170,000,” Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, January 11, 1963, 4. 32 Ibid. 33 “Documents from John Galbreath and Mayor Joseph Barr,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

121

Alongside their hope that the stadium would draw people to the downtown area, city officials also expected the north side to become “the hub of a vast network of highways planned for Western Pennsylvania.” This hub of highways would help link other city expressways like the Crosstown Parkway, the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, East

Street Extension, Allegheny River Expressway, and the Ohio River Boulevard Extension, thereby providing ease of access to/from the stadium and elsewhere in the region.

Through this plan, any person in any part of Pittsburgh would supposedly be able to use the network of expressways to get to the stadium in fewer than 45 minutes. Even though the intent was to bring these people to the downtown area, there was quite a push to ensure that they would be able to zip in and zip out with ease, and to park in one of the thousands of parking spots planned for outside of the stadium. Since baseball viewed itself as competing with television for fans, a sophisticated transportation plan made sense. Fans would just stay home and watch on television if it became too complicated to get to and from the ballpark. However, the claims that the network of highways would help bring people from the suburbs to the downtown area made less sense. Theoretically, with such a network of highways and parking on the north side neighborhood next to the stadium, people may never even cross the river into downtown. 34

Even though city officials pulled out all of the stops in selling the plan to the community, there was a fair amount of vocal opposition to the plans. In 1965 Robert K.

Conrad filed a lawsuit in Common Pleas Court. Conrad, a certified public accountant, accused the city of acting illegally by backing the bonds. According to Conrad’s complaint, this was due to the fact that it was a public project, but “under private control

34 “Proposed Northside Stadium & the B&O Railroad Company,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 8, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

122 because of leases with the Steelers and Pirates.” These leases “would strip the Stadium

Authority of any control over the lessees should the stadium operators, Pittstad

Management Corp., default in its payments ‘and in turn the City of Pittsburgh would have the obligation of paying all the deficiencies of the Stadium Authority.’” 35 Conrad asked for an injunction to prevent the mayor, City Council, and the Stadium Authority from moving forward with the stadium project. In his suit, Conrad claimed to be acting as secretary of a “Citizens Committee for Intelligence in Public Funds Spending Projects.”

Conrad and his attorney would not disclose how many people belonged to this group, or the names of these people. Within the suit, Conrad claimed that this public project would actually be under private control due to the terms of the leases with the Pirates and the

Steelers. Mayor Barr said he was convinced the suit “would fall flat on its face,” and pointed out that he thought it peculiar that the suit was filed just three days prior to the mayoral election, despite the fact it had been threatened for several months. Conrad’s attorney, John B. Nicklas, Jr. said that the date for filing was selected since the City

Council had just completed the agreement between the city and the stadium authority. 36

Despite Conrad’s legitimate complaint, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette revealed that

Conrad was part of a group of seven men that owned ninety acres of land in Robinson

Township, a suburban community west of downtown. This site was proposed as a potential site for a stadium in 1963, but was rejected by the county since officials wanted the new stadium downtown and not in the suburbs. Conrad claimed that their proposed stadium was privately financed, and said that he was opposed to the public financing of the stadium, and urban renewal programs in general. Conrad wasn’t opposed to these

35 Herbert G. Stein, “Suit Filed To Block Stadium,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 30 October 1965, 1. 36 Ibid.

123 programs because they were destructive to existing communities, or because they pushed poor people out of their homes. He said that “we can do it ourselves better than we could with any Federal handout.” Conrad claimed that he did not know the political backgrounds of his fellow group members, and that he was an unregistered resident who doesn’t vote. He added, “You can say I am a conservative, but I’m not a Bircher, not even a member of the Ku Klux Klan; I’m just a man who is tired of paying taxes.”

Speaking of money, the group supposedly had enough money to take the suit against the city as far as it needed to go. It was clear they had at least one person of means supporting their cause. 37

In November of 1965, the city petitioned for the case to be heard before the

Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in part because they thought a decision would be reached sooner than at the Common Pleas Court. The city wanted to break ground in April of

1966 and knew they had no chance of meeting that deadline if the case did not go before the state Supreme Court. 38 The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in January of

1966, which meant that the plans for the stadium could still stay relatively on schedule.

However, the ambitious highway plan that would accompany the stadium likely had no chance of being finished by the time the structure opened to the public. 39 When the case was argued before the state Supreme Court, Nicklas claimed that the stadium plan created

37 “Objector to Stadium Had Plan of His Own,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 30 October 1965, 6. There are several authors that have discussed how the media is utilized in battles to construct stadiums. Robert C. Trumpbour discusses this in The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction, (Syracuse, New York, Syracuse University Press, 2007) and Neil deMause & Joanna Cagan discuss it in Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle turns Public Money into Private Profit, (Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska Press, 2008); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University, 2001), 237-239. In her discussions on conservative activists in California, McGirr discussed their resentment toward taxation and efforts to pass propositions to limit property taxes. These activists used rhetoric like “big government waste,” “political fat cats,” and “spenders,” as they voiced their opposition to taxation. 38 Thomas M. Hritz, “City Fights Suit Against Stadium,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9 November 1965, 22. 39 “Roads Plan For Stadium Lags Badly,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11 December 1965, 11.

124 an “unconstitutional debt,” while the city solicitor David Stahl argued that there was a program in place to “minimize the amount of city money and it shows our good faith and prudence.” This was not the first stadium-related matter that went before the

Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The court had already dismissed a suit brought by a

Philadelphia taxpayer who wanted to stop the construction of that city’s proposed $25 million multipurpose stadium (which eventually opened a year after Three Rivers).

Unlike the plan in Pittsburgh, however, that bond issue was approved by voters in

Philadelphia. Before the justices, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys in the Pittsburgh case said that the “community can survive without a baseball and football stadium.” To that,

Justice Michael A. Musmanno responded by asking the lawyer, “Do you think that today a city can hold its head up in the nation without an adequate stadium?” Musmanno then added, “I think it is just as important for a city to have a stadium as it is to have parks.” 40

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court eventually decided seven to zero in favor of the city of

Pittsburgh; the plans for the new baseball/football stadium could proceed.

Another citizen, Walter J. Smith, was so incensed by the proposed plan for Three

Rivers Stadium that he drew up his own plan and sent it to city officials with a letter that included the following:

“This note will fall on deaf ears if you are a part of this scheme. If you are not a

part, then be advised that you are being used, bamboozled, and flim-flammed. I

have seen quite a few municipal plans, but this stadium plan is tops. Tops for

40 Lee Linder, “$28 Million Financing Of Stadium Challenged,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12 January 1966, 1. In the Philadelphia case, Martin, Appellant, v. Philadelphia, William J. Martin filed suit as a taxpayer against the city of Philadelphia, in an attempt to stop the city from enforcing or enacting Ordinance No. 546 of 1964. This ordinance authorized a loan of $25 million in order to build a stadium. The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court threw the suit out on January 4, 1966. Court document via Google Scholar < https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9425053134449665437&q=Martin+v.+Philadelphia&hl=en &as_sdt=2006> (Accessed December 4, 2017).

125

diverting public funds to private use and profit. If some of the people – or most of

the people – in this area want to subsidize sports – OK. But there can be no

justification for public support of private fortunes of family estates. And that is

just what your plan will do.

I have enclosed a copy of an alternative plan which can serve the city, the county,

the citizenry, the Pirates, Steelers, palace Circus – all; except any private fortunes.

The report is short and pointed. It makes no allowance for threats – I’ll take my

club away. If followed, the plan I suggest will result in a stadium being built on a

sound financial basis, with profit for those who should profit, with protection for

the landholders with no contributions from the city or county for bond retirement

or interest, and with sports for all to enjoy.

Please, dear sirs – the plan you propose is symptomatic of a disease which is

infesting our country from the Federal level to the township level. Let another

part of the Pittsburgh Renaissance be the beginning of hard, cold, practical,

economical municipal financing.”41

In Smith’s plan, the city received the profits from the tickets and concessions. Once a certain amount of debt was paid down, then the city could renegotiate with the teams to allow them to have a portion of the profits. In the city’s plan, almost all of those proceeds would go to the individual teams from the day the stadium opened. Smith also stated in his plan that, “It is not the intent of this plan to deny the right to a profit to those

41 “Alternate Financial Plan to Construct, Operate and Own A Municipal Stadium,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 10, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. Smith submitted a full copy of his plan to the city, which was only six pages long. It identified some basic budget figures and listed his opinions on why it was more advantageous to the plan put forth by the city.

126 who would bring sports events to this area. It is the intent that this profit should be commensurate with their investment.” 42

Most public statements from the media and city officials fully supported the idea of a new multi-purpose stadium for the Pirates and Steelers. However, County

Commissioners Dr. William McClelland and John E. McGrady vocally opposed the project. In March of 1963 McGrady said that while he strongly supported major sports in

Pittsburgh and did not want to see sports teams leave the area, he disliked the fact that there was very little private funding involved in the stadium proposal. In his mind, the public was asked to bear to great a share of the funding for a new stadium. Much like

Smith, McGrady said that he disliked the fact the Pirates would be granted all concessions under the plan, including the right to sell food, beverages, novelties, program advertising, as well as radio and television rights for forty years. Also included in the plan was a stipulation that if the stadium brought in more revenue for the city than originally anticipated, the Pirates’ and Steelers’ rents would be reduced, rather than the city pocketing the extra profit. Instead of a forty-year lease with the teams for the building, McGrady wanted to see a ten-year lease that was renewable or renegotiable. 43

When these initial plans were released in late 1962-1963, McClelland had several problems with the proposal. First, he felt it was a direct city issue, more than something that should be handled by the county commissioners. McClelland’s primary issue with the stadium plans, however, had to do with the funding plan outlined by its proponents in

42 Ibid. 43 “Statement of Commissioner John E. McGrady Stadium Project, March 26, 1963,” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 7, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. Even though officials for the city and county both said they wanted to make money for their municipalities, the concessions they made to the sports teams likely made that difficult.

127 the local government. At a meeting with representatives for the city, attorneys for

Richard Mellon, as well as representatives from the two teams that planned to use the stadium, McClelland started to ask a lot of questions. He said that, “I found out that it was a poor financial deal as far as recouping the cost of the stadium was concerned.”

Even though the Pirates received $3 million for the sale of Forbes Field, they refused to even contribute as much as a dollar toward the new facility. McClelland told the group,

“I can’t figure this out; I can’t understand why the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ownership can’t put some money into this. I can’t understand why the citizens of Pittsburgh and Allegheny

County should be burdened with something that might be a big tax liability in the future and result in subsidies to carry on from year to year.” After he made this point to the group, McClelland said that “all heck broke loose.” The group accused McClelland of obstructing something that the city desperately needed, and needed almost immediately.

“This was important to the future of the City of Pittsburgh,” they told him. Even though they tried to persuade McClelland to change his mind, he maintained a “no” vote on the project when it came time for a vote. One of the men trying to persuade McClelland was

Frank Denton, a close associate of Richard Mellon who also sat on the board of directors for the Pirates. 44

McClelland decided to confront Galbreath, the Pirates’ owner, about the funding issue and ask why he decided to sell Forbes Field in the first place, and why he refused to contribute any of the money from the sale. Galbreath told McClelland that one day he received a rather mysterious call from “downtown” that asked if he was willing to meet

44 Interview with Dr. William McClelland, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 18, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book Mc-O Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. Magee was the director of the Allegheny Conference from 1959 until his resignation in 1968.

128 with a committee of three city officials. Once Galbreath met with the officials, they asked him if he would be willing to sell the ballpark. Galbreath claimed that he said,

“It’s a good park; we are doing alright and we are satisfied with Forbes Field.” The officials told Galbreath that Pitt Chancellor Edward H. Litchfield wanted to buy the stadium in order to expand the university, and that one day soon they saw the Oakland neighborhood as one giant campus. The Forbes Field property would allow Pitt to construct three new buildings, one of which would be a new law school. Galbreath suggested that perhaps the university instead purchase land in the upper Hill District, which bordered the university. The officials stood firm and told Galbreath that Litchfield and the university could use the property. Galbreath stood firm as well, however, and maintained his opposition to a move away from Forbes Field. Then the officials asked

Galbreath, “Well, would you be interested if we built you a new stadium and it wouldn’t cost you a dime?” The shocked Galbreath replied, “Would you please repeat that?” The officials once again repeated their offer, prompting Galbreath to ask who was the “we” in this plan – the officials responded that it was the City of Pittsburgh and the County of

Allegheny. McClelland called the Northside location “one of the finest sites in the City of Pittsburgh” that was “a stones (sic) throw from the Point.” McClelland had to admit that if he were Galbreath, he would have jumped at the chance to have a free stadium as well. 45

Despite the fact that Galbreath claimed he had no desire to move the Pirates from

Forbes Field prior to the city’s offer, there is evidence to the contrary. In a public statement from March of 1963, Galbreath claimed he only sold Forbes Field to the

45 Ibid. It is unclear from the interview when McClelland actually conducted this conversation with Galbreath.

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University of Pittsburgh because of assurances in private meetings from the Stadium

Study Committee that there would be a new stadium for them. Even Galbreath admitted that Forbes Field was “incompatible” with the goal of developing Oakland as an educational, health, and cultural area. Galbreath defended the accusations that the Pirates were getting a deal on rent by saying that they’ll be paying the highest rental in the majors (at that point) and that they were willing to sign a forty-year agreement.

Galbreath added, “The Pirates can’t hope to compete with other National League teams and other forms of sports and entertainment at Forbes Field. This facility is fifty-four years old, inadequate and obsolete in many respects.” The statement from Galbreath ended with a somewhat ominous claim – “The Pirates are now forced to make other plans.” 46 These “other plans” were not clear, but with the rash of major league baseball teams moving from city to city during this time it is likely that he wanted to place the possibility of the team leaving Pittsburgh in the minds of city officials. It is unclear when he revoked his initial promise to contribute $2 million of the $3 million he received in the sale of Forbes Field, but it was gone from the proposal by the end of 1963.

McClelland believed that the stadium project should be placed as a referendum before the voters. When he mentioned this to Edward J. Magee, executive director of the

Allegheny Conference, Magee “threw up his hands” and said, “My gosh, don’t do that!

The people would never vote for it.” 47 Even though city and county officials often discussed the benefits of a new stadium, they still feared that the majority of the public

46 “Galbreath’s Statement, March 21, 1963” Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 236, Folder 8, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 47 Interview with Dr. William McClelland, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 18, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book Mc-O Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

130 would not support public dollars going toward a large sports stadium project. When Joel

Tarr, the man interviewing McClelland, pointed out those earlier Renaissance programs did not go before public referendums, McClelland claimed that those projects had more private investment.

While McClelland had nothing but criticism for the potential Three Rivers deal, he had nothing but praise for earlier Renaissance programs, including Civic Arena. He emphasized the fact that department store owner Edgar Kaufmann contributed $1 million to the construction of the arena, while there were no contributions to Three Rivers

Stadium. While it is certainly admirable that Kaufmann was willing to provide monetary support for the project, the fact remains that $1 million of an eventual $22 million was really just a drop in the bucket. If Galbreath would have provided his $3 million from the sale of Forbes Field, would McClelland have viewed the project in a different light? Or was it simply the fact that the Civic Arena and early Renaissance plans were orchestrated by Mayor David L. Lawrence, rather than Joseph Barr? McClelland once said of

Lawrence:

“Lawrence was a good leader; he was a good head; he was smart. But that

disappeared to a great extent when he died. City Hall was never the same after

that and neither was the Democratic organization to be frank about it. Because he

was a real smart politician. He could go into a fight – go into a primary battle and

come out of it and everything was alright again. He brought the different people

together; he tolerated their thinking and they moved ahead all the time for the

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interest of the Democratic Party – that wasn’t done after Lawrence died. There

wasn’t anyone who could do it.” 48

Lawrence was extremely successful when it came to aligning disparate forces within the

Pittsburgh political and corporate communities. He often enjoyed unanimous consent with city council, and even crossed the aisle to work successfully with Republican politicians. While politicians that followed Lawrence may not have enjoyed that same level of cooperation within the Pittsburgh community, it does not mean that they were unsuccessful in leading the city.

Unlike McClellan, Theodore Hazlett, attorney for the Allegheny Conference on

Community Development, chose to praise Galbreath for his contributions to the city, and did not see his refusal to give the city the $3 million from the Forbes Field sale as a big deal. As Hazlett explained, “I’m not so sure, if you put a dollar value on what Mr.

Galbreath has agreed to do in keeping the Pirates here, that it might not far exceed the million dollars that Edgar Kaufmann gave for the Civic Light Opera and then it ended up for the Arena.” Even though Hazlett was a strong supporter of both the arena and the stadium, he admitted in 1971 that the arena was barely meeting its operating costs and had yet to begin paying its principle costs. Hazlett said that city officials did not expect the arena to make money at this point, even though it had been open for a decade at the time of Hazlett’s comment. He eventually said that he hoped that someday the arena would do more than break even. 49

48 Ibid. 49 Interview with Theodore Hazlett, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 22, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

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Patrick Cusick, director of the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association, addressed a 1972 seminar on the Pittsburgh Renaissance and admitted that much of the

Renaissance’s focus was on physical projects. “The thing that really interested the heads of the [Allegheny] Conference [on Community Development] and which could stir them into action was a good, solid physical project like the Arena in the Lower Hill, or the

Stadium on the North Side, or a major road improvement.” With the Civic Arena, there was a lengthy debate over whether or not the Conference should spend an extra $1 million in order to install a retractable roof on the arena. It ended up being a waste of money, because when opened it created a “chimney effect” in large areas of the arena.

To avoid this, they kept it shut most of the time. Instead of saying the city should have saved that $1 million, or pumped it back into the Hill District community, Cusick lamented that they did not instead transfer it to the Three Rivers project so the stadium could have a roof like the Astrodome in Houston. 50

The Three Rivers Stadium project did move ahead, but it faced a number of delays in the planning and construction process. It came nowhere close to its originally predicted 1966 opening. Aware of this, city officials finally announced an attractive new goal: the stadium would be ready in time for the beginning of the Pirates’ 1970 season.

However in November of 1969, city officials dumped a ton of bad stadium-related news on the public yet again. That’s the day the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette labeled “Black

Thursday.” Officials announced that they would miss the new April 1970 target, and

50 Patrick Cusick addresses the Pittsburgh Renaissance seminar, with introduction by Dr. Kurtzman, November 6, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971- 1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book C-F, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Conference on Community Development focused on a 10-county area in Southwestern Pennsylvania, not just Allegheny. The Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association focused more on the city itself, and Allegheny County.

133 instead aimed for a May 29, 1970 opening. It turns out that they were short of funds for the completion of the stadium, forcing the Stadium Authority to search for another $2-$3 million. To do so, they planned to increase the stadium’s construction bond issue from

$32 million to $34-$35 million. The final piece of bad news was that Steelers tickets would see a relatively large jump in prices once they moved into Three Rivers in the fall of 1970. Arthur H. Gratz, chairman of the Pittsburgh Stadium Authority (PSA), said that despite the increased costs, “We have not and will not abandon our previous commitment to the mayor and City Council to produce a stadium without the need of direct tax subsidies from the city taxpayers.” 51 Fans now were forced to pay more for their tickets, or face exclusion from the sports that they enjoyed watching. It also meant that it may be more difficult for lower income fans to afford tickets and that they would never be able to use a publicly funded stadium in their city.

There was further controversy that winter over Three Rivers Stadium funding and potential rent payments. Democratic City Councilman J. Craig Kuhn was opposed to handing over additional funding for the stadium, and also wanted to change the ownership/management structure originally designed for Three Rivers. He found support from the outspoken (losing) Constitutionalist candidate for mayor, George W. Shankey.

Shankey told a crowd gathered at the Civic Club of Allegheny County that city officials broke their word that the stadium would not cost taxpayers and claimed he had proof that more than $6 million of taxpayer money was spent on Three Rivers. Shankey also complained that the Pirates and Steelers were set to pay less in rent at the new stadium than they did at Forbes Field and Pitt Stadium, respectively. He was not the only person to lodge this complaint. William McClelland also was mad that the Pirates planned to

51 “Stadium Opening Is Delayed,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 14, 1969.

134 less rent than they did at Forbes Field after they sold it to the university in 1958.

Shankey and McClelland argued that this was unfair, given Three Rivers had almost

15,000 more seats than Forbes Field. This meant that the Pirates could actually make significantly more revenue than they did at their old park, all of which went into their own pockets. So not only did the Pirates fail to contribute toward the cost of Three

Rivers, but they actually planned to bring in more revenue from the new facility.

Shankey claimed that the Steelers’ rent payments were so low that their rental fees for the entire season were less than the revenue they received from the television broadcast of just one game. He said that the solution to this problem was to liquidate the Stadium

Authority and reopen the operating and management deal to renegotiation. City Hall should take over and run the park directly. 52 However, this never happened.

As the city rushed toward the projected May 29, 1970 opening date, the project was beset by labor unrest from various construction groups. Gratz, from the PSA, officially announced in mid-May 1970 that they would not meet the May 29 opening and that it was postponed indefinitely. As for the reason, according to Gratz, “The Teamsters’ strike broke our back…The failure of the ready-mix concrete drivers to provide us with the remaining material has left certain critical items unfinished.” Parking lots and access ramps also remained uncompleted, meaning that the stadium would struggle to handle the influx of fans driving to the games. Because the city missed their already-delayed deadline, it meant that the rental agreement with the Pirates was voided and the authority

52 “Shankey Urges City Stadium Ownership,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 29, 1969; Interview with Dr. William McClelland, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 18, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 2, Book Mc-O, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. In a Post-Gazette article from September 15, 1967, the newspaper referred to Shankey as a “political bombardier.” Pat O’Neill, “Bond Money Misused,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 15 September, 1967, 11.

135 stood to lose between $500,000 and $1 million. 53 In mid-June, someone actually severed “key electrical lines” with a hacksaw, a job that an unnamed source told the Post-

Gazette had to be committed by “someone who knows the job.” The city did not contact the police and was initially afraid to even make the news public. With the labor unrest finally calmed, officials were afraid that they could “antagonize labor forces” or

“encourage more destruction.” 54 The Pirates did not play their first game at Three Rivers

Stadium until July 16, 1970, after the 1970 All-Star Break.

Even though the Pirates had left Forbes Field for good, it was not forgotten. In the sixty-one years that Forbes Field was open, millions of fans passed through its gates to see dozens of memorable moments, one of which was the dramatic 1960 World Series victory. When the University of Pittsburgh started to demolish Forbes Field in the early

1970s they left a sizable portion of the brick outfield wall standing; the part of the wall that Mazeroski’s home run cleared during the 1960 World Series. Every year on the anniversary of that home run, Pirates fans gather at that small portion of brick wall. They bring lawn chairs and a radio and listen to a rebroadcast of game seven of the 1960 World

Series. The university chose to preserve other portions of Forbes Field as well. Inside the classroom building that they built on the site of the ballpark, Wesley W. Posvar Hall, a glass block on the ground floor protects the actual field’s home plate. And outside

53 Bohdan Hodiak, “Opening of Stadium On May 29 Delayed,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Friday, May 15, 1970, 1. 54 Dave McConnell, “Stadium Sabotage Bared: Key Electrical Lines Severed With Hacksaw,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 15, 1970, 1. The labor issues actually centered around a dispute between workers and the construction company hired to manage the project. The company initially agreed to submit wage and benefit issues to arbitration, then did not once construction began. There were also disputes over whether it should be the ironworkers’ union or the electrical workers’ union that installed the new digital scoreboard in the stadium.

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Posvar Hall, a line of bricks in the pavement marks the original outline of Forbes Field.55

Nothing was done to preserve or commemorate Greenlee Field, although a state historic plaque was placed outside of its location in 2009.

The nostalgia for Forbes Field, however, goes beyond fond memories for the

Pirates’ 1960 World Series victory. For years fans lamented the loss of Forbes Field and critiqued the bland, sterile design of Three Rivers Stadium. When the new ballpark was less than 20 years old, Post-Gazette writer Bob Hoover said that Three Rivers, “inspired neither nostalgia nor affection,” called its design “gray conformity,” and said that “it made even those who never visited Forbes Field miss its spacious outfield, vine-covered walls, and glimpses of Schenley Park.” 56 In Forbes Field: Essays and Memories of the

Pirates’ Historic Ballpark, 1909-1971, Editors David Cicotello and Angelo J. Louisa compiled numerous fans’ and writers’ opinions of the old park. Philip W. Musick, Jr., a retired sportswriter and columnist for the Pittsburgh Press, said that “Forbes Field was simply prettier – greener, with background colors that complemented each other – than any other major league park…certainly no other venue of its time was so easy on the eye and soothing to the soul.” Musick concluded, “It was to ballparks what Frank Sinatra was to soft, smoky ballads.” 57

Another former Pittsburgh Press sportswriter and columnist, Roy McHugh, said that “Enthusiasm at Three Rivers is the orchestrated kind. In response to any given situation, fireworks go off, the scoreboard lights up, the Pirate Parrot capers, the organist

55 “Baseball History Preserved at Pitt,” University of Pittsburgh (Accessed January 6, 2017). 56 Bob Hoover, “Spruced-Up Stadium: Three Rivers readies for Bucs’ Home Opener,” Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, 11 April 1989, 29. 57 David Cicotello and Angelo J. Louisa, Forbes Field: Essays and Memories of the Pirates’ Historic Ballpark, 1909-1971 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Company, 2007), 220.

137 thunders through ‘Let’s Go Bucs’.” Forbes Field was for individualists.” McHugh also said that it “was a park of ivy-colored red brick walls that bordered but did not enclose.

The view in the distance was of grass trees and sky.” It is telling that McHugh chose to mention that Forbes Field’s walls did not make a fan feel enclosed, since the circular

Three Rivers had high walls on all sides. There was no way to see anything outside of the park, just the seats across from you. McHugh did have some criticism for Forbes

Field though, noting its “dank inner passages,” “heavy iron posts and girders obstructing the view,” and the smells of spilled beer and decay. However it seemed a small price to pay for a stadium with character that did not look exactly like ballparks in a dozen other cities. 58 Post-Gazette columnist Peter Leo once discussed how Pittsburgh officials often come up with bold plans for the city, yet never follow through with them. He quipped,

“If only we’d done the same thing when someone came up with the lousy idea of tearing down Forbes Field and building Three Rivers Stadium.” 59

Even though Joseph Barr admitted that Three Rivers Stadium was plagued by delays and cost overruns, in his opinion “it is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to the city of Pittsburgh proper.” He accused critics of being short-sighted about the benefits of the new stadium, and that they did not see “that when we spend a dollar of tax money we are getting more than the dollar back.” Although when Barr made this quote, it was too early to determine whether or not the statement was true. He blamed this misunderstanding on city officials’ inability to properly explain the benefits to taxpayers. Barr claimed that the stadium would even help the teams find more success, because increased crowds meant that they could afford better players. Although

58 Cicotello and Louisa, 216-217. 59 Peter Leo, “Di Suvero, we hardly knew ye,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5 September 1989, 4.

138 he admitted that he was afraid fans may stay away if it became too inconvenient for them to get to and from Three Rivers with ease. Since the planned highway system was still incomplete, it meant there was congestion going to and from the new stadium. 60

While there were obviously emotional objections to the new stadium, there were also practical economic reasons to regret the construction of Three Rivers Stadium. By

1978 U.S. News and World Report ran an article entitled “More ‘White Elephant’ Sports

Stadiums” that claimed the new sports stadiums constructed in the United States over the past several years were “proving to be costly lessons for taxpayers in many cities.” Many of the stadiums that were constructed via public funding did not earn enough money to cover the operating costs of the building, including Three Rivers Stadium, Riverfront

Stadium in Cincinnati, Atlanta –Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, Kansas City’s

Truman Sports Complex, the New Orleans Superdome, and Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C. While indoor arenas were seen as more sound investments, since they could hold events year-round, many of those across the country lost money as well.

At least Pittsburgh did not have the problems of Washington, D.C. – R.F.K. Stadium, opened in 1961, cost twice its original estimates to construct and in seventeen years had yet to show a profit. D.C. was forced to find money to pay $11 million in interest payments, and was not able to pay back a dime on the principal of its federally backed bonds. To add insult to injury, Washington, D.C. lost its professional baseball team, the

Senators, in 1971 when the team moved to Texas and became the Rangers. President

Jimmy Carter actually formed a task force in an attempt to find a solution for the stadium’s severe financial problems. Taxpayers in New York complained about massive

60 Interview with Joseph Barr, conducted by Joel Tarr, July 14, 1972, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book A-B, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

139 cost overruns in Yankee Stadium renovations while city officials ignored their original promise to rehabilitate the neighborhood around the stadium. Supposedly the only stadiums that saw financial success were structures that had more than two regular tenants. For example, the Oakland-Alemeda Coliseum was profitable, as it was home to professional football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and tennis. All of the two-sport multipurpose stadiums were unsuccessful. For example, Three Rivers was running a deficit of about $700,000 a year by 1978. The city of Pittsburgh tried to cover the gap with city grants financed by an amusement tax. 61 Once again, taxpayers were expected to lift the burden left to them by city officials and wealthy sports moguls.

When cities discuss the desperate need for new stadiums in their communities, whether it was during the 1950s and 1960s, or whether it was during more contemporary times, they very rarely mention other aspects of city governance that were ignored while attention and funding went toward stadiums. For example, in a 1996 article by Joanna

Cagan and Neil DeMause entitled “Squeeze Play,” the authors explain how cities cut public services to the bone while they fund expensive stadium projects. While this article obviously takes place long after the Three Rivers controversy – in fact by 1996 Pittsburgh already wanted another new stadium – the pattern of teams pushing cities for public stadium funding is the same no matter the decade. They pointed to the city of

Cleveland’s plans to build a new stadium for the Browns, after the original team left for

Baltimore in the 1990s. Cleveland City Council approved $220 million for the stadium, most of it all public money, as they slashed the budgets of city schools, cut sports and laid off as many as 160 teachers. Since the 1970s, cities were forced to lay off workers

61 “More ‘White Elephant’ Stadiums,” U.S. News & World Report, 5 June 1978 from Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 238, Folder 15, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.

140 and slash welfare rolls, but still managed to pull together funding for new stadiums.

Cities also often provide tax breaks for corporations to remain in town, or in order to convince a company to relocate to their city. While city officials argue that these policies help keep jobs in town, its success is debatable. Most of the jobs that come with new stadiums are part-time, seasonal, and close to minimum wage. 62

While the city of Pittsburgh was always a little nervous that the Pirates could pack up and move, Three Rivers Stadium was supposed to represent the city’s commitment to the team and their strong desire to keep them in town. However by the 1980s fans already were extremely critical of Three Rivers and there were constant rumors flying around that the Pirates could be listening to offers from other cities. Galbreath still owned the team by the 1980s and claimed that “the franchise was hemorrhaging money.”

When he finally put the team up for sale in 1984, there were fears in the Pittsburgh community that no local buyer would come forward to purchase the team, meaning they could leave town and abandon their fourteen-year-old stadium. The Pirates also performed poorly on the field and struggled to draw fans to the ballpark, which led infielder Jim Morrison to say, “I don’t believe the people of Pittsburgh want baseball here.”63 Carl Barger, a prominent lawyer in Pittsburgh, with the assistance of Mayor

Richard Caliguiri, gathered a consortium that included thirteen corporations and/or individuals, and included names like U.S. Steel, Alcoa, Westinghouse, and PPG

Industries. The consortium purchased the Pirates from Galbreath for $22 million on

October 2, 1985. By 1988 the Pirates had more success both on and off the field – the

62 Joanna Cagan and Neil DeMause, “Squeeze Play,” September 12-18, 1996, unmarked clipping, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York, Stadiums-General subject file. 63 Ron Cook, “The Eighties: A terrible time of trial and error,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 29 September 2000, < http://old.post-gazette.com/pirates/200009291980bucs3.asp> (Accessed December 4, 2017).

141 team finished in second place and set a season attendance record at Three Rivers with

1,866,713 fans. Team officials claimed it was the first time they turned an operating profit since 1971. 64

By the 1990s, Pittsburgh officials already felt that they needed to promise new facilities – this time two new stadiums, one each for the Pirates and Steelers. It turns out that fans and teams did not fall in love with Ford Frick’s idea of the “super stadium” that could host numerous sports and activities. It ended up being an imperfect venue for both sports, and each team and their fans longed for something different. City officials’ fears only increased after Cleveland lost the beloved Browns to the city of Baltimore – if they could lose the Browns, then Pittsburgh could easily lose either of their teams. In a 1999

Associated Press article, Alan Robinson wrote about Pittsburgh’s conundrum - “Steal the

Steelers? Plunder the Pirates? If some city did that by dangling new stadiums and millions of dollars in relocation incentives, Mayor Tom Murphy feared Pittsburgh and its declining, aging population – the oldest of any U.S. metropolitan area except for Miami – might never recover psychologically.” 65 Much as it did in the years following World

War II, Pittsburgh worried about how it looked to the rest of the world, as well as how it looked to its own residents. A major portion of its identity was connected to its sports teams.

The same Associated Press article claimed that in the new stadiums, the Pirates and Steelers would gain additional income from tickets, concessions, souvenirs, parking, and luxury seating, money that was divided between the city, county, and Stadium

Authority at Three Rivers. People complained that the teams were not paying their fair

64 Ibid. 65 Alan Robinson, “New stadiums preserve teams and self-respect,” New Pittsburgh Courier, March 6, 1999, 2.

142 share when they moved into Three Rivers Stadium; by the 1990s it was essentially determined that they were paying too much. While the Steelers’ Heinz Field would actually have more seats than Three Rivers, the Pirates’ PNC Park was set to have fewer than 40,000; a major downsize from their former home. The team hoped that fewer seats would drive up prices through supply and demand. 66 One other difference between the new stadiums of the 1990s and Three Rivers is that approval of the facilities actually went before the public in the form of a referendum – as McClelland always wanted back in the 1960s. And true to Edward Magee’s prediction nearly 30 years earlier, it failed; the public rejected an increase in sales tax that was supposed to help fund the two stadiums. Instead, the city moved to what they referred to as “Plan B,” an alternate plan to fund new stadiums that did not require public approval. Under this “Plan B,” the city would obtain the necessary funds through an increase in sales tax, a portion of the county hotel tax, surcharges placed on tickets for the new venues, parking revenue, and a tax on non-resident athletes. The new stadiums opened in 2001, while Three Rivers Stadium was imploded in February 2001. As thousands of fans gathered in the freezing cold to watch the demise of the stadium in person, the fact remained that the city of Pittsburgh still owed millions of dollars on a stadium that would no longer exist. 67 An interesting point about the new PNC Park was that in early architectural drawings it was referred to as “Forbes Field II.” 68 It shares numerous architectural details with the original Forbes

66 Ibid. 67 Louis “Hop” Kendrick, “Controversial Stadium Coming Down,” New Pittsburgh Courier, February 17, 2001, 5; “How they scored: A Timeline,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7 April 1999, < http://old.post- gazette.com/regionstate/19990407timelinepnc9.asp> (Accessed December 4, 2017). 68 Three Rivers Stadium, like most modern stadiums, had three stories used for seating. PNC Park has just two stories; the first two-story park built since 1953. Elizabeth Bloom, “What Makes PNC Park So Good?,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2016 < http://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/pirates/2016/pnc-park-at- 15/> (Accessed January 8, 2017). It cost $5 million to demolish Three Rivers and it had $27.93 million in debt remaining at that time. The debt was paid off by 2010. As a comparison, it took the city of

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Field and is much closer to it in size and style. In the end, nostalgia won out over futuristic and modern.

When the lasting impact of the Renaissance on Pittsburgh was discussed by city officials, there were obviously mixed reviews from the people involved in the decisions.

Most officials spoke of it with pride, particularly those that admired or had personal connections to David Lawrence, Joseph Barr, and Richard Mellon. For those that were negatively impacted by Renaissance policies, they obviously felt quite differently. In

1971 Hazlett said that “even small businesses, like a barbershop, would put a sign in the window that said ‘Opening this new shop on the part of the Pittsburgh Renaissance.’”

Hazlett said that even though it may just be a small neighborhood shop that posted the sign, it made city officials feel good about the work they were doing, because it showed the excitement that local businesses felt over the renewal plans. Hazlett pointed out that all of the construction “right in the center of town” made everyone in the city acutely aware of the progress. In addressing criticism of the Renaissance, Hazlett said, “Of course many people have been critical of a lot of the programs because they thought they were oriented just toward business and not neighborhoods. At that time we were playing this thing very practically. These were the opportunities we had and this was the sort of thing we were trying to take full advantage of.” 69 Even though Hazlett implied that there were more broad benefits to people in the Pittsburgh community, he never mentioned programs that were not oriented around business interests in some way.

Philadelphia 10 years after its demolishment to pay off the debt on Veterans Stadium. Jeremy Boren,” Pens gone, but Igloo $9.3 million in debt,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 14 May 2010 (Accessed May 20, 2017); Sean Newell, “Philadelphia Is Still Paying For The Vet,” Deadspin, 16 June 2013 (Accessed May 20, 2017). 69 Interview with Theodore Hazlett, conducted by Joel Tarr, November 22, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book Gi-Haz, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

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There are people in politics and in Pittsburgh’s business community that compare the David L. Lawrence and Joseph Barr administrations and claim that Lawrence was better for the city. But Aldo Colautti, assistant to Mayor Barr, said in 1971 that he thinks that’s just because there were more tangible, physical improvements during the Lawrence administration. Colautti pointed out that just as with Lawrence, Barr was also able to work with city council in a cooperative fashion. He also claimed that Barr and Mellon were the primary architects of the Renaissance, even though almost everyone else universally credits Lawrence and Mellon with that role. Since many of the renewal plans were completed, or at least started during the Lawrence years, there is the perception that he had a greater impact on the program thanks to the physical progress, although Colautti claimed that Barr placed more emphasis on social programs. Colautti said, “I think what the Renaissance program essentially represented was an unusual merging of the private and public sectors to support a project that would hopefully be beneficial to the

Pittsburgh community.” 70 However, there are a lot of residents of Pittsburgh, particularly those in the Hill District that would likely dispute the program’s overall success.

David Barbour was a public relations professional and managed various political campaigns, including both of Peter Flaherty’s, who was mayor from 1970-1977. In addition, Barbour also sat on the Pittsburgh Planning Commission for a number of years.

Barbour claimed that the average Pittsburgh citizen had no voice during the years of the

Renaissance programs, and said that the only contact a citizen had with a member of city government was his or her ward chairman. While many officials debated whether or not

70 Interview with Aldo Colautti, December 15, 1971, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book C-F, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh.

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Lawrence or Barr was the better mayor, Barbour believed that Flaherty was a more responsive mayor when compared to the other two. Barbour claimed that the only people unhappy with Flaherty were “the elitists, they’re the liberals, the rich Squirrel Hill Jews don’t like it this way, the blacks don’t seem to like it especially, but the blacks are completely whipped out, nobody’s going to make them happy, maybe the problem’s impossible.” 71 A number of the people who were involved with the Renaissance were critical of Flaherty, and blamed his leadership (or lack thereof) for the program dying in the early 1970s. 72

Barbour explained that as someone who worked in marketing, and worked on political campaigns, he spent a lot of time on analysis of the prototypical Pittsburgh voter.

He believed that he had figured out the background and thoughts of this voter, and provided a detailed description:

“He’s a white racist bigot who makes $7,000 to $10,000 a year, he’s a blue collar

worker, maybe he drives a truck or works in a steel mill. He’s alienated,

suspicious, almost paranoid, afraid. He feels that everyone else is getting all the

goodies, those who are both richer and poorer than him. He thinks they are

walking away with all the cakes. He owns his home. He’s a sort of vestigial

hardhat. He’s very suspicious, he’s been screwed. And he really has been, in my

71 Discussion with David Barbour at Renaissance project staff meeting that included Nicholas Caruso, Lawrence Howard, Sorley Sheinberg, Gary Walters, Dodie Carpenter, and Edward Linder, May 22, 1973, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book A-B, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 72 Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24. Numerous interviews discuss this.

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opinion. The Renaissance has no effect on this guy at all…They don’t want any

renewal, all they want is to keep out the niggers, that’s all they care about.” 73

Barbour seemed to imply during his interview that he and Flaherty understood the common women and men of Pittsburgh, but at the same time he seemed highly dismissive or outright inflammatory when he spoke of them. These opinions on the city of Pittsburgh and its residents may shed some light on why Flaherty did not aggressively pursue new programs within the Renaissance, something for which his predecessors criticized him.

There was one Renaissance project that Barbour spoke about specifically, and that was the construction of Three Rivers Stadium. He offered his prototypical voter’s thoughts on that project as well:

“And take the Three Rivers Stadium. Before they built it Flaherty said, you

watch, that’s subsidy, and we got to pay. He fought it, remember? And what are

we paying? $500,000 a year? And half the people who go to it are from Beaver

County or outside the city. That $9,000 guy once again is being asked to pay for

that. Stadiums are empty 80 per cent of the time. Not one in the United States

operates even at break-even, that I know of. The rationale is that the extra

business it generates for the hotels and the restaurants and the call girls or

whatever, and some of this goes back into taxes, maybe. But they wanted

$875,000 a year subsidy from this $9,000 guy.” 74

73 Discussion with David Barbour at Renaissance project staff meeting that included Nicholas Caruso, Lawrence Howard, Sorley Sheinberg, Gary Walters, Dodie Carpenter, and Edward Linder, May 22, 1973, Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection, 1971-1973, TAIS.1973.24, Box 1, Book A-B, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 74 Ibid.

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Barbour claimed that the Renaissance was not democratic; it was decided by an elitist group of individuals. He added that the political elites in the city tended to look down on the type of voter he described, but said that “You know, they own this city, they built it…they are the people of Pittsburgh, they are Pittsburgh.” Barbour discussed things the city still wanted, like a convention center, and asked if they even needed something like that. He pointed out that there were already too many convention centers across the country, and there was not enough demand for all of them. Barbour claimed that projects like that (and like the stadiums) were “a prestige thing.” 75

University of Pittsburgh graduate student Sorley Sheinberg actually debated

Barbour on some of his opinions, particularly when it came to the development in the

Lower Hill. She admitted that the renewal in the neighborhood was handled poorly, and that people were negatively impacted by it. Sheinberg also contended that the outcome in the Hill District “came out to be a monstrosity.” But she still defended that the city needed to take some form of action as she said, “Maybe it was poor planning, but something had to be done there and they went about it in the wrong way. That doesn’t mean to say that something shouldn’t have been done.”76

Walter Giesey, public relations secretary and executive secretary at city hall claimed that people would come to Mayor Lawrence with their problems. Giesey said that, “Black leaders from the Hill District, and this would come from a long history of knowing Lawrence, people would just walk in and talk to him.” However, Frankie Pace, long-time Hill District resident and activist, had a very different view of Lawrence and the way he communicated with the African American community. She was quick to

75 Ibid. 76 Ibid.

148 criticize the Lawrence administration and city council during his tenure, as she called it a

“rubber stamp council” and said they went along with whatever Lawrence wanted. Pace believed this attitude continued during Barr’s mayoral administration, only ceasing once

Mayor Flaherty took office in 1970. She claimed that Flaherty was also more responsive to the concerns of Hill District residents, while Lawrence just passed their problems off onto the ward bosses in the city. Pace explained:

“As hard as they say Mr. Flaherty is to get to, I’ll bet today if I wanted to get into

that office and talk to that man, I could. Because they know when I come, I’m

speaking for the community, I’m not asking for special favors for myself or

anything; I’m working for the community and people know that. I can call down

to the police department; if I don’t get the service I want from down at the station,

which we don’t get, I call downtown.” 77

Pace said that during the Renaissance the city of Pittsburgh did not care about the people impacted by these new construction plans; officials were only concerned with what they could build. She pointed out that without people, you do not really have a community. Pace explained as she said, “When they say to me that Lawrence was such a great mayor and the Renaissance and everything, I just bubble over because he didn’t give a darn about people.” She added, “So as far as I’m concerned, there has been no renaissance.” According to Pace under the Lawrence and Barr administrations the city government more resembled machine politics; Flaherty marked an end to that attitude and structure in her opinion.

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Even though the construction of Three Rivers Stadium was not as damaging to a central neighborhood as Civic Arena, it still came at a great cost to the community.

Rather than using funds to improve the Hill District neighborhood, the city instead used them to build another stadium. Officials argued that it would make money for the city and provide economic benefits, even though it consistently saw annual deficits. It was an example of how the Renaissance plans were more concerned with an image of progress, particularly if it benefitted the downtown or corporate interests. Even at the time of its demolition, there was still nearly $30 million owed on Three Rivers Stadium. Pittsburgh officials were so afraid that they might lose one of their sports teams, they were willing to do anything to entice them to stay – including building another pair of brand new stadiums just thirty years after Three Rivers opened. In many ways it shows that the

Renaissance was more about image and financial growth, particularly in the downtown area, than improving the lives of people that lived in Pittsburgh. There were few permanent, high paying jobs to come out of these stadium projects, and they were designed more to entice white suburban fans than the black residents of the city.

Officials chose to tie the image of the city to its sports teams, hoping that their success would be seen as the city’s success.

Three Rivers Stadium was constructed on abandoned industrial land, rather than in a neighborhood. City officials wanted a site that was in view of downtown, and logistically it was probably less complicated to acquire the industrial land, rather than invoking eminent domain. The one community involved in this project, the Oakland neighborhood, actually saw improvement from departure of Forbes Field. While it wasn’t a residential area, removing the baseball stadium meant that congestion was

150 alleviated in Oakland. It also meant that the University of Pittsburgh could proceed with a large expansion project, and that the city could now market the neighborhood as a center for education, medicine, and cultural institutions. The powerful figures in this portion of the story achieved exactly what they wanted – the teams got new stadiums, and the university got valuable land for expansion. Compare this to the people of the Hill

District, who were forced from their homes and often put into a situation that was not an improvement over their original problems in the Lower Hill. The powerless – the poor, black residents of the city – lost their community and their homes. With Three Rivers

Stadium, city and university officials went home happy…unfortunately, everyone else – taxpayers and residents – did not. Pittsburgh was just one of a number of cities where residents saw public money go toward stadiums for privately owned sports teams.

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Chapter 4 – Minor League City with Major League Dreams: Los Angeles Lures the Dodgers Away from Brooklyn

Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn (and later Los Angeles) Dodgers, wanted a new stadium. He continually pressed New York City authorities to assist him on this mission, and when that failed, he turned his attention to a west coast city nearly

3,000 miles away. There were numerous reasons for why the Dodgers’ Brooklyn home,

Ebbets Field, was no longer satisfactory for O’Malley. Opened in 1913, by the late 1940s the Dodgers considered the stadium cramped and unsuitable for the “modern” game of baseball. The other major issue involved parking – as more Brooklyn fans moved to the suburbs of Long Island, they usually drove their cars back into the city to attend games.

Without adequate parking, it meant that the suburban fans might choose to stay home instead of attending games in person. With uncertainty about the impact of television on the game of baseball, and concern that attendance figures could drop, O’Malley wanted to ensure that fans would continue to come to the ballpark.

When it came to the idea of a new Brooklyn stadium, O’Malley insisted that he planned to pay for the structure himself. He wanted the New York authorities to help him acquire a good piece of land in Brooklyn, potentially through the use of eminent domain. O’Malley insisted that this land should be in Brooklyn, not in Queens or on

Long Island – offers suggested by New York City officials. O’Malley and his supporters thought that the city could use the Housing Act of 1949 as a tool to acquire land for a new facility via eminent domain. While the New York officials dragged their feet,

Mayor Norris Poulson of Los Angeles saw the opportunity to finally snag a professional

152 sports team for the city. He began to woo O’Malley, and assured him that he would help the Dodgers build the stadium of their dreams in Los Angeles.

As was the case in Brooklyn, O’Malley and the Dodgers needed a suitable piece of land for this new stadium, and Poulson had an idea – the Chavez Ravine neighborhood north of downtown Los Angeles. Much of the neighborhood was cleared in the early

1950s after residents were promised new public housing in the area, in connection to the

Housing Act of 1949. Residents were assured that even though they surrendered their properties to eminent domain, they would be eligible to live in the new public housing to be constructed in Chavez Ravine. However, those plans were killed thanks to

McCarthyism and lobbyists – the real estate lobby fought public housing in Los Angeles and at one point labeled it as communism. A few years after the housing plan was cancelled, the land was gifted to O’Malley for the use of a new stadium.

So why did Los Angeles give this valuable land to a sports team, and why did they back out of their promise to build affordable housing for the primarily Mexican-

American residents of Chavez Ravine? Los Angeles city officials were desperate to bring a professional sports franchise to Los Angeles, operating under the belief that they were not a real “major league” city until they had their own team. They jumped at a chance to acquire the Dodgers, a popular, storied franchise that was the first to reintegrate in the twentieth century when they added Jackie Robinson to their roster in 1947. The team needed a good piece of land, close to downtown, and Chavez Ravine seemed like a perfect fit.

Unfortunately for the Dodgers and city officials, there were people that still lived in Chavez Ravine. A number of families refused to leave during the clearance for the

153 public housing plans of the early 1950s. These residents engaged in a very public, bitter battle with the city over attempts to maintain their home and their neighborhood. City officials accused holdouts of hiring acting coaches and lying to the public about their background, in order to appear more sympathetic. Los Angeles city officials knew that they had to secure land for the stadium, because the Dodgers threatened to leave Los

Angeles immediately after their arrival if they did not deliver on their promise. So these officials steam-rolled the remaining residents of Chavez Ravine in order to give

O’Malley the land he desired. In the image of Los Angeles that Mayor Poulson and other supporters wanted to portray to the world, a professional sports team was a must. That meant catering to O’Malley’s needs no matter how much it harmed a low-income,

Mexican American community.

In both Brooklyn and Los Angeles, one can see the impact of post-World War II urban policy in the United States. One of the reasons that O’Malley sought a new stadium in Brooklyn was thanks to the movement of white fans out of the city and to the suburbs. By constructing a new stadium with ample parking, O’Malley believed that he could encourage those fans to return to the city for games. O’Malley hoped to utilize federal programs connected to the Housing Act of 1949 in order to secure land for his new stadium. One neighborhood in Brooklyn, Fort Greene, was designated as a blighted area and set to be cleared through an urban renewal policy. Once it was cleared,

O’Malley thought that it should be provided to him for a new stadium. While officials in

Los Angeles had originally used the Housing Act of 1949 to clear “blighted” land for public housing, they later decided that land so close to downtown should provide more of a benefit for the central business district. As more people left the city for the suburbs,

154 officials in Los Angeles wanted to make sure that there were still reasons for people to travel downtown, and to spend money in the city. They also wanted something that would help boost their tax base.

***

Walter O’Malley in Brooklyn

Before O’Malley pushed Los Angeles officials to cater to his stadium whims, he spent nearly a dozen years pressuring New York authorities to help him build a new stadium for the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Even though O’Malley did not become the majority owner of the Dodgers until 1950, he had suggested replacing Ebbets Field as early as 1946, when he was just a minority owner of the team. O’Malley wrote to Emil

Prager, an architect that would later design Dodger Stadium in California, as well as Shea

Stadium in Flushing, Queens. In his letter, O’Malley said “They say that everything happens in Brooklyn but here is something that didn’t. Your fertile imagination should have some ideas about enlarging or replacing our present stadium.” 1 O’Malley earned a supporter for his new stadium plan in Brooklyn Eagle publisher Frank D. Schroth. In

1952 O’Malley wrote to Schroth and said that Brooklyn needed a stadium that could hold about 52,000 people. He stressed that the stadium could hold significance beyond sports, and could also host events like conventions, as well as auto and boat shows. O’Malley told Schroth that “Brooklyn has an international reputation as a baseball town. Much of the mention that the Borough receives, and some of it facetious, is in reference to baseball. If this is an asset, I believe it is, let us capitalize on the fact and encourage the erection of the first all-purpose sports and convention arena indoor and outdoor in

1 Letter from Walter O’Malley to Emil Prager, October 14, 1946, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 1, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y.

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Brooklyn.” 2 O’Malley wouldn’t settle for something similar to Ebbets Field; he wanted a bold new multi-event park with a roof, one that could hold events other than baseball games. By labeling Brooklyn a “baseball town,” O’Malley attempted to intertwine the city’s identity with the Dodgers.

In the early days of Ebbets Field, people used to travel to ballpark by trolley car, but by the 1950s most people drove their automobiles to the baseball game. Parking at

Ebbets Field was limited to approximately 700 cars. It was not nearly enough in

O’Malley’s opinion – he wanted space for at least 2,000. Should the team locate outside of Brooklyn, he believed that number should be even higher – space for nearly 15,000 vehicles if the stadium were to be built in Queens or on Long Island. Now that baseball games were primarily played at night, O’Malley believed that the sport had greater competition from other forms of entertainment, like films and the theater, when it came to earning consumers’ money. Because of that fact, baseball teams had to develop creative ways to win the attention of fickle fans. O’Malley said, “Our fans require a modern stadium – one with greater comforts, short walks, no posts, absolute protection from inclement weather, convenient rest rooms and a self-selection first come, first served, method of buying tickets.” 3 O’Malley used horse racing as an example of baseball’s competition, and said that the racing community managed to obtain approval from the

New York state legislature to help them build a large, modern race track. He said, “I

2 Letter from Walter O’Malley to Frank D. Schroth, June 17, 1952, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 3 Statement from Walter O’Malley, August 16, 1955, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Brooklyn Historical Society; Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2004). Avila pointed out that as fans moved to the suburbs, it meant that teams were drawing from a smaller urban fan base. The Dodgers also had to compete with the Yankees and Giants north of Manhattan as well.

156 shudder to think of this future competition if we do not produce something modern for our fans.” 4

During the 1950s, cities across the country utilized the Housing Act of 1949 in order to clear what they labeled slum areas, and to construct what they considered more suitable housing. Specifically, Title I of the Act, dubbed “Slum Clearance and

Community Development and Redevelopment,” was supposed to encourage private investors to clear out the slum areas and construct residential housing. 5 One of these

Title I slum clearance programs was put into place in the Fort Greene neighborhood in

Brooklyn. When the project was delayed in 1953 while the city waited for a decision from the Court of Appeals involving the interpretation of Title I, O’Malley attempted to insert himself into the planning process. The Dodgers owner inquired whether the land in

Fort Greene could be used for a new stadium rather than housing. Robert Moses, the powerful urban planner involved in many New York City planning decisions following

World War II, strongly disagreed. In a 1953 letter to the team owner, Moses bluntly wrote, “Our Slum Clearance Committee cannot be used to encourage speculation in baseball enterprises.” Moses added, “You are, of course, the best judge as to whether in fact a new Dodger Stadium would be anything but a white elephant, and whether the extension of your present property with additional surface and other parking facilities

4 Statement from Walter O’Malley, August 16, 1955, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. While O’Malley appeared to be referencing a specific horse racing track, it is unclear which track he was describing. Aqueduct Racetrack (originally opened in 1894) near John F. Kennedy airport underwent extensive renovations from 1955-1959. Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, was completely rebuilt during the 1960s. Speaking in 1955, O’Malley could have feared competition from either one of those racetracks. 5 Steven C. Forest, “The Effect of Title I of the 1949 Federal Housing Act on New York City Cooperative and Condominium Conversion Plans,” Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol. 13 No. 3, 1984; Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017), Kindle edition, Loc. 630, 1291. Rothstein said that the Housing Act of 1949 permitted local authorities to design separate public housing projects for black and white tenants, or to segregate within projects.

157 would not meet every problem you mention except perhaps television competition.” It was clear that Moses thought O’Malley and the Dodgers could make their current property in Brooklyn work. Indeed, he had no intention to allow O’Malley to take valuable land that was intended for new housing. 6

O’Malley continued to reach out to prominent members of the community in regards to his desire for a new ballpark, and wrote to George V. McLaughlin, chairman of the Manufacturers Trust Company executive committee, about the subject. While

O’Malley said he was intrigued by the idea of a publicly-funded ballpark, he preferred to maintain private ownership in the facility. Even though O’Malley believed that he could and should pay for the new stadium, he claimed that he needed help obtaining land.

O’Malley wrote, “We could not acquire land suitably located without the condemnation assistance of the government. Title 1 of the Federal Housing Act of 1949 would probably have to be used. I am convinced that a ball park would have to have some use in addition to baseball in order to justify the capital investment.” 7 O’Malley suggested a site in downtown Brooklyn where the city could build a parking garage, in conjunction with a new ballpark. Dodgers fans could use it when coming to a game, and it could also be used by commuters who wanted to travel to Manhattan. O’Malley pointed out, “A combination parking garage and ball field would make an improvement that could justify

Title 1 action.” 8 O’Malley addressed the Fort Greene slum removal project with

McLaughlin and asked him if it was “too late to relocate some of the planned facilities

6 Letter from Robert Moses to Walter O’Malley, June 22, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. Rothstein also said that “government and private industry came together to create a system of residential segregation.” 7 Letter from Walter O’Malley to George V. McLaughlin, June 18, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 8 Ibid.

158 provided for in the Ft. Greene plan, particularly the apartments, so that a ball park and parking garage could be located at the site.” 9 Despite the fact that plans were already in motion for housing at the site, O’Malley thought a ball park was a better use for part of the land.

Despite the objections of Moses and other New York officials, O’Malley continued to press them for assistance in obtaining a choice piece of property in

Brooklyn. Moses, obviously a bit frustrated by O’Malley’s overtures at one point, responded to his requests by saying that “It is obviously your thought that we can somehow go out and condemn property for a new Dodger field just where you want it, writing down the cost and in some way helping to finance the stadium. This is absolutely out of the question as any good lawyer can tell you and as a matter of common sense.”

Moses did offer that members of the Slum Clearance Committee would help O’Malley find a suitable location for his stadium and would assist him in matters like zoning.

Moses added that “the establishment of a new Dodger stadium is not of itself and by itself, a public purpose.” 10 When O’Malley failed to make progress on his scheme,

Schroth, the publisher of the Brooklyn Eagle, stepped in to plead his case to Moses. Just as he did with O’Malley, Moses ignored Schroth’s attempts to persuade him to find land for the Dodgers. Moses wrote, “While Slum Clearance is an object in itself and the

Federal act contemplates improvements of all sorts if the slum area has been cleared, we

9 Ibid. 10 Letter from Robert Moses to Walter O’Malley, October 20, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y.

159 obviously cannot select areas to be cleared for the primary purpose of providing a fifteen acre location for a new privately owned baseball stadium.” 11

One of the points of contention for both O’Malley and Schroth was that New

York officials planned to use Title I of the Housing Act of 1949 in order to obtain land for a coliseum project near Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Moses took Schroth to task for this argument, and pointed out that there was a big difference between a project “built and operated by a public agency in accordance with law for a distinctly public purpose,” and a baseball stadium that was privately owned. Moses also said that the intent of slum clearance was to provide plans for colleges, hospitals, and other non-profit entities, rather than a private business like a sports team that operates for-profit. Moses vented his frustration as he said “It has been difficult to make Mr. O’Malley understand these distinctions and the principles which must control our Committee.” He added that the

Office of the Committee on Slum Clearance would give no further consideration to

O’Malley’s requests to use Title I to obtain land for his stadium. Moses said that members of the Committee would be willing to help in “any appropriate way” once

O’Malley purchased land privately and “without the use of power of eminent domain.” 12

In defense of his plans, O’Malley said that he envisioned something that would be mutually beneficial for both him and Moses. He argued that Moses wanted parking, while O’Malley wanted a stadium (and parking). O’Malley said, “It is my hope that we

11 Letter from Robert Moses to Frank D. Schroth, Sr., October 16, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 12 Ibid.

160 can combine the two needs, using public authority to assemble the plot and private money to finance it.” 13

While O’Malley avoided making direct, specific threats of relocation outside of the region, he was very clear that he wanted a stadium and would pursue any option to obtain one. O’Malley told Moses that without a well-located new ballpark, with ample parking, he might not be able to keep his franchise in Brooklyn.14 A few months later,

O’Malley again wrote to Moses to inform him that Philip Wrigley sent him a copy of “a report on major league baseball possibilities in Los Angeles.” Wrigley was the owner of the Chicago Cubs, who also owned a ballpark in Los Angeles (named Wrigley Field, like his Chicago park) and a Pacific Coast League (minor league) baseball team. While

O’Malley tended to downplay the Los Angeles option in 1953, he told Moses that the report “does present a point of view.” 15 At this point, O’Malley was probably using a potential move to Los Angeles simply as leverage to get what he wanted from the city of

New York.

Even though Moses told O’Malley in 1953, and again in 1954, that he would not aid him in acquiring land, O’Malley was still trying to convince him to do so in 1955.

O’Malley wanted a site on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and still wanted Moses and city officials to help him acquire it through Title I. It was clear that an already agitated Moses had really lost his patience with the situation by 1955:

13 Letter from Walter O’Malley to Robert Moses, October 28, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 14 Letter from Walter O’Malley to Robert Moses, June 16, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 15 Letter from Walter O’Malley to Robert Moses, December 17, 1953, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y.

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“The natural question everyone will ask about the Atlantic Avenue site as you

describe it is: If you need only three and a half acres of land, if it is indeed

distressed property, if you have a million dollars in the bank, if you have railroad

easements, if you really want to stay in Brooklyn, why don’t you buy the property

at a private sale?”

Moses said that the city was supportive of private enterprise, and told O’Malley he was well within his rights to sell Ebbets Field, or sell the Dodgers – even if the buyer wanted to take the team out of Brooklyn. However, Moses was clear that he had long since tired of O’Malley’s complaints and requests:

“On the other hand, I don’t see how you can have the nerve to indicate that you

have not received proper support from public officials involved. Every

reasonable, practical, and legal alternative we have suggested has been

unsatisfactory to you. The record shows we have made many suggestions, even

though it is not part of our official duties.” 16

Moses and other New York officials continually encouraged O’Malley and the

Dodgers to consider sites outside of Brooklyn, specifically sites in Queens or on Long

Island. O’Malley did not like those suggestions, however, and stated that “Brooklyn would lose its identity without the Dodgers and the Dodgers without Brooklyn.” By

1954, even though O’Malley claimed he did not prefer a location outside of Brooklyn, he still said that a move to Long Island would be preferable to a move to Los Angeles. 17

Frank Schroth agreed that moving the team out of Brooklyn would be tragic for both the

16 Letter from Robert Moses to Walter O’Malley, August 15, 1955, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 17 Letter from Walter O’Malley to Frank D. Schroth, February 11, 1954, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 3, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y.

162 borough and the team “from every point of view – the community, public interest, and the financial return to the owners of the Dodgers.” While O’Malley was concerned about making the trip into Brooklyn more appealing for primarily white suburbanites, Schroth claimed that Brooklyn’s three million residents would likely never consider traveling to

Long Island to see the Dodgers or any other team. 18 Charles M. Richardson, a real estate agent from Flushing, Queens, wrote to Moses and asked if the Dodgers would consider available land in Queens. Moses’s response to Richardson was, “You are apparently under the misapprehension that it is either my responsibility or my wish to provide the

Brooklyn Dodgers with a new field. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Moses said with so many other essential improvements needed in New York’s five boroughs, there was no way they could worry about a sports team. 19

The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce wanted to prevent the Dodgers from leaving the borough, if at all possible. O’Malley already announced that he planned to have his team play seven games in Jersey City, New Jersey, during the 1956 season, which seemed ominous when considering the team’s long-term prospects in Brooklyn.

Chamber of Commerce President S.T. Williams advocated placing a new stadium at

O’Malley’s preferred location – in downtown Brooklyn near the intersection of Fourth,

Atlantic, and Flatbush Avenues. Williams said that the Fort Greene Wholesale Meat

Market, which was housed in “crowded and deteriorated buildings,” was an eyesore that added to traffic congestion in the area. He said that other land around the Meat Market

18 Letter from Frank D. Schroth to Walter O’Malley, February 12, 1954, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 3, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. 19 Letter from Charles M. Richardson to Robert Moses, August 22, 1955, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Letter from Robert Moses to Charles M. Richardson, September 1, 1955, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y.

163 was “largely occupied by substandard housing, vacant or partly occupied buildings, and second grade warehouses interspersed with several desirable and worthwhile structures.”

If the area near that intersection were cleared, there then would be ample room for a stadium, parking, and potentially other projects. The site was close to transit lines as well, so between that and ample parking it meant that fans could more easily reach a new park at the site. Williams also echoed O’Malley’s argument that he planned to pay for the stadium himself, but needed help acquiring the necessary land. Williams wanted the city to appropriate $100,000 toward a study on the site – a figure he thought was a bargain when considering all of the other city expenditures. Williams said, “Cities are marching further into the suburbs leaving behind them residential and industrial slums.

Here is a proposal that should reverse the trend to the benefit of all concerned.” The increase in taxes the city would receive from the area made the city’s contribution essentially just a loan, according to Williams. 20

Los Angeles’ Search for Baseball

While this debate took place in Brooklyn, officials from the city of Los Angeles had been exploring the idea of a major league team moving to the west coast for a number of years. As early as 1941 the St. Louis Browns considered moving west to Los

Angeles. The St. Louis market was not large enough for two major league teams, and the less popular Browns were ready to cede the city to the Cardinals and move elsewhere.

Browns president Don Barnes said that Los Angeles was a desirable city for a team now

20 Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce letter and statement from President S.T. Williams, September 2, 1955, Walter O’Malley Papers, Box 1, Folder 4, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn, N.Y. The site near the intersection of Fourth Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, and Flatbush Avenue is the approximate home to the current Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association and the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League.

164 that more modern transportation methods meant it would be easier for teams to travel to and from the west coast. Even though Barnes liked a bid put together by a group from

Los Angeles, the American League ultimately did not approve the sale. 21

When the Los Angeles Times discussed the potential move, it noted that there were a number of things to consider before major league baseball could move a team to the city. One of the main issues involved the Pacific Coast League, the minor league circuit that played on the west coast. The eight teams in the league would need to grant permission to major league baseball, and would likely require compensation for their loss of revenue. The major leagues would need to purchase the territorial rights of the PCL’s

Los Angeles Angels team, owned by Phillip Wrigley. The Times also theorized that baseball would owe compensation to the Hollywood Stars PCL team, since their territory bordered on Los Angeles. The majors needed to find a group that would finance a team’s move to Los Angeles and ensure its financial success once it was there. The last consideration involved where the team would play. The Times said that a team would either need to build a new stadium, or perhaps purchase Wrigley’s Los Angeles Wrigley

Field. 22

Where a new west coast team would play became a major topic of discussion while these rumors of team moves were in the news. A columnist for the Los Angeles

Examiner, Vincent X. Flaherty, argued that the Los Angeles Coliseum (originally built in the 1920s to lure an Olympics to Los Angeles) was unsuitable for baseball. Flaherty said that a community must have a suitable stadium if they hoped to get a baseball team, and added “perhaps Southern California’s millions of major-league-minded fans would get a

21 Martin J. Haley, “Unanimous Ballot Against Coast Move,” St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat, December 10, 1941, 3B. 22 “Major League ‘Gag’ Killed,” Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1941, 21.

165 better break if a new stadium were erected, for it now seems construction costs are not nearly as astronomical as almost everybody supposed.” Flaherty made this argument in

1953, right after the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee to play in a newly-constructed stadium. Flaherty pointed to the new Milwaukee stadium as a model, in part because it was completed almost $1 million below budget. After the move by the Braves in 1953,

Flaherty knew that Los Angeles would have to compete with other cities that wanted to acquire a relocated major league team. He warned Los Angeles city officials that “every day we lose in procrastination lessens our chances,” of acquiring a team. With cities like

Baltimore, Montreal, and Toronto also vying for franchises, Flaherty thought solid plans for a new stadium would make Los Angeles the prime candidate for expansion. 23

Ironically, the Braves only remained in Milwaukee until 1966, when they moved to another brand new stadium in the city of Atlanta.

In 1953 Mayor Norris Poulson said that the “key” to bringing a major league baseball team to Los Angeles was Wrigley. Officials needed the chewing gum magnate’s cooperation because of his influence within the Pacific Coast League, and potentially needed the use of his ballpark. Poulson actually flew to New York to speak with the directors of the American League, and to plead his case for major league baseball in Los

Angeles. Poulson denied media reports that he promised the league he had two or three million dollars available to assist in moving a team to the city, and that the “Coliseum was immediately available” as a home for a new team. Poulson said that the talks were lengthy and productive, and but added that there was no need to rush – “I am convinced they want what we have here in Los Angeles as much or more than we want major league

23 Vincent X. Flaherty, “Milwaukee Park Builder Discusses Local Project, Estimate of Coliseum Job Runs to $1,500,000, Los Angeles Examiner, June 12, 1953. Edwin Wendell Pauley Papers, Collection 435, Box 93, Folder 2, UCLA Special Collections.

166 baseball, so there’s no use to jump into anything.” 24 When Flaherty asked Poulson about the potential of bringing a team to Los Angeles, Poulson replied “Major league baseball for Los Angeles is inevitable…the Pacific Coast League should get its house in order and prepare for major league baseball coming here.”25 It seemed as if it were only a matter of time before Los Angeles had its own major league team.

Public Housing and Chavez Ravine before the Dodgers

One site in Los Angeles that quickly gained attention as a potential home for a stadium was the Chavez Ravine neighborhood. It was named for Julian Chavez, a man of

Mexican-descent who came to what is now modern-day Los Angeles in the 1830s. A farmer, Chavez was involved in local government after California became a state in 1850.

By the turn of the twentieth century, Chavez Ravine was considered a “Mexican village” within Los Angeles; by 1950 the neighborhood was in the middle of a rapidly expanding

Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times, Spanish was spoken more frequently than English in Chavez Ravine, which was tucked into the hills as tall buildings and freeways rose around it. One visitor to the neighborhood said it reminded them of a village in Mexico, hundreds of miles removed from a major city like Los Angeles. The visitor said he would travel to Chavez Ravine “just to sit on somebody’s porch and listen to guitars in the night.” 26

24 Paul Zimmerman, “Wrigley Still Key Man, Says Mayor,” Los Angeles Times, September 29, 1963, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 18, UCLA Special Collections. 25 Vincent X. Flaherty, “Mayor Says He Backs LA Majors Bid,” Los Angeles Examiner, August 23, 1953, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 5, Folder 5, UCLA Special Collections. 26 William Wilcox Robinson Papers, Collection 2072, Box 48, Folder 66, UCLA Special Collections; Cary S. Henderson, “Los Angeles and the Dodger War, 1957-1962,” Historical Society of California, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 5, Folder 5, UCLA Special Collections; Los Angeles Times clippings, August 20, 1951, Richard Joseph Neutra Papers, Collection 1179, Box 1419, Folder 11, UCLA Special Collections.

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Following the Housing Act of 1949, the Chavez Ravine neighborhood was purchased with federal funding, with the hopes of completing a public housing project on the land. One of ten such projects planned from the Los Angeles area, the Los Angeles

Times called the proposed Chavez Ravine project “the most ambitious of the City

Housing Authority’s $200,000,000 program of public housing construction.” It was supposed to be called “Elysian Park Heights,” after the park the land bordered and had a

$33 million budget. Construction at the site was to include 3,360 apartments, which would be spread across 24 different buildings, and 157 two-story garden-style apartment houses that would rent for roughly $35 per month, including utilities. In order to obtain the land, the City Housing Authority started to buy out the residents of Chavez Ravine in

December of 1950; there were 972 existing dwellings on the land when the project started. In June of 1951, the Authority started to demolish houses that were “too poorly constructed or too old to be sold and moved.” As negotiations with the residents of

Chavez Ravine progressed, city officials said that they were “very smooth and satisfactory despite protests and bad publicity.” While the city claimed to be sympathetic to residents that were upset about having to sell their homes, they claimed that eighty seven-percent of the structures in Chavez Ravine had “one or more basic deficiencies,” were substandard, and lacked sanitary conditions. “In other words, they were designated slums.” 27

In addition to their claims that Chavez Ravine included substandard housing, Los

Angeles city officials said that the project was necessary due to the city’s massive growth

27 William Wilcox Robinson Papers, Collection 2072, Box 48, Folder 66, UCLA Special Collections; Cary S. Henderson, “Los Angeles and the Dodger War, 1957-1962,” Historical Society of California, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 5, Folder 5, UCLA Special Collections; Los Angeles Times clippings, August 20, 1951, Richard Joseph Neutra Papers, Collection 1179, Box 1419, Folder 11, UCLA Special Collections. The $35 monthly rental fee is equivalent to about $330 in 2017, considering inflation.

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– at that point, Los Angeles had grown to become the third largest city in the nation. This growth “doomed to extinction the picturesque communities clustered on the hillside…dozing in a canyon hillside of Elysian Park.” The people set to move were almost all Mexican American, whose parents and grandparents had lived in the Chavez

Ravine area. In years past they allowed sheep to graze on the hills that now comprised

Elysian Park. Since the neighborhood was just two miles from City Hall, it was implied that more should be done with land that was so close to the center of downtown. The people set to be evicted from Chavez Ravine were told that they would be given the “first opportunity” to return to the new structures on their former home sites, but as renters instead of owners. Even though city officials argued that the new structures would be better than their previous housing, residents were still angered by the prospect of losing their homes, particularly in favor of a rental property. Reporter Tom Caton wrote about the perspective of the residents and why the city’s offer was unappealing: “To the long- time residents of the little canyon city, however, the prospects of living in new concrete- block buildings means little. Many still have their own garden patches. There are horses and goats stabled there, too. Many more earn their daily bread from growing ‘nopal,’ a large cactus, harvested and shaved daily and sold in two-inch squares for fifteen cents a pound as a staple of the Mexican diet.” 28 These residents were unlikely to find land elsewhere in the region that was so close to the center of Los Angeles. Residents were also unlikely to find a community that could compare to the cultural experiences in

Chavez Ravine.

28 Tom Caton, “Days of ‘Ravine’ Numbered,” Richard Joseph Neutra Papers, Collection 1179, Box 1419, Folder 11, UCLA Special Collections.

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It was difficult for the neighborhood to develop in the first half of the twentieth century, because it did not have the normal municipal services such as sewers, water infrastructure, and well-maintained roads that one would find in most residential areas.

Since the area contained primarily Mexican American residents with little political power, it was difficult for them to obtain these services. So the residents of Chavez

Ravine ended up building small shacks that were often not equipped with proper electricity or running water. This helped lead to the area’s designation as a blighted. But in reality, the people in the neighborhood did the most that they could with the resources available to them. Residents opposed to the public housing plan encouraged others to join their opposition by pointing out that the Housing Authority might not be telling the complete truth about the project. Their advice was, “Don’t believe them. They’re trying to take your land. They’ve never cared about you before. Why should they now?” 29

Architect Richard J. Neutra and his associate Robert Alexander were assigned the

Chavez Ravine public housing project by the design commission. The pair was hesitant to commit to dramatic change in the neighborhood as they found it “charming” and thought that its residents took great pride in their community. Chavez Ravine was described as having “lush vegetation” and having a “lively street life, and with many of the neighborhood’s Mexican American residents Catholic, the Catholic Church played a strong role in the community. Even though Chavez Ravine was officially declared a

“slum,” a number of the planners and architects claimed they felt uneasy clearing a neighborhood that they saw as vibrant, with a rich cultural heritage. When discussing

Chavez Ravine, Neutra said it had “a certain human warmth and pleasantness, a certain

29 “Double Play In The Ravine: Public Housing And The Brooklyn Dodgers,” Frontier, June 1957, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

170 contact with nature which cannot be found in Harlem, N.Y., or along South Halsted

Street, Chicago. The trees of the lovely mountain park have grown high around the strangest ‘blightlocked’ area that can be found in any city of America.” 30 Neutra tried to develop a plan that would increase housing density in the area, but would still help it to maintain much of its charm. Main roads would run on the exterior of the neighborhood, with quiet cul-de-sacs on the interior. The new housing would face the center of the neighborhood, facing garden plots or parks. City officials in favor of the project asked,

“Why should an area so close to the center of a city that desperately needed housing not be available to more people? Why not use the Housing Act to develop the area, without – it was hoped – destroying its rich assets?” 31

Everything seemed to be progressing with the Chavez Ravine project according to the city’s plan – residents were being moved off the land, and the city was about to take bids for the construction. However, at this point in the early 1950s, McCarthyism was at its height and fears of communism spread across the country. A number of groups, including the California real estate lobby, the Home Builders Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Los Angeles Times, all claimed that the planned housing project was “creeping socialism” at the very least, and “rampant communism,” at the very worst.

The groups even argued that public housing projects like these subverted the troops that were fighting communism in Korea. How could the city of Los Angeles approve the

“rampant communism” of public housing, while troops were fighting against communism

30 Thomas S. Hines, “The Battle of Chavez Ravine,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1997 < http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-20/opinion/op-50558_1_chavez-ravine> (Accessed May 10, 2017). 31 Ibid.

171 overseas? 32 The Los Angeles City Council “enthusiastically endorsed public housing” after the plan was introduced in 1949. However, they were unsettled by the accusations of communism and started to back away from the concept by the early 1950s. Mayor

Fletcher Bowron, however, continued to support the public housing projects and gained backing from groups like the League of Women Voters, local chapters of the AFL and

CIO, and the NAACP, as well as a number of churches and citizens organizations.

However these groups were no match for the well-funded and vocal opposition to the projects, organized by a group named Citizens Against Socialist Housing (CASH) that was chaired by a lawyer named Frederick Dockweiler. The City Council eventually succumbed to the group’s pressure, and voted eight to seven to cancel the contract with the Housing Authority in December of 1951. 33

During the anti-communist fervor that characterized the fight against public housing in Los Angeles, there were attempts to prove that public housing attracted more crime as well. Police Chief William Parker actually developed a pamphlet that claimed juvenile delinquency was worse in public housing in Los Angeles, than it was in the

“slum” areas. An official with the Housing Authority disputed this claim, and took evidence to Mayor Bowron that disproved the claims in Chief Parker’s pamphlet – specifically, that Parker’s example of a “slum area” was an area that had already been cleared – nobody lived there. So obviously crime would be lower in an area that did not actually have any residents. Chief Parker took revenge on the employee by putting

32 Ibid; Richard Rothstein, Loc. 706. Rothstein discussed how the real estate lobby bitterly fought the development of public housing of any kind across the United States. Industry lobbyists claimed the housing was “socialism” and a threat to private enterprise. As a result of this opposition, public housing was reshaped to contain just the very poor. Rothstein said that it “transformed public housing into a warehousing system for the poor.” 33 Thomas S. Hines, “The Battle of Chavez Ravine,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1997 < http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-20/opinion/op-50558_1_chavez-ravine> (Accessed May 10, 2017).

172 together a dossier on the employee that he gave to Mayor Bowron. This dossier alleged

“left-wing affiliations and associations” on the part of the employee. He was later asked to testify during the condemnation proceedings for Chavez Ravine, and was asked if he was a member of the Communist Party. He refused to answer, and was fired. 34 It was a chilling lesson to anyone within the Housing Authority, or Los Angeles city government, of what could happen to them if they maintained their support for public housing. They could be smeared as a communist, and essentially blacklisted from their jobs.

Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson went on to make some rather bold allegations as to what took place behind the scenes to kill public housing in Los Angeles. After the accusations of communism went rampant, City Council started to pull back from the housing project – it eventually was stopped by a vote of eight to seven in December of

1951. One of the decisive votes against the Chavez Ravine housing development was from a councilman by the name of Ed Davenport, who switched his vote in favor of the housing project at the last minute and voted against it. After he died in 1953, not long after the project’s eventual collapse, $50,000 in crisp, new bills were found in his safe deposit box. He also had another $27,570 spread across three checking accounts; a significant amount of money for someone that made $7,500 a year and had no other known income or investments. Davenport’s wife later released a formal statement that said she had informed the Internal Revenue Service that they were “gifts of money” made to her husband. Pearson pointed out, “Since you can’t give gifts of money legally to a city official, these were bribes.” The IRS began to investigate the source of the “gifts,” but Pearson claimed the investigation was eventually called off by people in the

34 “Double Play In The Ravine: Public Housing And The Brooklyn Dodgers,” Frontier, June 1957, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

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Eisenhower Administration. Even though it was never definitively confirmed,

Davenport’s wife implied that the money came from the real estate lobby. 35

This accusation against the real estate lobby was supported by an article in

Frontier Magazine that claimed “The history of Chavez Ravine, since 1953, is the story of a helpless minority whose rights were indifferently brushed aside by a city administration responding to the real estate lobby.” U.S. Senator Harry Cain of

Washington State introduced a bill to Congress (that became law on August 31, 1951) that said “federal funds could not be used for a housing project rejected by the governing body of a locality.” While the real estate lobby was not able to stop the passage of housing acts at the national level, this new law meant that they only had to influence a handful of local officials to stop projects in various cities. 36

Mayor Bowron and the City Housing Authority took this issue to the State

Supreme Court which on April 28, 1952 “ordered the city to honor the original contract,” despite the change in stance by the City Council. The issue went all the way to the U.S.

Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling of the State Supreme Court – the city needed to honor the public housing contract for Chavez Ravine. Despite this decision, the City

Council refused to comply with the ruling. Their next move was to place the issue of public housing on a city-wide ballot. City officials were accused of using “a jumble of

35 Drew Pearson, “Dodgers Move Costly,” 1957 typed statement, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 5, Folder 7, UCLA Special Collections. 36 “Double Play In The Ravine: Public Housing And The Brooklyn Dodgers,” Frontier, June 1957, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections; Don Parson, Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), Kindle edition, Loc. 153. Parson argued that initially, officials in Los Angeles planned what he referred to as “community modernism,” which was a progressive way of looking at communities and housing. However, this was soon replaced by something Parson referred to as “corporate modernism,” which he described as “the monumental glorification of the commercial urban economy.” As business interests opposed public housing under the guise of McCarthyism, and as a sympathetic politician in Mayor Norris Poulson was elected to office, it meant pushed the city toward corporate modernism.

174 misleading legalistic phrases,” in order to confuse voters and hopefully convince them to vote against the public housing plan. The courts and the State Attorney General both told the city that voters could not “void a legal contract,” but many voters were not aware of this fact. Fifty nine-percent of Los Angeles residents voted against continuing the housing project. There were claims that the media sided with the Council against Mayor

Bowron and his support for public housing. In the period leading up to his mayoral election against Norris Poulson, the Los Angeles Times gave Poulson 1,019 inches of space to espouse his anti-public housing position, compared to Bowron’s 219 inches of space in favor of the policies. After Poulson won the election, he negotiated a deal with the federal government to form a compromise on the public housing situation in Los

Angeles. Poulson composed the language of a rider that Congress would attach to an appropriations bill in July of 1953. Once passed, this legislation “made it legal for the government to take the loss for any expended sums on the Los Angeles project.” The agreement and subsequent legislation allowed the city of Los Angeles to abandon 5,700 of the original 10,000 low-rent housing units. 37

Part of the platform that Poulson ran on was his opposition to public housing.

The Elysian Park Heights project (the formal name of the plans for Chavez Ravine) was cancelled, part of the 5,700 units eliminated in Poulson’s deal with the federal authorities.

However, the vast majority of the families had already been removed from the land by

37 “Double Play In The Ravine: Public Housing And The Brooklyn Dodgers,” Frontier, June 1957, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections; Don Parson, Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction of Modern Los Angeles (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), Kindle edition, Loc. 1597. Parson said that Poulson, at the time a United States Congressman, was initially contacted by the Los Angeles Times publisher Norman Chandler in 1952 about running for the office of Mayor. Chandler told Poulson that if he agreed to run, he would having the financial backing of prominent downtown businessmen.

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1953. 38 The Chavez Ravine property was later transferred from the Los Angeles City

Housing Authority to the city of Los Angeles by a grant deed. This grant deed had a restriction, which said that the property could only be used for a “public purpose” and could not be used, for at least 20 years, for residential development or subdivision.39

With the plans dead for much of the public housing in Los Angeles, Chavez Ravine was now free to host other plans – like a stadium for a professional baseball team. Millionaire

Howard Hughes even “secretly” contributed $5,000 toward a survey of the Chavez

Ravine land, in order to determine its viability as a site for a potential ball park. 40

Norris Poulson and Walter O’Malley Negotiate Terms of the New Stadium

The first known negotiations between Norris Poulson and Walter O’Malley in regards to a move to Los Angles, took place March 6-7, 1957 in Vero Beach, Florida.

Vero Beach was the home to “Dodgertown,” the Brooklyn Dodgers’ spring training home, and represented somewhat neutral territory for both parties. Poulson went to

Florida with a contingent of Los Angeles officials, but spoke privately with O’Malley.

Once Poulson and O’Malley were alone in O’Malley’s automobile, O’Malley put forth his demands – 400-600 acres of Chavez Ravine land, tax free, graded, paved, and accessible by off-freeway roads. All of this would be given to the Dodgers owner for just

$1 per year under two consecutive 99-year leases. O’Malley’s demands said that the team only had to use sixty-percent of the available land in Chavez Ravine; the rest would

38 Thomas S. Hines, “The Battle of Chavez Ravine,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1997 < http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-20/opinion/op-50558_1_chavez-ravine> (Accessed May 10, 2017). 39 Proposed Report on Dodgers Referendum, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Colleciton 847, Box 5, Folder 6, UCLA Special Collections. 40 “Poulson Reveals Scare Campaign for Dodgers,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

176 be available to O’Malley and the Dodgers for unrestricted use, so O’Malley could try to sell the land and earn back some of the money he was putting into the stadium. The

Dodgers would also get the rights to any oil discovered under Chavez Ravine. Poulson supposedly agreed to O’Malley’s demands almost instantly. When city lawyers were made aware of the deal, they tried to remove some of the over-generous terms that

Poulson had promised. O’Malley agreed to the reduced terms because he was already too invested in the move to back out completely. So O’Malley agreed to the acquisition of only half of the land in his original request; to undertake paving at the site; to abandon rights to oil at the site; to pay $360,000 in taxes at the time of construction; and to provide $494,000 to the remaining families of Chavez Ravine in order to clear them from the neighborhood. 41

Another problem loomed. The city charter forbade gifts of public lands to private entities in Los Angeles. To get around this, Norris Poulson suggested that the city

“trade” 185 acres in Chavez Ravine, along with 115 acres and $4.7 million that would go toward grading the land, and constructing access roads, in return for Los Angeles’s

Wrigley Field (valued at $2.275 million) which O’Malley and the Dodgers had purchased in 1957 in an attempt to gain a foothold in the region. 42

Poulson continued to keep many of the details on a potential Dodgers deal away from the public eye at this early stage. He participated in a secret meeting at the Statler

Hotel in Los Angeles with O’Malley and some unnamed government officials on May 3,

1957. Through what came to be discussed as the “confidential memorandum,” Poulson

41 Jim Murray, “Norrie’s Nest?” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1962, William Wilcox Robinson Papers, Collection 2072, Box 48, Folder 68, UCLA Special Collections. 42 “Poulson Reveals Scare Campaign for Dodgers,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

177 and O’Malley hammered out the basic details to the deal they had discussed in Vero

Beach in March. 43 After the meeting, Poulson sent a letter to O’Malley dated June 6,

1957 that famously became known as the “Dear Walter” letter. It was controversial because it showed that Poulson and O’Malley were already secretly setting up terms of the deal before anyone on City Council even fully realized it was in the works. In the letter, Poulson promised O’Malley that he was “out to expedite this as fast as I possibly can,” which was likely in reference to a potential land deal for O’Malley. Poulson closed the letter by writing:

“Enclosed is a copy of a letter which I had rather expected and so was prepared

for. That was one of the reasons for the appraisal idea and the exchange idea.

The Federal Government angle is in the mill and will be worked out satisfactorily.

I am talking in riddles for reasons best known to yourself.” 44

Since it was illegal for the city to give O’Malley the land in Chavez Ravine as a gift, this was in reference to the trade plan that they established with the Wrigley Field property.

Despite the fact that Poulson and O’Malley had negotiated extensive details of the deal by this point, City Council was not shown the details until September 26, 1957. When

Poulson finally revealed the details, he tried to pressure Council to make an overnight decision. 45

While Poulson was still in the relatively secret negotiating stage with O’Malley in

May of 1957, there was a $39.5 million bond issue for recreation and parks put before the

43 “Chavez Ravine Fact Book: Which Comprise The Untold Story Of The O’Malley-Chavez Ravine Deal That Mayor Poulson Did Not Tell,” April 9, 1962, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections. 44 “’Dear Walter’ Letter,” Los Angeles News-Herald, May 18, 1958, 1, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. 45 “Chavez Ravine Fact Book: Which Comprise The Untold Story Of The O’Malley-Chavez Ravine Deal That Mayor Poulson Did Not Tell,” April 9, 1962, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

178 public that passed with the necessary two-thirds support. When city officials presented the plan to voters, they did not provide specific details on potential uses for the money from the bond issue. Officials did say that $6.5 million would be used toward a new municipal zoo to be located in Chavez Ravine and that a “major recreation center” would also be located there. While Walter O’Malley was negotiating with Poulson and the city of Los Angeles in 1957, he originally said that he hoped the city would fund and construct a municipal stadium, and that the stadium could be used by the Dodgers. The city refused to do so – citing the fact that they did not have enough money to fund a stadium project in its entirety. 46 Additionally, in 1955 a resolution on funding a potential sports stadium went to a referendum vote, and was rejected by the voters. Los Angeles city officials were wary of essentially overturning that decision just two years later.

While the Dodgers waited for the completion of a new ballpark in Chavez Ravine

(hopefully to open in time for the 1960 season) they planned to play the 1958 and 1959 seasons at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Those who opposed the Dodgers contract did not necessarily want to keep the team from coming to Los Angeles. They questioned whether or not placing a baseball stadium in Chavez Ravine was the best use of the land.

Both sides of the Chavez Ravine argument developed thorough plans to support why they believed their perspective was the correct one. Poulson and the City Council members who supported a stadium in Chavez Ravine said that the land was currently sitting idle, and had been since the housing plans were scuttled in 1953. This statement ignores the fact that there were still families living in Chavez Ravine, and that the land

46 Proposed Report on Dodgers Referendum, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 5, Folder 6, UCLA Special Collections. 47 Ibid.

179 was not completely idle. Officials claimed that “there has been no proposal of a good municipal use” for the city-owned land in Chavez Ravine. The Council members on the other side of the debate wanted to place a zoo and a playground in the neighborhood.

Stadium supporters argued that a zoo and playground could easily be placed in another part of the city and said, “Selling the land to the Dodgers as a site for the baseball stadium is a proper public use of land which is not, now or in the foreseeable future, needed for other purpose.” 48

Since the Chavez Ravine land was “lost in a pocket between the Pasadena

Freeway and Elysian Park,” it was not considered a good piece of land for real estate development. If the city allowed the Dodgers to use the land for a privately constructed facility, it also meant that they could get tax revenue from the Dodgers. Even though it was a land deal that was very beneficial to the Dodgers, it was still seen as a better deal than a municipal stadium. City officials noted a University of Denver study that said municipal stadiums were not money-makers for cities, and should just be viewed as a

“public facility” and not a “business enterprise.” Officials also argued that Los Angeles needed a baseball team in order to attract tourists to the city. “Having the Dodgers here will round out our sports calendar and make Los Angeles more attractive as an ‘all-year’ resort.” These officials cited Milwaukee and Kansas City, two cities that hosted major league team relocations. Los Angeles officials claimed (without citing the source) that about a third of the people that attended games in Milwaukee and Kansas City were from out of town; the visitors supposedly spent an estimated $15 per person in the city. Based on those reports, Los Angeles officials thought that the Dodgers could potentially bring

$10 million in sales each year to hotels, restaurants, and stores in the city. However there

48 Ibid.

180 was no concrete evidence that the city would ever earn close to those totals. The Dodgers were also required to put together a recreation program for the city. As they were already involved in community youth programs in Brooklyn, it would not be problematic to ask them to do the same in Los Angeles. 49

Dodger Stadium’s opponents argued that available land in the center of a city was

“an invaluable community asset.” Even if it was left undeveloped for the foreseeable future, it still belonged to the city. As the opponents argued, “once sold to private interests it will forever be lost to the people.” They also argued that there had never been an independent appraisal of the land in Chavez Ravine, and that it was unclear as to how much it was worth. The opponents also pointed out that O’Malley was offered far more land than necessary for a baseball stadium. The city plan called for a transfer of 300 acres to the Dodgers, while the new Milwaukee stadium (often used as a comparison) covered just 111 acres – fifteen for the stadium and ninety-six for parking. With the excess land gifted to the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine, plan opponents argued that they could use it for unrelated commercial use, or hold it as speculation. Opponents characterized the land deal as “…not only a large, but an entirely improper subsidy.”

Their preference seemed to be a municipal stadium rather than the gift of land currently planned by city officials. They argued that the city would at least own the full rights to it, and could make money off other events held there. On an average year, the city of

Milwaukee made about $200,000 in parking fees at the Braves’ new stadium. With the proposed land deal, the Dodgers would keep all of the proceeds raised from parking, and from the stadium. 50

49 Ibid. 50 Ibid.

181

One of the other concerns for the plan’s opponents was that there was no guarantee in the deal that O’Malley had to stay in Los Angeles permanently. The plan’s proponents scoffed at this concern and said that “Baseball teams do not flit from city to city; dependent as they are on building a local following, their natural wish is to stay in one place; if the Dodgers succeed here, they will stay; if they fail here, it would do us little or no good to have them bound to stay.” 51 There was no acknowledgment of the fact that the Dodgers were abandoning a loyal following in Brooklyn in favor of the move to Los Angeles. If another city presented a better deal, it was, perhaps, logical to think they would be willing to move again. The frequent example of stadium supporters,

Milwaukee County Stadium, was used by the Braves for just thirteen years before they moved to Atlanta; the franchise’s third city in fourteen years.

The Public Debates the Stadium Plans

There was public anger about what represented a major giveaway of taxpayer money, and the harm caused to minority residents in Los Angeles. Drew Pearson argued that taxpayers from across the country were technically funding the Dodgers’ move from

Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Because of the compromise deal between the federal government and the city of Los Angeles after the public housing plan was eliminated, the city was not required to repay the federal government the $4.72 million it had spent to purchase Chavez Ravine. That land would now be handed to the Dodgers for next to nothing. While it was clear Pearson was angered by public funds going to a private business, he was also appalled by the treatment of Chavez Ravine’s residents. He said:

51 Ibid.

182

“But perhaps, most shocking of all is the fact that 3,300 ill-housed families in

Los Angeles were kicked out of their homes by condemnation on the excuse of

putting up a new modern, public housing project. Instead their land is now being

turned over to the Dodgers. Furthermore it is being turned over under a contract

by which Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers’ owner, gets the parking rights, the

concession rights, and even half the oil rights.” 52

Pearson added, “In other words, all the taxpayers paid Los Angeles for the cost of throwing Negroes and Mexicans out of their homes, tearing down their tenements and buying the land which now stands empty.” 53

Not long after the stadium deal was formally approved, a group calling themselves the Citizens Committee to Save Chavez Ravine formed in order to try and stop the proposed Dodger Stadium construction in the neighborhood. In a statement the group said that they, nor the five City Council members that opposed the deal, were against major league baseball in Los Angeles. They opposed the Chavez Ravine land deal, and pointed out that the Dodgers were already in Los Angeles, given that they already owned Wrigley Field, and had a two-year contract to play in the Coliseum.

Certainly they could instead use one of those options. Even though the Citizens

Committee to Save Chavez Ravine said they were against the Dodger deal in Chavez

Ravine, they were not opposed to a stadium in the neighborhood. In a statement, the group said,

“We believe that major league baseball is long overdue in Los Angeles. If it

proves as profitable as expected, an American League team or TWO will want

52 Drew Pearson, “Dodgers Move Costly,” 1957 typed statement, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 5, Folder 7, UCLA Special Collections. 53 Ibid.

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to come west. If this proposed ordinance is defeated and Los Angeles retains

ownership of Chavez Ravine, it will make possible the building of a modern

stadium by private capital as the Coliseum was built, which can be leased to two

major league teams as well as for other uses.” 54

There was no mention of the people that lost their homes in Chavez Ravine, or any attempt to create housing in the neighborhood. A stadium was still the best solution, but in terms of the Citizens Committee it needed to be a city-owned municipal stadium, not one that represented a giveaway to a private owner.

After the initial deal with the Dodgers and the city was announced, a group of citizens gathered signatures to force the issue to a voter referendum. By December of

1957 they reached their goal – the Dodger Stadium deal would go before the voters for approval. 55 Unfortunately for the deal’s opponents, the supporters had a well-organized and well-funded campaign to inundate voters as the referendum vote drew closer. The

Los Angeles daily papers gave huge amounts of space to people that supported the deal, like Warren Giles, president of the National League, Mayor Norris Poulson, and to a group calling itself “Yes on Baseball.” The relatively new television media got in on the act as well, and “saturated viewers with propaganda designed to make them believe baseball was a cure for juvenile delinquency and that the Chavez Ravine opposition consisted of those who wanted the youth of the city to become dope addicts.” 56 One of

54 “Save Chaves Racine (sic) For the Citizens Of Los Angeles,” typed statement, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. There were initially four City Council members that opposed the Chavez Ravine deal, but their group grew to five when one Councilman changed sides. 55 Letter from City Clerk Walter C. Pearson, December 4, 1957, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 4, UCLA Special Collections; “Prop. B Won In 9 Of 15 Districts,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1958, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 4, UCLA Special Collections. 56 Ridgely Cummings, “O’Malley Takes Los Angeles,” The Californian, September 1960, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

184 the scare tactics used by these groups was that the Dodgers could leave Los Angeles, to go somewhere else in Southern California or to another state, if necessary. The “Yes on

Baseball” committee argued that the contract was already settled between the city and the

Dodgers, and by voting “no,” citizens were “dishonoring” the existing contract. 57

The deal’s opponents were not nearly as well-funded or organized as its supporters. One of the early opponents was J.A. Smith, a multi-millionaire whose fortune derived from oil and steel investments. Smith’s family owned a partial interest in the Pacific Coast League’s San Diego Padres, and it made business sense for him to oppose a major league team encroaching on the PCL’s territory. Even though Smith swore he opposed the Dodgers deal “as a matter of principle and for the sake of good government,” he was eviscerated in the media as someone who was simply pursuing his own interests. While he did give several hundred thousand dollars to the cause early in the opposition campaign, he later pulled his financial support. 58

The most success enjoyed by any of the deal’s opponents was when a pair of attorneys, Phill Silver and Julius Ruben, attempted to stop the deal through the courts prior to the voter referendum. They earned a short-lived victory on April 28, 1958, when

Superior Court Judge Kenneth C. Newell issued a temporary restraining order against the deal, which blocked the transfer of any land in Chavez Ravine. Another group of opponents tried to force state and congressional investigations of the land deal between the city of Los Angeles and the Dodgers. 59 While Smith contributed a significant amount of money in opposition to the stadium, he did not contribute to funding the court

57 Taxpayers’ Committee for “Yes on Baseball” flier, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections. 58 Ridgely Cummings, “O’Malley Takes Los Angeles,” The Californian, September 1960, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections. 59 Ibid.

185 appeals on the deal. This meant that attorney Phill Silver spent much of his own money to continue to fund the legal challenges. 60

The deal’s opponents found fears that O’Malley may pull the Dodgers out of Los

Angeles shortly after the team’s arrival preposterous. One opponent mentioned Article

Three in the Constitution of the National League, which claimed “nor shall the location of a club or clubs be changed, except by the unanimous consent of all the members.”

O’Malley managed to gain unanimous consent from the seven other National League owners in order to move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles – it was considered a major accomplishment that all of the National League owners were able to agree unanimously on a controversial subject. Opponents doubted that O’Malley would manage to get unanimous approval to leave Los Angeles less than a year after he agreed to move his team to the city. The editor of the Milwaukee Journal, Oliver Kuechle, thought that there was no chance the Dodgers would leave Los Angeles. Kuechle said, “Does a hungry dog walk away from a juicy bone? Los Angeles has supported the club too well.” He added that even if the Dodgers were to lose the referendum vote, they would stay in Los

Angeles and just work on a new contract with the city. 61

The deal ended up listed as Proposition B, “the baseball referendum,” on the June

3, 1958 ballot, and it passed by 351,683 votes to 325,898 votes. It won in nine of the city’s fifteen City Council districts; four of the six voting against the referendum were located in the San Fernando Valley, relatively far from the downtown area. 62 A number

60 Ibid. 61 Unsigned statement from opponent to Dodgers deal, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 5, Folder 4, UCLA Special Collections. 62 Letter from City Clerk Walter C. Pearson, December 4, 1957, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 4, UCLA Special Collections; “Prop. B Won In 9 Of 15 Districts,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1958, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 4, UCLA Special Collections.

186 of people continued to fight against the land deal in Chavez Ravine, even after it lost the public referendum. Even though there were five City Council members who spoke vehemently against the deal (dubbed the “fearless five” by supporters and the “angry five” by Norris Poulson) – John Holland, Pat McGee, Edward Roybal, Harold Henry, and

Karl Rundberg – they were resigned to the fact that they were outnumbered and that their efforts were unlikely to succeed. 63 Roybal called it “the worst contract this city has ever had,” and said that, “Students of government in the future will wonder what has happened here. This will go down in history as the biggest gift of real estate a municipality has ever made to a private individual.” 64

Los Angeles Officials Remove the Remaining Chavez Ravine Residents

After the deal’s opponents had exhausted all of their options, the city moved forward with plans to expel the remaining residents from Chavez Ravine. One of the most outspoken families that remained in the neighborhood was the Arechigas, whose plight garnered a great deal of sympathy from many in the Los Angeles area. They were given their first eviction notice in 1953, before the public housing plans for Chavez

Ravine died. The family, which included matriarch Abrana Arechiga and patriarch

Manuel Arechiga, as well as their extended family (which included children and grandchildren) lived in two homes on two separate lots in the neighborhood. The city initially offered the family $10,050 for both houses and lots in 1953, a figure that the family deemed unfair. The Arechigas eventually took the matter to court, where the

63 Ridgely Cummings, “O’Malley Takes Los Angeles,” The Californian, September 1960, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections. 64 “Council’s ‘Gloom’ Poses Thought On Ravine Vote,” July 7, 1960, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 5, Folder 7, UCLA Special Collections.

187 judge upheld the figure as “a fair and equitable market value.” A short time after the court decision, the housing plan for Chavez Ravine was dropped, so the family remained in their original homes. After the city announced that they planned to give Chavez

Ravine to the Dodgers, the Arechigas asked for $17,000 for the land, since “it was now to be used for a commercial venture.” The city maintained that they would not give them more than $10,050, so the family refused to leave their two homes. 65

The standoff with the family first made news in the Los Angeles newspapers.

Then it became the subject of a half-hour television program by one of the local Los

Angeles television stations. During the course of the program, some of the family members were seen moving out of the property while Manuel Arechiga remained in his home, determined to get more than $10,050 for the property. City Council claimed that the Arechiga family was acting in violation of the law, while their defenders said that the

City Council had violated the Constitution. There were questions raised by supporters of the Arechigas, including: “What happened to the funds that were to be used for the public housing project?” and “Why must one family be used as a pawn between political forces?” 66 As the situation came to a head, the remainder of the Arechiga family was physically dragged by police out of their two homes in Chavez Ravine, an event that was filmed and broadcast on televisions across the country. Councilman Roybal said the images of the eviction, and the bulldozing of the family’s homes, was a “reminder of the

Spanish inquisition and Hitler’s Germany.” People wondered how city officials could be

65 Ted James, “Politics Cloud Eviction Issue,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. 66 Ibid.

188 cruel enough to forcibly drag citizens from their home, “so the city could give the land away to the Dodgers for private profit.” 67

Mayor Poulson said that the Arechigas made a choice to be evicted by force – “If they refused the decision of the courts, how could they be expected to accept any polite request from the sheriff?” Poulson had other harsh comments for the family, saying that

“The Arechiga family is a victim of its own eagerness to extract from the taxpayers more than it was granted by valid court decisions. The family used its own children as pawns, to gain sympathy. It is perfectly plain now that the family needs no sympathy. It was obviously, plainly, publicly shamelessly flouting the law.” The Arechigas’ homes were demolished by the city on May 8, 1959 immediately following the family’s forced removal. The Arechiga family still refused to leave their land in Chavez Ravine, however, and camped out in front of the rubble of their house in tents and a trailer. This included members of their extended family, including several children. City officials, led by Poulson, kept threatening to forcibly remove the Arechigas from the tents and trailers, but seemed hesitant to draw more media attention to the situation. As a scare tactic, city officials instead threatened to place six of the underage Arechiga children staying at the camp site under the custody of the Juvenile Court. Victoria Angustain, daughter of

Manuel and Abrana Arechiga, said that the women and children decided to leave the site in order to avoid any trouble with the Juvenile Court. Angustain defended her decision to

67 “Chavez Eviction: Inquisition or Circus?,” Independent Star-News, May 17, 1959, 6, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 19, UCLA Special Collections. Councilman Edward Roybal was one of the five City Council members that were opposed to the Dodger Stadium plan from the beginning.

189 camp at the site with her children as she said, “Poulson said over TV that I put my kids up for a show. I would never do that.” 68

Manuel’s daughter Aurora Vargas, whose arm was in a sling from an injury she received when the sheriffs removed the family from their homes, said that her father was willing to be arrested to stay on the property. Vargas asked, “What can they charge him with?” Another daughter said that she hoped to convince her father to willingly leave the property for good. After thirty-seven years in Chavez Ravine, Manuel finally agreed to leave with his wife Abrana, as they climbed into “an ancient car with a dead battery.”

Councilman Roybal and several of the family’s supporters had to push the car in an attempt to get it started. This provided dramatic footage up until the family’s final seconds on the property.69

After the last residents of Chavez Ravine, including the Arechigas, were forcibly removed from their homes, one of the evictees made a shocking allegation. Seventy- three-year-old Alice Martin, a retired city employee, claimed that “the whole thing had been rigged” by four men that belonged to the Citizens Committee to Save Chavez

Ravine – J.A. Smith, C.A. Owen, John Lloyd, and Jerome Murphy – and said these men were working with Councilman John Holland to thwart the stadium plans. Martin claimed that the men came to the neighborhood prior to the eviction and coached the

68 Ridgely Cummings, “Arechiga Women, Children Pull Out After Juvenile Hall Warning Given,” Wilshire Press, May 21, 1959, 1, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections; “Mayor’s Sizzling Chavez Statement,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections; “City Acts to Oust Family Trailer, Tent From Chavez,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. 69 Ridgely Cummings, “Arechiga Women, Children Pull Out After Juvenile Hall Warning Given,” Wilshire Press, May 21, 1959, 1, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. The remainder of the Arechiga finally agreed to leave their land in Chavez Ravine if they received “written assurance” from City Attorney Roger Arnebergh that if they left their land, “they would not be jeopardizing any of their legal rights to its future possession.” Arnebergh agreed to the request, and the Arechigas attempted to make plans for their life after Chavez Ravine. However, Manuel Arechiga still refused to leave the property and said he would sleep in his car outside of their former home if he had to.

190 families on how they should act when the authorities arrived. She added that the men locked doors of the homes before the police offers arrived, to add to the drama of them breaking into locked homes. 70 Smith was an early opponent to the stadium, thanks to his stake the PCL San Diego Padres. Murphy was involved in real estate and was also active in local politics. He supposedly told Martin “not to surrender” and to “let them break in” when the authorities arrived at her home. Murphy also told Martin that if opponents of the deal allowed the city to take Chavez Ravine, officials would not stop until they “take the whole city.” Lloyd was said to be a “tape recording technician” who was active in the opposition to Proposition B. Owen was the chairman of the Citizens Committee to Save

Chavez Ravine. In addition to owning the Padres, Smith was also involved as a promoter for a proposed World’s Fair in Los Angeles. 71 The Citizens Committee to Save Chavez

Ravine, as noted, was not opposed to a stadium in Chavez Ravine. They just wanted the city to own and control a municipal stadium on the land. A large, public, municipal stadium was likely to be an excellent venue for hosting something like a World’s Fair.

On the day of her eviction, Martin claimed that Lloyd and a reporter for a community paper named Ridgely Cummings were present at the eviction from her house at 1456 Davis Street. The Mirror News, which also had a reporter on the scene, claimed that Lloyd and Cummings helped Martin keep the deputy sheriffs out of her house.

Supposedly, Cummings said that he was helping “as a newspaperman” because “I wanted her to dramatize her resistance.” Martin later claimed that the locked doors were her idea, and that the men were just helping her, contradicting her earlier account that it was

70 Ted James, “Politics Cloud Eviction Issue,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. 71 “Advisers Identified by Evictee,” Los Angeles Mirror News, May 14, 1959, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections.

191 their idea. City Councilman Holland called the evictions “a black Friday Los Angeles will not soon forget,” and added that “It was needless, sadistic cruelty.” When Murphy was questioned about his involvement, he claimed that he just tried to offer Martin legal advice and said that he had never coached her. Owen also denied any role in coaching the evictees and said he never discussed his involvement with Holland ahead of time. 72

As the plight of the Arechigas and other Chavez Ravine residents was broadcast on the national news, Poulson received angry and concerned calls from mayors all across the country. Poulson seemed to imply that the outrage could have successfully turned the tide against the Dodgers’ new stadium, until two different Mirror News reports turned public sentiment against the remaining residents of Chavez Ravine. One report involved

Alice Martin’s claims of scripted demonstrations in the neighborhood, while another revealed that the extended Arechiga family owned several rental properties in the city.

Poulson said “If the sponsors of this move had been successful, we would have destroyed government by law in this city.” Poulson continued, “This story by the Mirror News ranks as one of the best public services I have seen since I have been mayor. It is the type of journalism worthy of a Pulitzer prize.” Poulson said the situation with the

72 Ibid; “’Acting,’ Evictee Declares,” Los Angeles Mirror News, May 14, 1959, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. Ruth Rayford, an 87-year-old who was described as Martin’s “companion” and resided at the Davis Street home with her, supposedly “laughed merrily” when she described how she “acted out a dramatic part for TV cameras” during the eviction from Chavez Ravine. Rayford told a reporter, “I studied dramatic arts for four years so I knew how to act for the television cameras. It was just fun.” While the Mirror-News attempted to make it sound like Rayford was a fraud, at one point she said “Mrs. Martin and I took the eviction as something that couldn’t be helped” and implied that her “acting” was just an attempt to make light of a bad situation. Rayford also wasn’t worried about her future after being evicted from her home, because she had a wealthy aunt who lived in nearby Long Beach that was a multi-millionaire. The aunt eventually left her $50,000.

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Arechigas attempted to make the city of Los Angeles look like Little Rock, Arkansas, where there were public battles over school integration. 73

Lloyd claimed that he thought the Arechigas still deserved $17,000 for their

Chavez Ravine property, despite the fact they owned other properties in the city. Lloyd said, “That property is just a smoke-screen being put up for the mayor to hide behind.” 74

The Arechigas claimed that even though they owned the other properties, they were all currently inhabited by tenants, most of which were relatives. 75 They maintained that their protest was due to the fact that they felt the city’s offer was unfair, especially with a multi-million dollar sports team moving to the neighborhood. The Arechigas argued that

73 “’Homeless Arechigas Own 9 Other Homes; Chavez Tent Family Rents Out Properties,” Los Angeles Mirror News, May 13, 1959, p.1, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 19, UCLA Special Collections; “Poulson Elated at Disclosure,” Los Angeles Mirror News, May 13, 1959, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 19, UCLA Special Collections. As the Arechigas became the face of the opposition to the Chavez Ravine plans, there were systematic attempts to sully their names in the media, or to make them look like frauds. A bombshell report appeared in the Los Angeles Mirror News in May of 1959, with a headline so large it took up almost the entire top half of the front page. It screamed “’Homeless’ Arechigas Own 9 Other Homes; Chavez Tent Family Rents Out Properties.” The article claimed that the 11 family members chose to live in a tent in Chavez Ravine in order to “dramatize their eviction” from their home, and implied that they should just live in one of their other many homes. While the Arechigas supposedly rented the other properties for up to $75 per month, the Mirror claimed that at least one of them was currently vacant. However, this vacant house actually belonged to Abrana and Manuel Arechiga’s son-in-law, Miguel Angustain. Abrana and Manuel’s children insisted that they had offered their parents a place to live, so they did not have to stay in a tent in Chavez Ravine, but they refused. The unnamed child added, “They feel their fight is right here (Chavez Ravine) and won’t leave.” Poulson was said to be “elated” by the disclosure and claimed that it exposed “the hypocrisy of this whole rigged demonstration.” 74 “Advisers Identified by Evictee,” Los Angeles Mirror News, May 14, 1959, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections; “Poulson Elated at Disclosure,” Los Angeles Mirror News, May 13, 1959, Norris Poulson Papers, Collection 787, Box 19, UCLA Special Collections. Those who supported the Arechigas expressed shock at the revelation of their rental properties, and seemed to regret that they had raised money to help the family. Howard Holtzendorff, executive director of the Los Angeles Housing Authority, had arranged for three apartments for the 11-person extended family and even made sure they were furnished, a perk the Authority did not typically offer families. Members of City Council had donated $250 toward rent for the family. After the Mirror’s revelation, however, Holtzendorff said that he would have to rescind his offer for temporary housing “if it is shown they are not in the low- income class.” 75 Ridgely Cummings, “Arechiga Women, Children Pull Out After Juvenile Hall Warning Given,” Wilshire Press, May 21, 1959, 1, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 46, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections.

193 they never claimed they would be destitute if they lost the homes in Chavez Ravine, just that they were entitled to the full value of their property.

Despite the attempts to portray the Arechigas as greedy, deceptive, dramatic actors, they still received an outpouring of support from people in Los Angeles and across the nation. Many of these letters were directed to Councilman Roybal, as he often acted as representative and spokesperson for the family. A Texas resident wrote, “When

I saw the police of your city seize the poor home owners and bodily remove them from their property, I looked for the swastika on their sleeves because I couldn’t believe it could happen in America. I feel that Los Angeles has lost far more than she can ever gain by this un-American act. And that the Dodgers’ future will not be very bright.” 76

David Cordova, from San Pedro, California, wrote to Roybal after he watched the evictions take place on television. Cordova said it “was a scene that would make a former storm trooper long for the ‘good old days’.” He continued, “If this is the best we can do after 183 years of American liberty, then we certainly haven’t much to show for our efforts.” Cordova said that he did not necessarily want to analyze the decision to give

Chavez Ravine to the Dodgers, just that he was furious with the way the residents were treated when they were evicted. He said he wrote to Roybal because he thought he was

“one of the few men in local government really interested in the people you have been elected to serve.” 77

A letter to Roybal from Mrs. Mildred Ditzler expressed anger that the city found a way around the ruling that they were not allowed to sell the Chavez Ravine land to a

76 Letter from a Texas homeowner to the Los Angeles City Council, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 2, UCLA Special Collections. 77 Letter from David A. Cordova to Councilman Edward Roybal, May 9, 1959, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 2, UCLA Special Collections.

194 public individual. Ditzler wrote, “Isn’t millionaire O’Malley a private individual?”

California resident Frank Wright brought up the fact that Dodgers catcher Roy

Campanella “Was awarded $75,000 for fifty minutes attendance to a ball game. How much were Mr. and Mrs. Arechiga awarded for their home after paying taxes for fifty years? The people of Mexican descent are being treated worse than colored! If this keeps up the Mexican people will all have to ask permission to enter a restaurant or public place like the colored are in the South.” 78 Elizabeth McCalmont, who lived in

Hollywood, wrote that not only did the whole situation with Chavez Ravine seem to be illegal, it was “wholly inappropriate as a location for a sports field.” She claimed that the highways around Chavez Ravine were already congested, and that she couldn’t imagine the stress the roads would face with baseball fans. McCalmont wanted to see something other than a baseball stadium on the land, and said that Chavez Ravine was “the only picturesque spot (potentially) remaining in Los Angeles.” 79

There were also people who thought the Arechigas were frauds and deserved what happened to them. One letter’s author suggested that Roybal jump in a lake, because he tried to “fool the people about those grafters [the Arechigas].” The letter’s author assured

Roybal that he would not forget about his or Councilman Karl Rundberg’s position on

78 Letter from Frank Wright to Edward Roybal, May 9, 1959, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 2, UCLA Special Collections. While this letter obviously expressed disdain toward wealthy professional athletes, and protested the treatment of Mexican Americans, there was actually a lot of complexity packed into that brief statement. Campanella was a mixed-race player who played in the Negro Leagues and was one of the game’s early integrators after Jackie Robinson. The “$75,000 for 50 minutes” that Wright was likely referring to was a benefit game in Campanella’s honor that was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum on May 7, 1959, where $75,000 was raised on the catcher’s behalf. That’s because Campanella had been paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident in January 1958 in New York, when he lost control on an icy road. The Dodgers first season in Los Angeles was in 1958, so he actually never played with the team in Los Angeles. 79 Letter from Elizabeth McCalmont to Edward Roybal, April 30, 1958, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections.

195

Chavez Ravine at the next election. 80 Los Angeles resident Al Hill thought the

Arechigas should pay back taxes, and all of the costs associated with the controversy, including things like court costs and eviction costs. Hill angrily wrote, “If you are correctly quoted in saying that said eviction of this very, very, VERY wealthy family, was comparable to ‘Hitler’s tactics,’ or the ‘Spanish Inquisition,” millions of Los

Angeles’ citizens think that you are ignorantly supporting the Communists, and their brain-washed dupes.” Hill attempted to speak for others in the Mexican American community in Los Angeles as he said, “Practically 100% of the many Mexican-

Americans who are property owners, resent this rich family being made a martyr by politically-minded demagogues. The vast majority of the Mexican-American tenants feel the same way.” 81

The Aftermath of the Dodger Stadium Deal

Even though Poulson would later note that the Dodgers had become a “smash hit” in Los Angeles, he also admitted that, “I was left in the afterglow with a lot of enemies.”

After he lost the election for a third term as mayor in 1961, Poulson admitted that the

Chavez Ravine deal likely led to his defeat. Despite this, he said he still did not regret the deal he made with the Dodgers – “The shenanigans in which I participated were only in the interest of sensible expedience.” In his opinion he had to sweeten the deal as much as possible to get O’Malley to agree, since he “needed us much less than we needed him.” 82

80 Letter to Councilman Edward Roybal, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. 81 Letter from Al Hill to Councilman Edward Roybal, May 14, 1959, Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 1, UCLA Special Collections. 82 “Poulson Reveals Scare Campaign for Dodgers,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections; Grace E. Simons, “Poulson Boasts of Role in Dodger Deal,” Edward Ross Roybal Papers, Collection 847, Box 6, Folder 3, UCLA Special Collections.

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When Dodger Stadium finally opened on April 10, 1962, two years after its original target date, it was the most expensive baseball stadium ever constructed, estimated to have cost O’Malley anywhere from $15 to $20 million. As Los Angeles Times columnist

Jim Murray noted, the stadium “cost Norrie Poulson his voice and his job.” As Poulson was set to throw out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium’s first game, Murray said that “it will only be fitting to let this ex-mayor throw out the first ball since Chavez Ravine has already thrown out its first mayor.” 83

In a 1982 interview, Dodgers Vice President in Charge of Player Personnel, Al

Campanis, talked about the significance of the team’s move to Los Angeles and Dodger

Stadium. Campanis emphasized that anytime the Dodgers played, the newspaper article had the byline “Los Angeles, California” which brought the city attention from across the country. When New York and Chicago teams travelled to Los Angeles that meant the

New York and Chicago media came as well. No national media figures travelled to the west coast to cover the Pacific Coast League, but they came west to cover the Dodgers.

Campanis said the team was “a big thing for the city of Los Angeles not only monetarily, but prestige-wise…gives it an air of major league because up until the time we moved out here it was a minor league city.” 84 Campanis was asked if the Dodgers would have preferred a municipal stadium, or if that would have caused the team to eventually move a second time. Campanis replied, “It’s difficult to have…to play in a municipally owned ballpark because of the fact that you have a political landlord.” Because the Dodgers

83 Jim Murray, “Norrie’s Nest?” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1962, William Wilcox Robinson Papers, Collection 2072, Box 48, Folder 68, UCLA Special Collections. 84 M. Blackman interview with Al Campanis, May 18, 1982, David L. Clark Collection, Collection 2080, Box 8, Folder 12, UCLA Special Collections. Los Angeles was the third most populous city by 1960; two years after the Dodgers arrived in Los Angeles. It seems difficult to imagine that people were unaware of its existence in New York and Chicago prior to the Dodgers’ arrival.

197 would have shared the municipal stadium with football and other events, it meant that the team may have to set their schedule around other interests. Campanis guessed that the

Dodgers would not have stayed in Los Angeles without the Chavez Ravine property, since Wrigley Field and its surrounding property was not sufficient for their needs.

Campanis expressed shock over the controversy surrounding the Chavez Ravine land deal and the fact it almost fell apart. He emphasized that the Dodgers had been invited to

Los Angeles by the mayor, and then during the controversy thought, “wait, you brought us here?” Campanis figured the land issues were settled by the time the Dodgers actually moved west prior to the 1958 season. He learned that was not the case. 85

In the years following the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles, there were a number of mixed feelings about the team among members of the city’s Mexican American community. Walter O’Malley made a concerted effort to cater to both female and Latino fans; he provided media outreach into the Mexican American community and made sure that Dodgers games had a Spanish language broadcast. When the Dodgers signed

Fernando Valenzuela, a professional pitcher in the Mexican baseball league to a major league contract in 1980, it was the start of what was dubbed “Fernandomania.” Mexican

American fans flocked to Dodger Stadium to watch him pitch. Historian John H.M.

Laslett wrote that O’Malley and his successors, by signing players of African American,

Mexican, and Asian descent was able to change “the image of the Dodgers from that of an Anglo-run, East Coast import to one of a popular Los Angeles institution that drew in

85 Ibid; Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California In An Age of Abundance, 1950-1963 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Starr wrote about how Dodger Stadium was one of four things that “redefined” the city of Los Angeles in the 1950s and early 1960s. The other three were the rapid rise of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the modernization of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the construction of a Music Center on top of Bunker Hill. According to Starr, these four things were “pursing modernity for the city, country, and region.” They helped remake Los Angeles “from a regional capital to supercity.”

198 thousands of new fans.” Laslett cited a report from the Los Angeles Times that predicted enthusiasm for the multi-ethnic Dodgers and said that the team would “bind the neighborhoods together with a sort of communal glue.” 86

There were other residents of Los Angeles that were less forgiving to the team when it came to their memories of the Dodgers and the controversy over Chavez Ravine.

As late as the 1980s there were Mexican Americans in Los Angeles that boycotted the team. In 1983 a group formed named “Los Desterrados” (“The Uprooted”) comprised of former Chavez Ravine residents as well as their friends and supporters; the group numbered in the hundreds. Los Desterrados met for picnics in nearby Elysian Park once every July and discussed their memories of Chavez Ravine before Dodger Stadium. An

Echo Park resident thought that the city of Los Angeles should apologize for what took place in Chavez Ravine in the late 1950s – to both the residents that “suffered” in Chavez

Ravine and to all Los Angeles residents who were misled by the city’s machinations. 87

In 2011 a resident of neighboring Solano Canyon said that the Dodgers were “terrible, terrible neighbors.” The resident continued, “It’s a love-hate thing that goes back to the stadium being built. They are loved because they are L.A., but they are hated for their disregard for the communities that surround them.” 88

***

Walter O’Malley wanted a modern, state-of-the-art stadium and he finally got his wish – Dodger Stadium seated more than 50,000 and was surrounded by a sea of parking.

86 John H.M. Laslett, Shameful Victory: The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Scare, and the Hidden History of Chavez Ravine (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015), Kindle edition, Loc. 2118; Jerald Podair, City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), Kindle edition. 87 Laslett, Loc. 2134, 2151. Los Desterrados still met annually as of 2015, according to Laslett. 88 Laslett, Loc. 2169.

199

Thanks to the fact that he owned the property free and clear, O’Malley would receive funds from game tickets, concessions, and parking, without having to share profits with the city of Los Angeles. While O’Malley liked to emphasize that he used his own money to build Dodger Stadium, the project was, in reality, the first example of a stadium’s construction through a combination of public and private dollars. It is difficult to place a value on the land in Chavez Ravine, but there were estimates that it was in the millions.

That alone meant that O’Malley was given a massive handout by the city of Los Angeles, even if he did pay to construct the actual stadium and parking lots that surrounded it.

Norris Poulson was more than willing to provide that concession to the Dodgers in order to assure that he finally got a coveted major league baseball team for the city of Los

Angeles. Even though Los Angeles was the third most populous city in the country by this point, city officials still thought it wasn’t considered on par with New York and

Chicago without a major league baseball team. O’Malley’s biographer Andy McCue considered O’Malley’s impact on the game of baseball, and wrote that O’Malley

“changed the game, from a parochial midsize business anchored in the Northeast United

States to a national, and then an international, game earning and spending billions.” 89

In the end, one factor seems to bind together O’Malley’s desire for a new home for his team both in New York and Los Angeles, and that was the matter of public land.

He tried to use the Housing Act of 1949 to his advantage when his team was still in New

York in order to obtain a prime piece of real estate for a stadium. Robert Moses kept telling O’Malley to purchase his own land, since he likely had the money to do so. But that meant buying out many different property owners on a potential stadium site. That

89 Andy McCue, Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), Kindle edition, Loc. 147.

200 was likely to get expensive and complicated, particularly if several of the owners held out and refused to sell. It was a much safer option to let the city take an area by eminent domain and allow O’Malley to use the land to build a new stadium. When New York refused to give him his desired piece of property in Brooklyn, O’Malley started to look west – and found Poulson. While Moses refused to hand public land over to O’Malley,

Poulson was more than willing to do so. It did not matter that people left Chavez Ravine under false pretenses in the early 1950s, due to the promise of public housing. It did not matter that there were still people living in Chavez Ravine. These were just small speed bumps on the way to national prominence for the city of Los Angeles. In the end the sad eviction of the remainder of the neighborhood’s Mexican American residents would fade from popular memory, replaced by new memories of the games played in Dodger

Stadium. For Mayor Poulson, Dodger Stadium represented the city’s advancement and growth following World War II. However, it was an advance that came at a great cost to both the taxpayers and the Mexican Americans of Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles was just one of many controversial moves by major league teams during the 1950s and 1960s. Officials in the city of Atlanta also viewed professional sports as a vehicle to modernity in the post-war United States. Their story is told in the next chapter.

201

Figure 2: Map of Greater New York City

Map of greater New York City with approximate locations of stadium sites – the location of Shea Stadium/Citi Field was the land originally offered to Walter O’Malley by Robert

Moses. O’Malley’s desired location is now the home of the Barclays Center.

202

Figure 3: Map of Brooklyn, New York

Map of Brooklyn, New York, with approximate locations of Washington Park, Ebbets

Field, and O’Malley’s desired stadium location

203

Figure 4: Map of Los Angeles

Map of Los Angeles with approximate locations of Dodger Stadium, the Los Angeles

Memorial Coliseum, and Wrigley Field.

204

Chapter 5 – “The Finest Site for a Stadium in this Country:” The Braves Leave Milwaukee for Atlanta

When he was inaugurated as Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1962, Ivan Allen, Jr. had a vision for the city’s future. Eager for Atlanta to be viewed by outsiders as progressive and modern, Allen focused on issues he thought would improve the city’s image to people across the United States. The major issues that gained his focus were integration and civil rights, and attracting professional sports to the South. After World

War II, professional sports expanded by adding new franchises across the United States.

However, by the early 1960s Atlanta had not secured a team in any major sports.

Officials in Atlanta decided building a stadium prior to securing a franchise via expansion or team location could give them an advantage in the process. This new stadium was constructed on the south side of town, in a relatively low-income and primarily African American neighborhood. Even though Allen claimed that he sought additional rights for African Americans in Atlanta, these goals were almost in complete contradiction with sports-related goals in the Summerhill neighborhood. Since national image was vital to these plans, it meant that there was significant emphasis on the idea of sports, and a new sports stadium, as part of the city’s journey to modernity. In the minds of Allen and other prominent Atlanta officials, sports and civic pride were intimately intertwined. In order to set itself apart from other southern cities, Atlanta needed professional sports.

There were numerous restrictive housing policies in Atlanta, including a very specific and dramatic form of redlining. As African American residents attempted to

205 move out of overcrowded urban neighborhoods, and into predominantly white neighborhoods, they saw an aggressive push by city officials to stop them in their tracks.

On the city’s west side, officials went so far as to build a physical wall between white and black neighborhoods, redlining via barricade. The south side of the city, home to working class and low-income African American neighborhoods, was marked for urban renewal projects. Before those projects could ever take place, the construction of new highways already leveled large portions of those black neighborhoods. The new interstate highways and their interchanges physically cut the former neighborhoods into pieces. This became an appealing site for businesses, including professional sports team owners, thanks to its proximity to downtown and the new highway system. Atlanta officials believed that a new stadium could bring people back to the downtown area from suburban Atlanta, and the whole southeast region. The residents who were displaced by these urban renewal policies were pushed into overcrowded housing at the periphery of the neighborhood, and to the southeast of the city. 1

As Allen sought to draw a major league baseball team to Atlanta, he inadvertently harmed more than just the city’s taxpayers and Summerhill neighborhood residents.

Atlanta officials placed their focus on obtaining the Milwaukee Braves, and sought to convince the team to move south into their brand new stadium for the 1965 season.

However, the city of Milwaukee had just constructed a municipal stadium for the Braves in 1953, in order to entice the team to their city and away from its original home in

Boston. Desperate to keep the Braves from leaving, the city of Milwaukee filed an

1 There are several authors that discuss the barriers that were erected to divide white and black residents – Frederick Allen in Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946-1996 (Atlanta, Ga.: Longstreet Press), 1996 and Kevin Kruse also discusses it in White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press), 2005.

206 injunction to stop the team’s shift to Atlanta. Milwaukee was able to delay the departure for only a year and the Braves left for their new home in Atlanta for the 1966 season.

This event, taking place only eleven years after the Braves had moved to Milwaukee indicated that new (or relatively new) stadiums could not guarantee permanency for a franchise in a community. Team owners were focused simply on profit and had no real concern for the fans, residents, and taxpayers of the community. The story of the Braves is an indicator of how city officials were, in post-World War II America, increasingly willing to meet a team’s demands, no matter how absurd. Just like Atlanta, the city of

Milwaukee had connected the concept of civic pride with the acquisition of professional sports teams.

The Braves are the oldest, continuously operating sports franchise in the United

States; founded in Boston in 1871 as the “Beaneaters” (they changed their name to

“Braves” in 1912). 2 By the early 1950s, the Braves were struggling with attendance in

Boston. Owner Louis Perini reportedly lost more than $700,000 in 1952 alone. 3 It appeared that Boston was no longer able to support two franchises, as Perini said “I definitely feel that since the advent of television Boston has become a one-team city,” with that one team the Red Sox. 4 In order for the Braves to move, the owners of the seven other National League teams had to approve of the transfer. Perini was well-liked by the other owners, who unanimously approved the team’s move to Milwaukee.

Massachusetts Governor Christian A. Herter and Boston Mayor John B. Hynes, in

2 “Braves go back, back, back,” Politifact Georgia, December 14, 2010 < http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2010/dec/14/atlanta-braves/braves-go-back-back-back/> (Accessed October 15, 2017). While the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs can both claim to be as old, if not older, than the Braves, there were brief interruptions to their operations in the nineteenth century. 3 Louis Effrat, “Braves Move to Milwaukee; Majors’ First Shift Since ’03,” New York Times, March 19, 1953. 4 Ibid.

207 addition to the Massachusetts Legislature and the Chamber of Commerce wanted to fight the transfer and attempt to keep the Braves in Boston. 5 However, no official measures were taken and the Braves were gone within a month of the governmental statements of dismay. The team was greeted in Milwaukee by the new municipal County Stadium, and a parade viewed by at least 60,000 screaming fans. At least another 10,000 fans were waiting at the Milwaukee railroad station to greet the team as they stepped off their train.

Perini was impressed by the greeting, and said the team never received such an outpouring of support in Boston. He said, “Even in 1948 when we won the pennant and went to the world series for the first time since 1914, there wasn’t a demonstration like this. This is just out of this world.” 6 The move appeared to be going well – in the summer of 1953 baseball Commissioner Ford Frick wrote that “The success of the

Milwaukee switch has been phenomenal and every sports writer in the country has noticed it.” 7 County Stadium was the first post-World War II stadium constructed with public funding, located at an abandoned landfill on the west side of the city. 8

In 1962 Louis Perini sold the team to a group of directors based in Chicago and

Milwaukee, while he retained a ten percent stake. William C. Bartholomay and Thomas

A. Reynolds, both of whom were formerly directors of the Chicago White Sox, led the purchasing group. Other key players with the new ownership group were John McHale, the Braves’ general manager and president, John L. Lewis, Jr., Daniel C. Searle, Delbert

W. Coleman, and James B. McCahey. The Bartholomay-Reynolds group outbid a group

5 “Boston Up In Arms Over Braves’ Shift,” New York Times, March 17, 1953. 6 “Milwaukee Roars Hello To Braves,” New York Times, April 9, 1953. 7 Letter from Ford Frick to Clarence Rowland, June 22, 1953, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 6, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. Rowland was the president of the Pacific Coast League. 8 Gregg Hoffmann, “County Stadium (Milwaukee, WI),” Society for American Baseball Research (Accessed March 13, 2018).

208 comprised entirely of Milwaukee businessmen, led by Harold Samson. Perini, who had resisted selling the team for a number of years, said that he finally relented and sold to the

Bartholomay and Reynolds-led group because it was becoming “more and more difficult to participate as fully as we would like in the affairs of the club.” 9 Samson was disappointed that his group lost out on the bidding, but said that he was glad ownership would be located closer to Milwaukee. Samson said, “I’m sure something will be done about community relations, which have been ignored for so long.” 10 However, the new ownership group was not necessarily interested in community relations between

Milwaukee and the Braves. It did not take long for them to start considering the move of the Braves to another city, one where they could dominate the market in terms of attendance and broadcast rights.

On October 21, 1964 the Braves’ ownership officially voted to request a transfer to Atlanta. Eighteen directors had a voting share, and the decision to move passed by a vote of twelve to six. The six who voted against the move represented those directors who were residents of Milwaukee. However, the Milwaukee group’s ownership shares actually amounted to less than one percent of the team. The directors with more voting power were based in Chicago and were unanimous in their desire to move the franchise.

11 The directors provided attendance data that showed the Milwaukee Braves ranked first or second in the National League in attendance in every season except for one (1954) between 1953 to 1960. Attendance started to drop in 1961, but still remained above one

9 “Wisconsin Men Buy Braves for $5,500,000; Club Will Stay in Milwaukee, New York Times, November 17, 1962. 10 Ibid. 11 Presentation to National League, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 4, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives.

209 million. By the next year it plummeted to 766,927 and never recovered from there. 12

The directors pointed out that attendance dropped even though the team was still successful on the field. They blamed the 1961 move of the Washington Senators to

Minneapolis, Minnesota, as harming their bottom line. The Braves already had to contend with two Chicago teams eighty-five miles to the south; they claimed losing some western Wisconsin cities to the Minneapolis market was too much to handle. 13 The

Milwaukee Braves were considered a success for much of their tenure in the city, but the team’s owners argued that problems had been building for years before they considered the move to Atlanta. They pointed out that between 1957 and 1963, attendance dropped by nearly sixty-five percent.14

The Braves’ directors defended themselves from accusations that they participated in the “rape of Milwaukee,” where citizens accused the ownership of

“’milking’ Milwaukee and vacating to greener pastures.” 15 The directors argued that between 1953 and 1963 the Braves were responsible for bringing $50 million in revenue to the city of Milwaukee, a claim they said was backed by the Milwaukee Chamber of

Commerce. In that ten-year span the Braves paid $2.8 million in rent (an average of

$280,000 per year) and saw none of the $1.6 million in parking fees earned by the county. The directors also claimed that the city and county did not uphold their promises

12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Excerpt taken from Report of Examination of First Wisconsin National Bank of Milwaukee, by John P. Finnegan, National Bank Examiner, June 1, 1964, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. Attendance for the Braves in Milwaukee was at its highest point in 1957 – 2,215,404 fans attended home games that season. By 1963 that number had dropped to 773,018. Attendance actually hit its lowest point in 1962, when the Braves drew 766,921 fans in Milwaukee. 15 Presentation to National League, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 4, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives.

210 to sell a set number of season tickets, as well as stock in the team. 16 When Louis Perini sold the team in 1962, he later admitted that he made a profit of $7.752 million from

1953 to 1962, and then made an additional $5 million in profit for the sale of the team. 17

***

Between 1950 and 1960 the population of metropolitan Atlanta expanded by almost forty percent. By 1960 it was the only city in the southeast with a population over one million. 18 Part of the reason for the extraordinary amount of growth during the

1950s in Atlanta was due to the major annexations that had taken place in 1951.

Annexation increased the city’s size from thirty-seven to 119 square miles. The majority of the citizens inside of the newly annexed areas were white, which altered the city’s racial makeup. This was a major prelude to “The Plan of Improvement” for Atlanta, which would go into effect on January 1, 1952. 19 Of the million citizens in Atlanta, about half lived in within the boundaries of the city of Atlanta, and the other half lived in the suburban areas spread throughout five counties – Fulton (Atlanta proper), Cobb,

DeKalb, Gwinnett, and Clayton. More people moved to the suburban counties during the

1950s; for example, in 1950 Fulton held just over sixty-five percent of metropolitan

Atlanta’s population, but by 1961 it held just over fifty-four percent. With increases in suburbanization, city officials did not think that “The Plan for Improvement” was the best

16 Ibid. 17 “Braves ’62 Sale Made $5-Million,” New York Times, March 27, 1966. 18 Facts and Figures About Growing Atlanta, Forward Atlanta, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 27, Folder 3, Emory University Archives. 19 Metropolitan Atlanta, 5 Counties 50 Governments!, September 1962, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 27, Folder 3, Emory University Archives. Kevin Kruse also discusses annexation in White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, Princeton University Press, 2005, 38-39. Frederick Allen also discusses annexation in Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City, 1946- 1996 (Atlanta, Georgia: Longstreet Press, 1996), 138. Allen said that when comparing Atlanta to Birmingham, Alabama, when it came to integration, annexation played a role in the city of Atlanta’s more progressive stance. Since wealthy white residents lived within city limits after annexation, it meant they were forced to deal with issues of race, or risk seeing their property values decline.

211 choice for dealing with Atlanta in the future, since it did not put enough emphasis on the surrounding suburban counties.20 In 1961 officials relaunched the “Forward Atlanta” plan (originally envisioned in 1926) in order to cope with a new regionalized community.

Forward Atlanta sought “to move Atlanta forward on all economic fronts to assure its continued leadership.” 21 City officials believed the program would examine the city’s successes and detail plans for growth in the future, and they planned an aggressive marketing campaign that would stress Atlanta’s centrality and value to the surrounding region. In addition to plans for urban renewal, expressways, and public transportation, the city emphasized plans for a new sports stadium, an arena, and cultural center. 22 There had been earlier discussions of the need for sports teams and stadiums throughout the late 1950s, which led to the creation of the City of Atlanta and Fulton

County Recreation Authority in 1960. The Authority “was created and empowered to acquire, construct, equip, maintain and operate an athletic stadium and the usual facilities related thereto.” 23 Ultimately the potential of creating new facilities would be linked to local urban renewal efforts.

There were several areas eyed for urban renewal in Atlanta by the late 1950s, one of which was referred to as Washington-Rawson, named for the two major streets that intersected in the area. The proposed renewal area actually contained portions of three different neighborhoods – Summerhill, Peoplestown, and Mechanicsville. All three were among the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Atlanta; in fact, Summerhill was originally

20 Metropolitan Atlanta, 5 Counties 50 Governments!, September 1962, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 27, Folder 3, Emory University Archives. 21 Facts and Figures About Growing Atlanta, Forward Atlanta, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 27, Folder 3, Emory University Archives. 22 Ibid. 23 “Atlanta Stadium Economic and Feasibility Planning Report,” March 1964, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 28, Folder 11, Emory University Archives. The Fulton County Recreation Authority was created through an act from the Georgia Assembly.

212 settled in 1865 by newly freed slaves. 24 By the 1950s all three neighborhoods were solidly working class, and comprised primarily of African American citizens. As Mayor

William Hartsfield pushed for renewal programs in the 1950s, the Atlanta Board of

Aldermen approved two separate renewal projects in 1959: the 177-acre Washington-

Rawson plan and the 267-acre Thomasville plan. Washington-Rawson was about a mile south of the Capitol, while Thomasville was several miles southeast of Washington-

Rawson. Atlanta officials said that they anticipated Thomasville would be used to rehouse African American families “displaced in other renewal areas and by other governmental activities.” They primarily anticipated the lands in Washington-Rawson to be used for expressway development and potentially housing.25 Once the expressways were constructed, the intersection of Interstates 20, 75, and 85 essentially walled off these south Atlanta neighborhoods from downtown. The Washington-Rawson renewal project impacted many lives, and included the demolition of 3,000 residential units and the closure of 154 businesses. 26

While Mayor Hartsfield started these urban renewal projects, his successor, Ivan

Allen, Jr., would carry the plans to completion. Elected mayor in 1962, Allen said that he wanted to “move Atlanta forward,” and promised “a broad program of promise.” 27

Allen’s opponent in the election was Lester Maddox, a vicious segregationist who was adamantly opposed to Allen’s vision of racial progress in Atlanta. An editorial in the

Atlanta Journal said that “Atlanta declared herself too progressive to become sidetracked

24 Daniel Judt, “Stadiums Ruin Neighborhoods,” The Nation, September 3, 2015, < https://www.thenation.com/article/stadiums-ruin-neighborhoods/> (Accessed October 1, 2017). 25 “Urban Renewal Plans Approved By Board Here,” Atlanta Daily World, July 1, 1959. 26 Daniel Judt, “Stadiums Ruin Neighborhoods,” The Nation, September 3, 2015, < https://www.thenation.com/article/stadiums-ruin-neighborhoods/> (Accessed October 1, 2017). 27 Raleigh Bryans, “Allen Pledges ‘Forward City’,” Atlanta Journal, September 23, 1961, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 23, Folder 6, Emory University Archives.

213 from its trip to the top, too wise to become ensnared in trouble and hatred.” 28 In 1963

Allen was the first, and only, Southern politician to testify before the U.S. Congress in support of the Civil Rights Act. 29 Allen later recalled his goals and accomplishments as mayor, “We had Atlanta on the move. We had successfully changed from an agricultural economy to an entrepreneurial economy. We had managed the social changes. Major league sports would cap it off. You get in the big leagues, you’re in the big leagues.

That’s all there is to it.” 30 As part of Allen’s improvement plan, Atlanta proposed a bond issue in 1962 that would help fund schools, roads, sewers, and “cultural opportunities.”

31 The thirteen-item bond package, valued at $54.9 million, passed easily. An $80 million joint bond issue had been rejected the prior year. 32

Atlanta officials first made overtures toward a major league team when they learned that Charles Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics, was unhappy with his current home. The Athletics were moved to Kansas City from Philadelphia in 1954 by their prior owner Arnold Johnson; Finley bought the controlling stake in the team in 1960 from Johnson’s estate. Finley happened to know Atlanta Journal sports columnist

Furman Bisher through their shared work with the Easter Seals. Bisher and Finley met for dinner in Atlanta in the early 1960s, where Finley bitterly complained about Kansas

City and expressed his desire to move the Athletics, potentially to Dallas or Los Angeles.

Bisher suggested he consider Atlanta as an option, but it did not seem that Finley took the

28 “Atlanta Voted for Peace and Progress,” Atlanta Journal, September 23, 1961, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 23, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 29 Dave Kindred, “Big dreams put city in the majors,” Atlanta Journal/Atlanta Constitution, October 18, 1995, Allen Family Papers, MSS 1014, Box 2, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center. 30 Ibid. 31 “Choice Thursday Involves One Issue: Forward Atlanta or a Backward Step,” Atlanta Constitution, July 30, 1962, Allen Family Papers, MSS 1014, Box 2, Folder 3, Atlanta History Center. 32 Marion Gaines, “Voters Approve All 13 Bond Issues,” Allen Family Papers, MSS 1014, Box 2, Folder 3, Atlanta History Center.

214 suggestion seriously until April of 1963. On April 25 Finley returned to Atlanta to meet with Bisher, Allen, and other Atlanta officials. 33 Allen took him to a prospective new stadium site in Washington-Rawson as part of their pitch to Finley. Allen described the tour of the area, “We took him to an urban renewal area off Capitol Avenue at the confluence of the interstates. From there we could see the city skyline and the state capitol. Charlie said, ‘Mr. Mayor, you have here the finest site for a stadium in this country.’” Bisher said that as Finley walked around the site, he turned to Allen and said

“Mayor, you build a stadium here and there’ll be a major-league team here.” 34 However, that major league team would not be the Athletics as Finley remained in Kansas City until the team finally left for Oakland, California, in time for the 1968 season.

The first plans were solidified for the new stadium in the spring of 1963, coinciding with the formal overtures to Finley. In March of 1963 the Aldermanic

Finance Committee held a meeting to discuss the new stadium. 35 Several weeks later, the Atlanta Board of Aldermen voted fourteen to two to approve the Washington-Rawson renewal area as a new home for the stadium. The two aldermen that voted against the site did not do so because they wanted the land to go to another use, or because it was detrimental to a neighborhood primarily composed of lower income African Americans.

Their only dispute was that they believed it lacked adequate parking facilities. These dissenting aldermen also felt it would create too much traffic congestion in an area close to downtown. 36 At a public hearing on the stadium held in March 1964, the Atlanta

33 Dave Kindred, “Big dreams put city in the majors,” Atlanta Journal/Atlanta Constitution, October 18, 1995, Allen Family Papers, MSS 1014, Box 2, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center. 34 Ibid. 35 “Hearing on Proposed Stadium Slated Friday,” Atlanta Daily World, March 3, 1964. 36 Stanley S. Scott, “Washington-Rawson Tract Voted For Sports Stadium,” Atlanta Daily World, March 17, 1964.

215

Journal reported that 350 “sports fans” jammed into the Aldermanic chambers at City

Hall. The Journal claimed that opponents to the project were allowed to speak at the meeting, but did not quote them. An article noted that, “All doubts were drowned under rousing applause for the stadium planners and their pledges of more revenue for the city and state.” 37

The Washington-Rawson site was appealing not just for its proximity to downtown, but because city officials considered it a blank slate. By 1964 it was

“virtually cleared of all buildings” after it was acquired by the city for urban renewal.

Officials said that the Atlanta Housing Authority had yet to place any of the cleared land on the market; which meant the Recreation Authority “would, therefore, have wide latitude in reshaping streets, utilities, topography and surrounding land uses to achieve a workable plan for the stadium.” 38 Rather than allocating a specific parcel to the stadium, officials instead planned to let the stadium project drive all development at the

Washington-Rawson site. Prior to the plans for the stadium, the Washington-Rawson land was set aside for high-density housing. Officials said that the then existing urban renewal plan would need to be amended in order to permit construction of the stadium, noting that when the plan was amended, “some of the costs associated with preparing the site for a stadium use and eligible for credit under the urban renewal plan could be worked into the amended plan.” 39

37 Bill Eger, “Atlanta Stadium Virtually Assured,” Atlanta Journal, March 7, 1964, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 28, Folder 11, Emory University Archives. 38 “Atlanta Stadium Economic and Feasibility Planning Report,” March 1964, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 28, Folder 11, Emory University Archives. 39 Ibid; Carlton Wade Basmajian, Atlanta Unbound: Enabling Sprawl through Policy and Planning (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013), 2-3. Even though his primary focus is on the period of 1968 to 2002, Basmajian discusses the role of planning agencies in Atlanta and argues that such agencies “receive little attention for their role in the transformation of American metropolitan areas.” Thanks to the coordination from public agencies, numerous cities saw the growth of sprawl and urban decentralization.

216

The Washington-Rawson site was considered very accessible for automobiles due to the location near the interchange of three major interstate highways. This meant that it would be convenient not only for fans traveling into the city from the suburbs, but from other southern cities like Augusta, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama. Since Atlanta’s officials wanted to market the city as the hub of the South, it made sense that they would focus on a site for a ballpark with easy reach from other regional cities. The site thus had added potential in attracting a team given the expansive fan base within the surrounding region. Parking also became a priority in planning given that it “will be one of the prime sources of income to the Recreation Authority.” 40

Atlanta officials felt that building a stadium was vital to the growth and success of their city. They argued that of the twenty-four metropolitan areas in the United States with one million or more people, only four of those lacked professional sports teams – one of which was Atlanta. Officials argued that people in Atlanta had been advocating for professional sports since 1922. The key to finally drawing professional teams to

Atlanta was to build a stadium, according to officials. They argued, “Records show that cities are serious contenders for a major league franchise when they have sufficient stadium capacity. Atlanta’s population and economic growth, and its records of sports attendance interest club owners; but to attract these owners to Atlanta, the city must have a suitable home for professional sports.” 41 Atlanta officials were likely correct in their thinking, at least when it came to major league baseball.

In the early 1950s major league baseball established a realignment committee to discuss the potential of teams changing cities, or the potential expansion of baseball

40 “Atlanta Stadium Economic and Feasibility Planning Report,” March 1964, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 28, Folder 11, Emory University Archives. 41 Ibid.

217 franchises. In a confidential report to baseball’s commissioner in 1953, the committee explained why some of the larger cities in the United States did not yet have a baseball team. The report stated: “Professional baseball is not played today in many large cities where a team would be a civic asset, and other cities are represented in leagues for below what their population would justify because – (1) The city either has no ball park or has a ball park inadequate in size and facilities, and (2) Ball parks cannot be built today by individuals as a profit-making venture.” 42 This suggests that the committee would be unwilling to consider cities lacking state-of-the-art facilities, and that any new parks to be constructed would need to rely on public funding. The report listed recommendations for both major league baseball and cities interested in hosting a team, which included this statement:

“We recommend that professional baseball undertake a campaign to promote the

building of an adequate, efficient baseball park as a civic undertaking in every

city in the United States. The cost of park building has gone beyond what a

private investor can afford, but these stadiums would be a civic asset worth far

more than the elaborate football stadiums so many cities have erected. They

would furnish a place for the playing of high school, college amateur and semi-

professional baseball, as well as facilities for a professional team which could be a

real civic asset.” 43

The report essentially presages the concept of municipal stadiums that came to be built in a number of cities during the 1950s and 1960s. City governments concurred, noting that

42 Realignment Committee Report, January 20, 1953, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 6, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. 43 Ibid.

218 the stadiums would not be limited to baseball, but available for other events and thus serve as a civic asset.

Early planning for Atlanta’s stadium considered the eventual addition of a roof and air conditioning to the structure. Arthur L. Montgomery, chairman of the Atlanta and

Fulton County Recreation Authority (and also president of the Atlanta Coca-Cola

Bottling Company), said that it was “mandatory” for the structure to go in the

Washington-Rawson area of the city because of its proximity to hotels and restaurants.

Montgomery said, “The enormous potentialities of the roof-enclosed stadium will place

Atlanta in a highly competitive position for political conventions, sports events of all kinds, automobile shows, home shows, rodeos, circuses and many other types of spectaculars.” 44 The architects for the stadium compared their vision with the

Astrodome in Houston, which was already under construction by that point. Architects estimated that it would add $400,000 to the total cost of the stadium to build a series of towers and a Styrofoam plastic roof after the stadium was already open to the public.

That was compared to an estimated $900,000 to add a more conventional roof at the time of construction.45 When the first phase of the project was announced, the total cost was listed as $18 million, to be split between Fulton County and the City of Atlanta over the course of thirty years. Under the agreement Atlanta contributed two-thirds of the annual expenses of the stadium, while the county paid one-third. Opie Shelton, an official from the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, believed that “Atlanta will gain an estimated $10 million in new business” from the stadium. The project was fast tracked for completion

44 “New Open-Air Stadium Drawing Is A Beauty,” Atlanta Daily World, February 23, 1964. 45 Ibid.

219 in one year, a plan which would entail an additional rush fee for the project. 46 In the end, the ambitious plans for the Styrofoam plastic roof addition never came to fruition.

When Allen initially set out to build the stadium, the city did not officially have a professional sports team to utilize the venue. Later, after the stadium’s completion Allen joked that “All we had to do, those two years ago was find a club which might be wanting to move, then persuade them to make that move to Atlanta, where we offered them a stadium not yet designed, to be built with money we didn’t yet have, on land we didn’t yet own.” 47 For the most part, Atlanta officials moved forward without the certainty of a team to play at the new facility. While they reportedly met in secret with the Braves and had a handshake agreement prior to the stadium’s construction, there were no formal contracts signed. 48 Allen knew he faced a great political risk by constructing a stadium without a guaranteed agreement in place. At one point the mayor said that “his political life depended on enticing the Braves to Atlanta.” Allen added, “If we build the stadium in time and get the Braves located in it, I am all right. If we fail to complete the stadium in time, or if the Braves don’t come, well…” and Allen made a slashing motion across his throat with his finger. 49 The lack of a formal contract in the early days of construction made Allen extremely nervous, and there was constant fear that the Braves might back out of the deal. Allen said, “I used to phone Tom Reynolds (of the Braves) and get my confidence renewed to the sleeping point.” He added, “I’d say, ‘Tom, put my

46 “Accord Reached On Financing New Stadium,” Atlanta Daily World, April 10, 1964. 47 Tom McEwen, “Change of View,” Tampa Tribune, November 18, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center. 48 “Hush-Hush Atlanta Deal Sealed with Handshake,” Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. 49 Ibid.

220 blood pressure back in shape’” and Reynolds would talk Allen off of the ledge and promise that the Braves planned to honor their agreement to move to the city. 50

All of the preliminary negotiations between Atlanta city officials and Braves officials took place in secret. Most of those early meetings took place in Chicago, so that

Braves officials were not spotted in Atlanta and Atlanta officials were not spotted in

Milwaukee. Other than several meetings with stadium manager Sid Scarbrough and the stadium architects in Milwaukee, no other Atlanta city or stadium officials ever set foot in Wisconsin. For the initial meetings, Allen, Arthur Montgomery, chairman of the

Stadium Authority, and Robert R. Richardson, legal counsel for the Stadium Authority and chief of staff to Georgia Governor Carl L. Sanders, flew to Chicago to meet with

Braves officials. Joining these city officials was Mills B. Lane, Jr., an Atlanta banker who was a supporter of the stadium project. Both the Atlanta and Braves team representatives registered at an airport hotel in Chicago under assumed names, so as to not draw suspicion to themselves. Even after these initial meetings, whenever Allen was asked about a team that would utilize the stadium, he expressed confidence that officials would be able to find a team, while never mentioning they were already in discussions with the Braves. 51

By several accounts, Lane was pivotal to getting the plans for the stadium off the ground. Allen supposedly spoke to Lane after the meeting with Finley in Atlanta, and

50 Eugene Patterson, “The Big Three,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 51 “Hush-Hush Atlanta Deal Sealed with Handshake,” Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives; Basmajian, 3. Basmajian points to studies that emphasize the fact that Atlanta was essentially governed by a “small set of corporate chieftains,” by the 1950s. He said that downtown corporate leaders still had a lot of power in the terms of the city’s governance and said that these leaders and elected officials “learned to cooperate with the city’s black leadership to reach a truce that helped the white elites maintain control, even as the black electorate reached majority status.”

221

Lane asked him how badly he wanted the stadium project. After Allen responded, “bad,”

Lane told him that they would get it built. Lane wanted to get the “moribund” stadium authority restarted (it was dormant since its formation in 1960), and also wanted to make sure that Arthur Montgomery was made chairman of the authority. If this happened,

Lane said “he would get the full faith and credit of the Citizens and Southern Bank behind it.” 52 After Lane advanced hundreds of thousands of dollars for architects’ and engineers’ costs, Allen claimed to be ignorant of the specific source of the money. Allen said, “I still don’t know, whether Lane loaned that three quarters of a million personally, or whether his bank did it, or whether anything was ever signed.” 53 After it became clear that the Athletics would not be moving to Atlanta, Allen asked Lane if he was discouraged by the news. Lane told Allen, “Go back to city hall and run the city. I’ll run the stadium financing.” 54 Allen did put together financing, “based on revenue certificates underwritten by the city and county governments.” In order to “give validity to the bonds and reduce the interest rate,” Allen said the city and county should be prepared to cover the difference and pay the stadium’s rent if money was tight in the early days of the facility. The state contributed $700,000 in order to remodel access routes and bridges near the highway interchange closest to the stadium. 55

52 Eugene Patterson, “The Big Three,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid; Allen, 123, 131. Allen says that Mills Lane actually helped convince Mayor Hartsfield to retire as he was backing Allen’s candidacy in the early 1960s. Hartsfield resisted the idea of a stadium and instead preferred to construct something dedicated to the arts. One of the other prominent businessmen at this time in Atlanta, Robert Woodruff, the head of Coca-Cola, was not sold on the necessity of bringing professional sports to Atlanta. 55 Eugene Patterson, “The Big Three,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives.

222

Ground was officially broken for the stadium on April 15, 1964, with ambitious plans to have the new facility ready for a baseball team by April of 1965. A one-year time frame was nearly unheard of with a stadium project of this magnitude; most facilities took at least about eighteen months to complete. At this point, Mayor Allen did not name the Braves as the primary tenant. He simply noted that he had a “firm commitment” from a major league club to move to Atlanta if the park was ready in time for the 1965 season. 56 At the groundbreaking ceremony Georgia Governor Carl Sanders said that “as a native Georgian…our state has produced so many great athletes, it’s time we build ourselves a stadium and keep them here.” Sanders added, “When things get too hot at the Capitol just across the way we can now go out to the ball park,” highlighting the site’s proximity to the center of town. 57 Even though the rush fee charged to the city and county was an additional $600,000 above and beyond the cost of the project, an editorial in the Atlanta Constitution said it was well worth it, noting, “But much of that extra cost will be earned back by getting baseball and football games started in Atlanta a year earlier. This would produce an estimated $600,000 that wouldn’t be earned if slow- motion construction were to keep the site plowed up for an idle year.” 58 The editorial also argued that teams considering a move to Atlanta wanted to do so as soon as possible.

A theoretical opening in 1966 “could have come with nobody here to play – or worse, with second-raters.” Since there was still no formal agreement in writing, paying more than half a million dollars for a rush job was a huge gamble.

56 Stanley S. Scott, “Groundbreaking for new stadium today,” Atlanta Daily World, April 15, 1964. 57 Stanley S. Scott, “High Spirits, Festive Air At Stadium Groundbreaking,” Atlanta Daily World, April 16, 1964. 58 “Stadium Go-Ahead Is Right Course; Foot-Dragging Didn’t Build Atlanta,” Atlanta Constitution, April 8, 1964, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 28, Folder 11, Emory University Archives.

223

Civil rights groups were upset by the Atlanta Board of Aldermen’s refusal to include a non-discrimination clause in the new stadium’s construction contract. The clause was pushed by Rev. Samuel W. Williams and Clarence D. Coleman, co-chairmen of the Atlanta Summit Leadership Conference, which was a coalition of local civil rights organizations. In their advocacy for the non-discrimination clause Williams and

Coleman said the “Atlanta Negro community strongly supports the stadium project, providing it is administered so as to protect the interest and rights of all Atlanta-Fulton

County citizens.” 59 Williams and Coleman also wanted guarantees that discrimination would be forbidden among the general and sub-contractors hired to build the stadium and that any stadium concession contracts would forbid discrimination in hiring for the positions. Williams and Coleman also requested meetings with hotel and restaurant owners near the stadium to accelerate voluntary desegregation in those facilities.

Montgomery, the head of the Recreation Authority, questioned the requests from

Williams and Coleman and said “I don’t see any problem in that area. All major league clubs are desegregated.” 60 While this was true – all major league teams were desegregated by 1959 – it appeared to avoid the primary concern of Williams and

Coleman, which was discrimination in the hiring of stadium contractors and employees.

While the Atlanta Summit Leadership Conference initially called for the contract to be

59 Stanley S. Scott, “Aldermen Reject Non-Racial Clause For Atlanta Stadium,” Atlanta Daily World, April 14, 1964; Maurice J. Hobson, The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 1. Even though Hobson’s primary focus begins with Mayor Maynard Jackson’s election in 1973, he writes about the state of Atlanta’s government following World War II. As Hobson explains, the book “shows how elected and appointed black political kingmakers capitalized on the support of the broader black electorate to rise to power, only to play politics diverting resources, policies, and attention away from the rank and file of black Atlanta and toward a new political machine.” Clarence N. Stone also discusses this in Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946- 1988 (University Press of Kansas, 1989), ix, when he wrote that during the period between 1946 and 1988 a “biracial coalition formed and became an integral part of the city’s governing regime.” 60 Stanley S. Scott, “Aldermen Reject Non-Racial Clause For Atlanta Stadium,” Atlanta Daily World, April 14, 1964.

224 rejected without the non-discrimination clause, it was still approved by the Board of

Aldermen ten to four. 61

An editorial in the Atlanta Journal seemed to imply that the mere presence of major league baseball and professional football could help to improve desegregation in facilities across the city of Atlanta. The editorial argued that due to the presence of professional sports, “It will seem more obvious than ever, for example, that segregation in major places of public accommodation is out of place.” 62 The editorial added, “When an old practice is killed on the playing field and in the stands, it cannot survive in the eating places and hostelries that cater to the spectators.” 63 This was an argument made by a number of writers who supported the integration of baseball in the 1940s; that integrated sports would lead to integration in other sectors of society. The idea behind this was that fans would learn to cheer for both white and black players, and that successful integrated teams would show that integration was beneficial to society. While there is no solid evidence that integration in baseball eased integration in other institutions, it was an argument frequently made by those connected to, and supportive of sports.64

With the preliminary stadium hurdles cleared, the “handshake” agreement between Mayor Allen and the Braves’ ownership reportedly took place around March of

1964, just a month before the groundbreaking for the new stadium in Atlanta. The first more formal discussion of the team’s move to Atlanta took place in July of 1964 when

61 Ibid; Stanley S. Scott, “Groundbreaking For New Stadium Today,” Atlanta Daily World, April 15, 1964. 62 “Stadium Enthusiasm,” Atlanta Journal, March 9, 1964, William Hartsfield Berry Papers, MSS 558, Box 28, Folder 11, Emory University Archives. 63 Ibid. 64 This can be seen in numerous editorials in the Cleveland Call and Post, as well as the Pittsburgh Courier throughout the 1940s.

225

Bartholomay and Reynolds met with major league baseball commissioner Ford Frick.

When Frick was later questioned about this meeting, he claimed that the two Braves owners specifically told him they did not have a deal with Atlanta. Frick claimed that he had no control over team owners that wanted to move their organizations from one city to the other, that he “used the power of persuasion” if he wanted to stop a proposed move. 65

National League president Warren Giles said that he first heard about the Braves’ potential move in the early summer of 1964. Giles admitted that he did not know much about the situation in Atlanta, and did not undertake much investigation. However, he expressed potential support for the move as he said, “I thought it would be a fine thing to take Major League ball into that area. It would round out the League geographically and be a great service to a great southeast area.” 66 Even though the city of Atlanta and the

Braves supposedly had a handshake agreement in March, it was several months before the rest of the league had any indication that a deal might be on the horizon. It would still be a few additional months before a formal announcement.

The formal agreement between the Braves and the city of Atlanta and Fulton

County was signed on October 20, 1964, a full six months after the groundbreaking ceremony for the new stadium. Those who had the opportunity to see both the old

Milwaukee contract and the new Atlanta contract thought that the Atlanta deal was much more beneficial to the Braves. Purportedly, Milwaukee County imposed “pricing regulations and other restrictions on operations” that were not included in the contract

65 Digest of Deposition of Ford Frick, February 17, 1966, Ralph L. Andreano Papers, MSS 487, Box 1, Folder 10, Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin, Madison; “Hush-Hush Atlanta Deal Sealed with Handshake,” Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. While team movement would fall under the commissioner’s jurisdiction in the twenty-first century, at this point it was still primarily up to the individual leagues to approve transfers. 66 Digest of the Deposition of Warren Giles, February 5, 1966, Ralph L. Andreano Papers, MSS 487, Box 1, Folder 10, Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin, Madison

226 with Atlanta. For example, the Atlanta contract expanded concession rights – in the past the Braves had exclusive rights in Milwaukee for baseball games, but in Atlanta would get exclusive rights for football and other events as well. In Atlanta, the Braves also had fairly broad control over the prices set for items sold at the stadium. A source from

Atlanta’s Stadium Authority said, “We believe in free enterprise, and we believe in the

Braves’ professional talent for promoting will work to our mutual benefit.” 67 In

Milwaukee, the Braves were allowed to broadcast only fifteen home games on commercial television. In Atlanta that number jumped to twenty-five. 68 Facility rent in

Atlanta was based on how many tickets were sold. If the team sold one million or fewer tickets, they owed five percent of the proceeds to Atlanta and Fulton County. If they sold one million to 1.5 million tickets, they owed seven percent of the proceeds. If the Braves sold more than 1.5 million tickets, they owed ten percent of the proceeds. The Stadium

Authority received all proceeds from parking. It was agreed that the Authority would have the stadium completed for occupancy by April 15, 1965. 69

While praising Atlanta, Braves officials criticized the city of Milwaukee and its fans when the Braves Board of Directors met in Chicago to discuss the move on October

23, 1964. Braves General Manager John McHale said that when offered his current position in 1959, “he felt that the baseball capital of the world had been opened to him” by going to Milwaukee. However, he soon became disillusioned with the city and what he called “an unbelievably antagonistic press.” McHale said that he “had never played

67 Jack Nelson and Marion Gaines, “It’s a Fine Contract for Braves But City Expects Benefits Too,” November 12, 1964, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 68 Ibid. 69 Agreement between the Braves and the City of Atlanta and Fulton County, October 20, 1964, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 3, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives.

227 in a politically-owned stadium and that taking a crack at the Braves became a political pastime in Milwaukee, which, together with the unfriendly press, set the stage for killing baseball in Milwaukee.” 70 While McHale criticized the concept of a municipally-owned stadium in Milwaukee, he did not express concerns about playing in a municipally-owned stadium in Atlanta. In addition to the perception of a hostile media climate in

Milwaukee, it was revealed during the meeting that the television contracts with Atlanta would likely net the team $1 million more per year in revenue when compared to television contracts in Milwaukee. 71

Even though the Braves were determined to leave, Milwaukee officials pulled out all of the stops in order to keep the team in town. Eugene H. Grobschmidt, Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, prepared a report for Warren Giles and the

National League member clubs that outlined the city and county’s position on the Braves, and the team’s attempts to move. Grobschmidt said, “the County of Milwaukee and its

1,100,000 people, and the State of Wisconsin, will not tolerate a shift of the Braves

Franchise and that every effort, be it legal, legislative, psychological, and even moral persuasion will be exercised to prevent this contemplated tragic and unconscionable change from ever occurring.” 72 Grobschmidt said he wanted “to demonstrate to each of you [Giles and NL club officials] that our position is not only righteous, but that our theory for retention is sound and that our legal position is invincible.” 73 Milwaukee city and county officials were prepared to use the courts to block the Braves’ move, but

70 Memorandum from Joseph W. Simpson to William G. Brumder, October 23, 1964, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. 71 Ibid. 72 Report to Warren Giles and Member Clubs, October 22, 1964, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. 73 Ibid.

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Grobschmidt likely hoped he could scare the team into abandoning their plan to go to

Atlanta. Milwaukee officials believed they did everything possible to help the team find success in the city, and were angered by the fact that the National League supported the

Braves’ move to Atlanta. Grobschmidt said that the Braves were being “stolen from our community by a group of Chicago businessmen,” in reference to the Chicago-based members of the ownership group that purchased the team in 1962. Grobschmidt expressed anger about these Chicago-based owners and blamed them for violating the

“public trust” in Milwaukee:

“Does not this League also have a ‘public trust’ to fulfill in terms of loyalty to

Milwaukee, based upon these unimpeachable records of attendance? Has not this

League a duty to discharge in terms of appreciation to Milwaukee for its

investment in the Braves and enthusiastic support over these 12 years? The

Braves to us have become as much a Milwaukee Civil Pride as our New Zoo,

Arena, Art Center, Museum, and Airport, (all new during the past 12 years). Is

this League about to allow this Civic Pride to be taken from us because for two

years the paid attendance did not come up to expectations of the new and

inexperienced management?” 74

Grobschmidt’s comments directly connect the Braves to the concept of civic pride, and positioning the team’s presence on par with some of Milwaukee’s greatest cultural and civic accomplishments over the past decade. He accused the Braves’ owners of purposely creating a bad situation in Milwaukee in order to have valid excuse to move the team elsewhere. Grobschmidt also pointed to the fact that the Braves signed a three- year agreement with Milwaukee County on January 2, 1963, which bound them to play

74 Ibid.

229 all of their home games at Milwaukee County Stadium through the end of the 1965 season. He questioned how the National League could approve a move to Atlanta when it would result in the team’s breach of contract. Grobschmidt addressed the rest of the league when he said that the Braves’ management was “reportedly dreaming of the Radio and Television Revenues they will obtain in Atlanta and in which, incidentally, you will not participate or share.” 75 Grobschmidt said that the Braves’ management never came to city and county officials with any of their concerns, and never gave officials a chance to make changes.

Braves officials claimed that they were prepared to pay damages in order to break the contract with Milwaukee before the 1965 season. However, that was not enough for

Milwaukee city and county officials – they wanted to force the Braves to adhere to the existing contract. While Milwaukee officials knew they could not force the Braves to stay in the city beyond 1965, an additional year seemed better than nothing. Milwaukee officials could use the 1965 season to prove to other teams and major league baseball that the city was a good location for a replacement team. Officials were hesitant to lure an existing team to their city, after they criticized Atlanta for doing just that, but hoped to earn an expansion franchise. Another option considered was to file an anti-trust suit against major league baseball, a risky proposition since courts already determined in the

1922 Supreme Court case Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League that baseball was exempt from anti-trust laws. Additionally, even in the most optimistic outcome of an anti-trust complaint, officials did not believe it would lead the courts to force the Braves to remain in Milwaukee. Yet another option was to push for congressional action on the matter, but that seemed like a long shot as well. These

75 Ibid.

230 scenarios indicated the best hope for Milwaukee was to let the Braves go, and hope they might then be granted an expansion franchise. 76

While not optimistic about the outcome of a potential court case, Milwaukee officials still attempted to utilize the courts in order to stop the Braves from moving to

Atlanta. Attorneys for Milwaukee County filed suit in state court in an attempt to stop the Braves’ move to Atlanta, while one of the Milwaukee-based shareholders of the

Braves filed a second suit with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of

Wisconsin. 77 Atlanta officials stressed that they thought the injunction against the move was temporary, but it did lead city officials to cancel a planned celebration to welcome the team. 78 With the pending court cases, the National League decided to give up on moving the Braves to Atlanta in time for the 1965 season. Even if the courts ruled in the

Braves’ favor, it would likely take until the summer of 1965 before a decision was reached. The league did not want the Braves to move mid-season. Despite the entanglements in the court system, and the delay until the 1966 season, Braves officials still planned to fly to Atlanta in November of 1964 in order to sign a twenty-five-year contract to play in Atlanta’s new stadium. 79

76 Memo on the Braves, March 16, 1965, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 4, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. In Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that major league baseball was exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act because major league baseball was not considered interstate commerce. The Federal League formed in 1913 with the goal of being a third “major league” in baseball, but folded after the 1915 season. It failed, in part, because the National League and the American League attempted to buy out a number of the owners, or offered them chances to merge their Federal League teams with existing National League or American League teams. The Baltimore team did not benefit from any of these arrangements and filed suit. 77 “Second Suit Filed To Halt Braves’ Move,” Atlanta Journal, October 30, 1964, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 78 Jesse Outlar, “Temporary Blockade Expected To Be…Temporary,” Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 79 Furman Bisher, “Braves Officials Due to Sign 25-Year Atlanta Lease Soon,” Atlanta Journal, November 10, 1964, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives.

231

In a last ditch effort to move the team in time for the 1965 season, Mayor Allen flew to Chicago to meet with Grobschmidt in November of 1964 with the hope of convincing the Chairman of the Milwaukee County Commissioners to drop the legal opposition and let the Braves play in Atlanta for the coming season. Supposedly Allen

“made a common-sense plea for a release of the ball club nobody in Milwaukee apparently wants but which the league insists must play there in 1965.” 80 Grobschmidt reportedly told Allen that moving the Braves to Atlanta in time for the 1965 season was

“out of the question, and that is that, not even for $10 million!” 81 It’s unclear whether or not Allen and Atlanta officials actually offered to compensate the city and county of

Milwaukee, or if Grobschmidt just wanted to emphasize that nothing could change his mind. When the idea of a potential deal collapsed at the meeting, Allen and other Atlanta officials seemed to accept that they had to wait for 1966 to host the Braves. Atlanta officials then planned to recruit a Triple-A team to play in the new stadium for the 1965 season, and considered exploring the possibility of televising Braves games in the southeast during their last season in Wisconsin. Officials were worried that regional enthusiasm might diminish if the Braves played in Milwaukee during 1965 and wished to do as much as they could to mitigate the consequences. 82

Milwaukee’s baseball fans, of course, made an effort to stop the Braves from leaving town. Dozens wrote to Mayor Allen in anger, and in some cases attempted to change his mind about moving the Braves to Atlanta. A fan named Ron Alberts asked

Allen how he would feel if the team he supported for a dozen years was “stolen” from

80 George Short, “Mayor Allen fails in plea for Braves,” November 16, 1964, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid.

232 him. Alberts wrote, “Your eagerness for major league baseball cannot be condemned.

Your methods to obtain same are underhanded and deplorable.” 83 John Franzen, Jr. wrote to Allen to say that he did not blame him for the Braves moving to Atlanta, that he blamed the Braves’ ownership for their constant lies. Franzen warned Allen that the

Braves would likely do the same thing to Atlanta in five or six years, since team ownership was not trustworthy. 84 Ethel A. Stahl was angered by Allen’s request that the city and county of Milwaukee should just step aside so the Braves could come to Atlanta in time for the 1965 season. She wrote, “How about you practicing a little of what you are preaching – and let Atlanta step aside?” 85 Patricia Leahy thought that Atlanta should instead focus on an expansion franchise – “Why doesn’t Atlanta want a team they can build up from scratch as Atlanta’s and only Atlanta’s team, as the Braves are

Milwaukee’s and only Milwaukee’s team”: of course not mentioning the fact that the

Braves spent more than half a century in Boston before their move to Wisconsin. 86 One unnamed fan pointed out that Milwaukee built a stadium for the Braves, and it still was not enough to keep the team in town. 87

Even Bill Veeck, an owner of several baseball teams between the 1940s and

1980s, including Milwaukee’s minor league team in the 1940s, was opposed to the

Braves’ move. Veeck said if the team left Milwaukee, it would be “the worst thing that has happened in the history of baseball” and added that it would be due to the “greed and

83 Letter from Ron Alberts to Ivan Allen Jr., November 16, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center. 84 Letter from John Franzen, Jr. to Ivan Allen, Jr., November 9, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center. 85 Letter from Ethel A. Stahl to Ivan Allen, Jr., November 10, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center. 86 Letter from Patricia Leahy to Ivan Allen, Jr., October 29, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center. 87 Anonymous letter from fan to Ivan Allen, Jr., City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center.

233 stupidity” of the team’s owners. Veeck defended Milwaukee’s fans as he said, “The people of Milwaukee and Wisconsin have proved they will support major league baseball.” Veeck continued, “If the Braves aren’t drawing, it is because the operators have forgotten that baseball is entertainment, and that packaging is as important as the product.” 88

While Atlanta and Milwaukee played tug-of-war over the Braves in late 1964, there was another group quietly opposed to the team’s move to Atlanta – several of the

Braves’ African American players. Hank Aaron and Lee Maye both said they hoped the team ultimately stayed in Milwaukee, and that they did not plan to move their families to

Atlanta if the team did move there. Maye, a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said “I just hope and pray we don’t go,” when asked about the potential movement of the team.

Aaron agreed and said “There’s no doubt about it, the South is segregated and I don’t want to play there.” 89 Ernie Johnson, the chief of public relations for the Braves, said the controversy with Aaron and Maye was “overblown” and that “there is no racial problem in Atlanta.” Attorney Bob Richardson, a representative of the Atlanta-Fulton County

Stadium Authority, agreed with Johnson as he said, “We welcome all players, regardless of race, and are sure they will find Atlanta a friendly place in which to live.” Richardson added that “all facilities in Atlanta are fully integrated.” 90

88 Cleon Walfoort, “Veeck Wants Club to Stay,” Milwaukee Journal, October 18, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 6, Atlanta History Center. Veeck was known for his bold promotional stunts with various teams that sought to increase attendance. Since he managed to improve attendance for teams in several different cities, he probably felt that Milwaukee was not a lost cause. 89 Jim Minter,” “Legal and Race Talk Will Not Halt Braves,” Atlanta Journal, October 22, 1964, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 90 Ibid.

234

As the stadium neared completion, numerous Atlanta officials and reporters attempted to explain its significance to the city. In a special edition of the Atlanta

Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine dedicated to the stadium, there was a great deal of emphasis on how the stadium made Atlanta a national city, rather than just a regional city. Jack Spalding, the editor of the Atlanta Journal, tried to excuse waiting until the 1960s to build a stadium and lure professional teams. Spalding wrote, “Our hesitation in building something worthy of our city can be excused only on the grounds that we have been too busy building other things to get around to this until now.” 91

Spalding argued that the stadium already gave Atlanta “a new center” since it was adjacent to the Capitol and state office buildings, constructed on land claimed through urban renewal. Even though the stadium was set to be named Atlanta Stadium, Spalding said that “it is situated at one of the most important interstate junctions in the nation.

Macon, Chattanooga and Augusta are suburban to it, and Birmingham won’t be far. It will be a stadium for the state and the area, not just the city which built it.” 92 In addition to situating Atlanta as a place of prominence within the southeast, Spalding said the stadium “will make possible the things which have not been possible before, and that “In the game of civic one-upmanship we are out in front again.” 93 Spalding continued, “The stadium is a concrete and steel manifestation of the energy and imagination which has carried us so far in so short a time…from Atlanta, Ga., to Atlanta, U.S.A.” 94

91 Jack Spalding, “Atlanta, U.S.A.,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid.

235

Allen emphasized the significance of the stadium to the city of Atlanta, and said that “the stadium has already become one of the greatest stimulants, one of the greatest inspirations, that this city and state have ever had.” Allen even credited a burst of building and expansion throughout the city of Atlanta to the construction of the new stadium. He said, “It’s been the catalyst, it has changed our thinking and the thinking of others around us. There’s no provincial, smalltown attitude here anymore. We’re big league.” 95 Allen then dealt with some of the more negative fiscal ramifications –a

$600,000 surcharge that the city paid in order to complete the stadium by April 15, 1965.

With the National League’s decision to leave the team in Milwaukee for the 1965 season, it meant that Atlanta basically paid that surcharge for nothing. Allen believed the expenditure was worthwhile, “We wouldn’t have gotten the Braves if we hadn’t agreed on our part to build by 1965.” He also excused the additional fee by pointing out that the

Braves and the city of Atlanta both upheld their ends of the bargain, and it was the court’s decision, not the Braves that delayed the move to Atlanta until 1966. “We had to do it to fulfill our commitment to Milwaukee,” Allen said, “They fulfilled their commitment to us.” 96

Allen also made what is now a familiar argument – the relationship of sports to the general civic economy. Thanks to Atlanta entering the realm of “major league”

95 Eugene Patterson, “The Big Three,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 96 Ibid; Press release from Bell & Stanton, Inc. on completion of stadium, April 3, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 7, Emory University Archives. The city of Atlanta and Fulton County were able to complete the stadium at such a fast pace thanks to a newly- developed system they called “electronically computed scheduling known as ‘critical path’ planning.” To complete this system, “data on various phases of the construction were fed into a computer at Atlanta’s Georgia Tech, at regular intervals, to minimize the possibility of any one operation being unduly delayed by incompletion of a prerequisite job.” By using this system the architects, contractor, and sub-contractors were able to keep all aspects of the job on path at the time, which allowed for a nearly simultaneous completion of the construction.

236 sports, there would be a call for services, such as dining, hotels, and retail that cater to the sports fans coming to town for games. It would also even expand public transportation options to shuttle fans around town. Allen also thought it would make Atlanta more appealing as a site for conventions. He claimed that in 1964 more than 300,000 people traveled to Atlanta to attend conferences and that they spent more than $33 million while in town. Allen said, “Therefore, from every business, financial and commercial aspect, the opening of our Atlanta Stadium signifies a new and expanding economic era for our city – more money, more jobs, more opportunity and more enjoyment for more people.”

He added, “That is the tangible, visible evidence of the tremendous meaning that the

Atlanta Stadium has for Atlanta and the entire region.” 97 Allen also emphasized the intangible meaning of the stadium, when he said that “Atlanta’s stature as one of

America’s national cities is now completely recognized. Just as it has been in business, finance, in transportation and education, Atlanta now joins the major league of sports.” 98

Despite the excitement about the stadium’s completion, city and county officials, and sports fans, still had to wait almost a year before the Braves officially came to town.

The Braves planned to open the 1966 season in Atlanta against the Pittsburgh Pirates, another team that was about to play in a new stadium. The city planned to host a parade to celebrate the team’s arrival, as well as a number of celebratory events connected to the first game. Atlanta School Superintendent John Leston said that all students may be dismissed at 1:30 p.m. to attend the welcome parade. Allen suggested that children and parents come, and that workers even try to get out of their jobs for several hours to

97 Ivan Allen, Jr. “How We Will Profit,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 98 Ibid.

237 celebrate.99 Eventually, the Atlanta Board of Aldermen voted to declare April 12 an official half holiday. 100 When Archie Lindsey, Chairman of the Fulton County

Commission wrote to William McClelland, Chairman of the Allegheny County Board of

Commissioners in Pittsburgh to invite him to the game, he said “Since Allegheny County and Pittsburgh have been a major league community for many years, I am sure you appreciate the great importance of the advent of major league sports to Atlanta and the

Southeast.” 101 Even though Atlanta had become a much larger city than Pittsburgh, its lack of a major sports franchise still created a sense of civic inferiority. Allen claimed that the Braves’ first game was a very important event – “Up till now, Atlanta’s biggest celebration has been the world premiere of ‘Gone with the Wind.’ I hope that the Braves opening festivities will not only match but surpass that 1939 enthusiasm.” 102

Less than a month into the Braves’ first season at Atlanta Stadium, Chicago

Tribune columnist Herb Lyon made a shocking accusation. Lyon said that powerful business, civic, and political leaders were pressuring the Braves to stop selling choice box seats to black fans, but that the Braves’ leadership refused to consider blocking the sale of seats to black fans. 103 Furman Bisher, the sports editor of the Atlanta Journal, contacted

Braves General Manager John McHale to see if there was any validity to the claim.

According to Bisher, McHale said that “there has never been any formal or informal effort of any nature to restrict box seat sales to any kind of group, white, dark or green.”

99 Statement by Ivan Allen, Jr., City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 14, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center. 100 Press release on the Braves’ welcome celebration, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 14, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center. 101 Letter from Archie Lindsey, Chairman Fulton County Commission to William McClelland, Chairman of the Allegheny County Board of Commissioners, March 28, 1966, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 14, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center. 102 Press release on the Braves’ welcome celebration, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 14, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center. 103 Herb Lyon, “Tower Ticker” Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1966.

238

104 Jerald S. Sachs, the Public Relations Director for the Braves, wrote to Lyon to deny the accusation. Sachs said he did not know where Lyon got the information, but there was “not one shred of truth in this statement.” Sachs continued, “I think that Atlanta has taken a bum-rap. For a guy who has spent just about all of his growing years in the north,

I find Atlanta to be as progressive, if not more so, in the area of racial integration, than in most northern cities in which I have lived; including Chicago. I really think you’ve thrown the city a curve ball.” 105 Even in Lyon’s original column on the matter, he did not accuse the Braves of taking action to block black fans from choice seats – he accused people in the city of Atlanta of making that request. Braves officials appeared to be as worried about the image of Atlanta as they were about any personal accusations.

Even though Allen and Atlanta’s boosters liked to say that it was the city “too busy to hate,” and promoted its image as progressive compared to other towns in the south, there were still concerns about Atlanta’s image in the rest of the country. The public statements by black Braves players obviously showed their hesitance to bringing their families with them to Atlanta. When Atlanta officials heard about these statements, they set out with a plan to convince Aaron and Maye that they were welcomed in Atlanta.

Arthur L. Montgomery, the chairman of the Atlanta and Fulton County Recreation

Authority, proposed that officials reach out to various leaders in sports and civic groups so that they could “personally assure these baseball players of our city’s wonderful

104 Letter from Furman Bisher to Ivan Allen, Jr., May 24, 1966, Georgia Tech Digital Collection, (Accessed September 5, 2017). 105 Letter from Jerald S. Sachs to Herb Lyon, May 27, 1966, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 19, Folder 15, Atlanta History Center.

239 worthy.” 106 There were several letters from people who wanted to convince Aaron specifically to consider moving to Atlanta. One letter from Walter J. Leonard said that

Aaron was right to be concerned about the move to Atlanta, and said that the city and team had not paid much attention to what the players wanted. Leonard said, “The geographic relationship that Atlanta has with the deep south is the only relationship. You will find Atlanta to be a city with its eyes fixed on the future.” Leonard continued, “The problems of social change and economic advancement are present in Atlanta as they are in all other cities. The big difference here is that Atlanta is doing something about them.”

107 Leroy R. Johnson, a Georgia state senator from the thirty-eighth district and the first black state senator since Reconstruction, also hoped to convince Aaron to move to

Atlanta. Johnson wrote in a letter to Aaron that he was not going to tell him that “we have reached the ultimate in human relations in Atlanta” since he did not think that any city in the country had earned that distinction. Johnson pointed to the desegregation throughout facilities in Atlanta and said, “The important thing about Atlanta is that there is a spirit and an atmosphere of change, there is a spirit of growth and a determination on the part of Negroes and Whites, who have pledged a continued perpetuation of this

106 Memorandum from Arthur L. Montgomery to Paul E.X. Brown, October 20, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 7, Atlanta History Center. 107 Letter from Walter J. Leonard to Hank Aaron, October 24, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 7, Atlanta History Center. It is unclear whether or not this is the same Walter J. Leonard that became an assistant dean and assistant admissions director at Harvard Law School in 1969, and was credited with one of the country’s “earliest and most effective affirmative-action programs.” That Leonard did have ties to Atlanta, as he grew up in Georgia and attended Morehouse College and Atlanta University. Matt Schudel, “Walter J. Leonard, architect of Harvard affirmative action plan, dies,” Washington Post, December 18, 2015, < https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/walter-j-leonard-college-president-and-architect-of- harvard-affirmative-action-plan-dies-at-86/2015/12/18/d3fd3524-a4df-11e5-9c4e- be37f66848bb_story.html?utm_term=.bd4a8058d04c> (Accessed October 31, 2017).

240 atmosphere.”108 When Aaron eventually announced that he and his family would move to Atlanta for the 1966 season, the headline in the newspaper proclaimed “Atlanta Wins

Hank” as if the city had won a prize for their perceived progressivism. Aaron denied ever attempting to avoid Atlanta, and said that his comments were misunderstood. Aaron said, “I said it would be hard to leave Milwaukee, where all of our close friends are, but I never said I wouldn’t move here. That’s just one of the many stories some writers have twisted.” 109

As Milwaukee prepared to lose the Braves, city officials wanted to put themselves in a good position to receive an expansion team. In July of 1965 County Executive John

L. Doyne suggested a four-point program to follow in order to lure (and keep) a team in

Milwaukee County. Doyne wrote, “It is important for us to decide whether we really want a major league franchise in Milwaukee County; and, if we feel we should have one, we must realize that we are going to have to pay for such franchise or to make considerable concessions to entice a baseball operation to come to Milwaukee or to operate in Milwaukee.” 110 Doyne admitted that television and radio revenue for the

Milwaukee area might not be as substantial as in other markets. In response to that, he wrote “And, so, to offset these deficiencies, we should have a very favorable rental and concession agreement on the part of the County of Milwaukee to attract baseball to

Milwaukee County.” 111

108 Letter from Leroy R. Johnson to Hank Aaron, October 24, 1964, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 17, Folder 7, Atlanta History Center. 109 Hal Hayes, “Atlanta Wins Hank,” Atlanta Constitution, February 1, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives. 110 County of Milwaukee – Inter-Office Communication, from John L. Doyne, County Executive, to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and Milwaukee County Park Commission, July 13, 1965, Stafford, Rosenbaum, Rieser & Hansen, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee Braves Litigation, Milwaukee MSS 93, Box 3, Folder 2, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives. 111 Ibid.

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The terms that Doyne suggested were quite favorable – almost criminally so. He proposed that a team be allowed to use Milwaukee County Stadium for a rent payment of just $1 per year until attendance reached the one million mark, and “five percent of the net receipts of all admissions sold over one million.” The team would be given the rights to operate all concessions, and would retain all profits from concessions until attendance reached one million. If it reached one million, then the county received ten percent of concession sales after that point. Milwaukee County would also agree to assume all maintenance and utility costs, and would install all of the necessary concession equipment in the stadium. Doyne said the county would offer to increase the seating capacity by an additional 10,500 seats at no cost to the incoming team. Doyne even suggested that the baseball team receive ninety percent of all concession sales from outside events, including professional football games. The only significant item the county received in this proposed deal was one-hundred percent of the parking fees, which they suggested be raised from twenty-five cents to fifty cents. 112 This deal meant that the County of Milwaukee could potentially earn just $1 per year in rent for a stadium that cost nearly $6 million to build just twelve years before. It shows the desperation of a municipal body to obtain a team – at nearly any cost. The city eventually managed to lure the new Seattle Pilots (founded in 1969) to Milwaukee in 1970, and rechristened them the Brewers. True to Doyne’s plan, in 1978 it was revealed that the Brewers paid just $1 per year in rent to the city and county of Milwaukee. 113

112 Ibid. 113 “Milwaukee Defends Its Charging Just $1 a Year for Stadium Lease,” New York Times, April 3, 1978, from Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 238, Folder 15, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. The Brewers argued that this claim was misleading, since they also had to pay for the upkeep on the stadium. If the Brewers drew more than 1 million fans, then they would have to pay more rent. However, the $1 per year claim was true up to that point.

242

While there was not substantial publicized opposition to the Braves within

Atlanta, there was evidence that at least some people were not happy about the team and the new stadium. An April 12, 1966 telegram sent to Ivan Allen, Jr. from “urgently concerned citizens,” expressed anger that bond money went to fund the stadium project.

The telegram said, “Braves – welcome to Atlanta. This is to advise that we are picketing the stadium to show outrage that money originally appropriated for needed parks in

Negro slum areas were reapportioned to pay interest bonds on new stadium. The poor who cannot afford stadium admission are again cheated.” 114 There was no mention of the fact that the construction of the stadium displaced poor, African American residents in the Summerhill neighborhood, just that the project diverted funds intended for the

African American community.

Later in the Braves’ first summer in Atlanta, tensions exploded in the Summerhill neighborhood. It started after a white police officer shot Harold Prather, a black man, on

Capitol Ave., not far from the stadium. That night, as residents took to the streets in protest, Mayor Allen went to Summerhill in an attempt to calm the angry crowd. He climbed on top of a police car with a bull-horn and spoke to the people gathered, “This is no way to solve a problem.” After Allen stepped down from the top of the police car, he was replaced by a young African American man who told the crowd “Let’s clean up the street. The only way is to start like we did today. The riots in Watts made people listen to their problems. Atlanta needs to be treated the same way…Atlanta is just a cracker

114 Telegram to Ivan Allen, Jr. from Urgently Concerned Citizens, April 12, 1966, City of Atlanta Records, Series XV, Policy and Program records Mayor Ivan Allen, Box 14, Folder 4, Atlanta History Center.

243 town.” 115 There were reports that police armed with shotguns in the area helped to exacerbate the existing tensions. People from the crowd reportedly kept yelling “why the shotguns?” at the police. The police accused youths in the crowd of throwing rocks and bottles at them, while yelling “Kill the white bastards, kill the white cops,” and “white devil, white devil” directed at Allen. At one point, Allen tried to convince the crowd of roughly 800-1,000 protestors to follow him to the parking lot of the stadium for a calmer discussion. The crowd dispersed once the police started to fire gun shots in the air, and teargas at the protestors. Allen reportedly remained calm, but he had given the order for the police to fire the warning shots. In total, the entire 750-man Atlanta police force was on the scene, while one-hundred state troopers waited at Atlanta Stadium, just several blocks away.116 By dawn the next morning, seventy-three people had been arrested and sixteen received treatment at the hospital for injuries sustained during the protests. 117

City officials and editorials in the major Atlanta daily papers blamed the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for the uprising. Eugene Patterson, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, said “SNCC comes in on a scene of trouble like an ambulance. But not to heal any fractures. It had been a long, chilly summer in the Vine

City slum. SNCC’s sound trucks had failed to stir riots. Maybe Vine City residents got toughened to the black power demagoguery and immune to it. Here, almost in the shadow of Atlanta’s new stadium, was a fresh neighborhood with a built-in incident.

115 “15 are Injured in Rioting Here As Negroes Toss Rocks at Police,” Atlanta Constitution, September 7, 1966, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives. 116 Ibid; Tom Dunkin, Calmness Returns To Area Near Stadium, Atlanta Journal, September 7, 1966, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives. 117 Tom Dunkin, Calmness Returns To Area Near Stadium, Atlanta Journal, September 7, 1966, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives.

244

And here was SNCC.” 118 While officials blamed SNCC for causing the disturbance, they focused on SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael. Within a few days of the protests,

Carmichael was arrested and charged with inciting to riot, and disorderly conduct. After he was freed on $11,000 bond, Carmichael said “The racist mayor and the white racist papers said we started a riot and ran. We did not start it, and we will not run away.” 119

After the unrest in Summerhill, some Atlanta city officials that said they anticipated problems in the neighborhood for some time, and were not surprised that tensions finally boiled over. A report from the community council said that problems in the area included “poor housing, little recreation, poor health, exploitation, skepticism about promises of city help, and dislike for the police.” 120 Reverend Roy Williams, a white minister and the vice president of the Summerhill Civic League, said that he warned city officials Summerhill was an explosion waiting to happen. Williams said, “I have told our city politicians we were sitting on a powder keg.” He added, “The conditions here are some of the worst in Atlanta.” 121 When Williams explained the conditions that families in Summerhill endured, he mentioned that they paid exorbitant rates in rent, to live with twelve to fifteen families in a dilapidated structure. As for the culprit, Williams blamed urban renewal and the new stadium, and said that both

“drastically changed the community life.” There was also a lack of recreational facilities in the neighborhood, even though Allen and the Braves both took steps to construct playgrounds in the area. However, many promises for improved conditions in the area

118 Eugene Patterson, “A Day to Forget,” Atlanta Constitution, September 7, 1966, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives. 119 Keeler McCartney and Bill Shipp, “Bond Set At $11,000 In Rioting,” Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives. 120 Wayne Kelley, “Summerhill Was Likely Spot For Trouble When It Came,” September 7, 1966, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives. 121 Ibid.

245 ended up never coming to fruition. Williams accused the mayor and the City Council of not knowing or understanding the Summerhill community. 122

A meeting held in Atlanta with city officials and civil rights leaders produced several suggestions how to prevent future violence in the area. These included the formation of civic groups that could outline specific grievances, and assurances from the city that they would maintain regular garbage pick-ups. 123 Several years after the uprising, Atlanta’s first African American mayor, Maynard Jackson, invested money into neighborhoods to construct community centers and parks. Mayor Andrew Young, when interviewed in 1986 about Jackson’s programs in the 1970s, as well as the programs from

Allen and other mayors who preceded Jackson focused on the stadium. Young said that there was not much money for community development before Jackson, since “the deal with the stadium used up all the park money. And it wasn’t until the Braves started winning that we started getting some park improvement funds.” 124 As the angry telegram stated, money meant for low-income, primarily African American neighborhoods was diverted to cover costs associated with the stadium.

There were several other prominent community members who spoke of the lasting impact of the stadium on its surrounding community. Clarence D. Coleman, co- chairman of the Atlanta Summit Leadership Conference (the group that originally fought for the non-discrimination clause at the stadium) discussed the Summerhill neighborhood

122 Ibid. Other than the disturbance in Summerhill after it was already built, research did not produce any outspoken opponents to the stadium project at the time of its construction. 123 Don Winter, “Riot Area Normal, Mayor Allen Finds,” Atlanta Journal, September 8, 1966, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 24, Folder 18, Emory University Archives; Frederick Allen, 165. Allen connects the election of Lester Maddox in 1971 as governor of Georgia to the stadium and the disturbance in Summerhill. Allen wrote, “it could be said that ‘progress’ had toppled a row of dominoes: First came slum clearance, followed by the stadium, overcrowding, black rage, riot, white backlash, Maddox.” 124 Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-, “Interview with Andrew Young,” Ivan Allen, Jr. Digital Collection, accessed June 16, 2017, http://ivanallen.iac.gatech.edu/omeka/items/show/387.

246 and the construction of the stadium. When asked whether the stadium was constructed in its eventual location in order to remove blacks from the area, Coleman said he thought it was one of the factors. Coleman said that it probably benefitted the city economically and noted that black residents did not necessarily have the power to fight the stadium project. He also said that he believed the parcel of land’s central location, and proximity to transportation options, played a role as well. Coleman’s perception, although not stated with certainty, was that the stadium would serve as a buffer zone between downtown and “the south side projects.” 125

Collier Gladin, a white city planner who served under Allen and several other mayors, said that the location of Atlanta Stadium was selected because it was so close to the central business area, and Allen thought the stadium could serve as a catalyst to businesses. Even though there were rumors that the stadium’s location was chosen to move African Americans further outside of town, or to create a buffer between downtown and African American communities, Gladin did not see that as a factor in the stadium’s eventual location. 126 When asked if race was a factor in the stadium’s location, Leon S.

Eplan, a white urban planner in Atlanta responded, “Race is a factor in all decisions in

Atlanta.” Eplan also claimed that Allen originally wanted to use the Washington-Rawson land to build a public housing project for white residents. He said that people in the

African American community protested, and wanted housing for black residents instead.

Eplan said the business district did not want an African American public housing project so close to downtown, and that’s why Allen settled on the stadium. This contradicts

125 Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-, “Interview with Clarence Coleman,” Ivan Allen, Jr. Digital Collection, accessed June 16, 2017, http://ivanallen.iac.gatech.edu/omeka/items/show/393. 126 Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-, “Interview with Collier Gladin,” Ivan Allen, Jr. Digital Collection, accessed June 16, 2017, http://ivanallen.iac.gatech.edu/omeka/items/show/394.

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Gladin, who when specifically asked whether or not public housing was considered for the Washington-Rawson area, responded that there were never any plans for it. 127

Years later, Eplan expressed remorse for his role in the construction of Atlanta

Fulton-County Stadium and the destruction of the Summerhill neighborhood. Reporter

Bill Torpy said in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the lasting narrative on the stadium’s construction in Summerhill was that “Atlanta’s city fathers tore asunder a black community to build a ballpark and snag a Major League Baseball team.” Even though residents were promised that conditions would improve for them, city officials never kept those promises. However, Eplan disagreed with that traditional narrative. He referred to the stadium as an “afterthought,” in terms of city planning, and said that “It was just something to do with land that had been already cleared.” 128 Eplan added, “We just threw people out…it’s regrettable. We did some terrible things. It was my job.” Eplan pointed to the money that the federal government provided to cities for slum clearance after World War II and said that there was no way city leaders would turn down a promise of funding. When it came time for Eplan to conduct a feasibility study for the potential stadium site in Summerhill in the early 1960s, he said the results were very positive in favor of the stadium. 129

127 Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-, “Leon S. Eplan,” Ivan Allen, Jr. Digital Collection, accessed June 16, 2017, http://ivanallen.iac.gatech.edu/omeka/items/show/409; Bayor, Ronald H., 1944-, “Interview with Collier Gladin,” Ivan Allen, Jr. Digital Collection, accessed June 16, 2017, http://ivanallen.iac.gatech.edu/omeka/items/show/394. 128 Bill Torpy, “Summerhill: ‘We just threw people out…it was my job,’” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 13, 2016, < http://www.myajc.com/news/local/summerhill-just-threw-people-out-was- job/hYda9IqcACYGCbjY6fX2kK/> (Accessed January 10, 2018). 129 Ibid; Winston A. Grady-Willis, Challenging U.S. Apartheid: Atlanta and Black Struggles for Human Rights, 1960-1977 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006), 114. Resident Ethel Mae Mathews was evicted from her rental home in Summerhill due to the construction of Atlanta Stadium. She said that her landlord told her she could “get out or be bulldozed down right immediately at that time.” Mathews left and went to stay with a relative that lived nearby.

248

By 1976 the Braves had a poor record on the field, and dismal attendance figures.

The team was sold and purchased by media mogul Ted Turner. Before he stepped forward to buy the Braves, there were rumors that the team could leave Atlanta for

Toronto, Canada. The purchase of the baseball team benefitted Turner’s personal business interests – his television network broadcast sixty Braves games per season.

These games represented a source of inexpensive programming for Turner’s network and if the team left Atlanta, he would lose the rights to broadcast games. 130 Even though

Atlanta’s officials had been optimistic about the money the stadium would provide the city, the optimistic projections did not come to fruition. By 1978 it was clear that the stadium’s earnings fell short of covering the full costs of the facility. The same U.S.

News and World Report article that claimed Three Rivers Stadium struggled to break even financially also reported that Atlanta Stadium was relatively unsuccessful. Gary

Webster, the deputy city manager of Pontiac, Michigan, home to the Silverdome football stadium (built in 1975) said “No stadium in the country is making money, if you add up all the expenses.” Webster admitted that the Silverdome operated in the red by 1978.

Although Atlanta Stadium actually managed to bring in enough money to cover its operating costs, it did not raise enough money to pay off the principal and interest on its capital debt of $20 million. Martin Kelly, vice president and chief operating officer of the Astrodomain Corporation, which ran Houston’s Astrodome, said that he felt the

Astrodome was relatively successful, since it brought money into the city for events at

130 Frederick Allen, 260, 277.

249 the facility year-round. However, Kelly added, “Stadiums aren’t gold mines. Like any other businesses, they have to be properly managed, maintained and merchandised.” 131

The city of Atlanta embarked on another ambitious plan for new stadium facilities nearly thirty years after Atlanta Stadium opened. In 1990, the city was awarded the bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Officials actually planned to return to the Summerhill neighborhood, and construct facilities near the existing Atlanta Stadium (at that time called Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). The city also planned a new, major stadium for the Olympics, the Centennial Olympic Stadium. After the games were complete, this facility would be converted into a baseball stadium (later renamed Turner Field). In

August of 1997, after the completion of the Olympics, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was demolished.

At the groundbreaking for the new Olympic stadium in 1993, a handful of people gathered and shouted “no justice, no peace,” to protest the new facility’s construction.

The protestors were angered by “what they called inadequate arrangements for labor organizations and area residents to benefit financially from the project, despite an agreement assuring them a larger role in the decision-making process.” 132 While officials argued that the new stadium would provide an economic boost to the neighborhood, those protesting the new project did so with the memories of the destruction of a neighborhood prior to the construction of Atlanta Stadium. 133

131 “More ‘White Elephant’ Stadiums,” U.S. News & World Report, 5 June 1978 from Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 238, Folder 15, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 132 “Demonstrators Have Little Effect On Olympic Stadium Groundbreaking,” Atlanta Daily World, July 15, 1993. 133 Ibid.

250

Turner Field opened to the public as the new home of the Braves in 1997, thirty- one-years after Atlanta Stadium first opened in nearly the same exact spot. Turner Field had an even shorter life span. In November 2013 the Braves announced their intent to move to suburban Cobb County to the city’s north. The new SunTrust Park opened there in April 2017. The Braves received a $400 million public subsidy from Cobb County taxpayers to build the park at an extremely congested interstate exchange between

Interstates 75 and 285. The deal that county supervisors made with the Braves took place largely behind closed doors and may have violated state transparency laws. The Braves claimed that they wanted to move to Cobb County since the majority of their season ticket holders were based in the north suburbs. They not only received the massive $400 million subsidy, but Cobb County also ceded a parking monopoly to the team which allowed the Braves to operate all parking lots around the stadium. 134

In the end, the Braves paid $18 million for Atlanta Stadium in the 1960s, of which just over $600,000 went toward the rush fee for the ballpark. The 50,000+ seat venue lasted for barely thirty years before it was replaced by another park. 135 Atlanta city officials did what they felt they had to do in order to secure a team for their city. In their minds, Atlanta was not a first-class city until it had professional sports. In their quest to obtain this team, officials did not worry about the people negatively impacted by their

134 T.M. Brown, “The Braves’ New Ballpark Is An Urban Planner’s Nightmare, Deadspin, August 10, 2017 (Accessed October 20, 2017); Dave McKenna, “The Atlanta Braves Borrowed Their Parking Scam From Dan Snyder,” Deadspin, July 6, 2016, (Accessed October 20, 2017). There is very little public transportation infrastructure in Cobb County, and essentially nothing that connects the county with the more urban Fulton County. While it may seem ridiculous to abandon a stadium that’s not quite 20 years old, Cobb County made the situation worth it for the team. 135 “Facts and Figures on the Home of the Braves,” Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution Magazine, April 4, 1965, Newsweek Inc., Newsweek Atlanta Bureau Records, MSS 629, Box 19, Folder 6, Emory University Archives.

251 plan – people like the residents of south Atlanta neighborhoods, or the people of

Milwaukee who lost their baseball team after they built a public stadium. Atlanta officials were not always transparent about their methods in attracting a team, as they did everything in their power to stay away from the public eye, even going so far as to meet in Chicago to discuss the potential deal. Mayor Allen was worried about the racial climate in Atlanta, but even more so he was worried about how Atlanta looked to the outside world. He wanted others to see the city as progressive, and forward-thinking.

With the addition of professional sports teams, the city went from Atlanta, Georgia, to

Atlanta, U.S.A., according to Allen and other urban boosters.

To construct Atlanta Stadium, Allen and other officials selected a piece of land just a mile from the Capitol building, land originally intended for urban renewal. People who lived in this space were pushed out of Summerhill to the periphery of the neighborhood so that Atlanta could have a stadium right in the center of town. While there were differing accounts as to whether this plan was enacted to wall off the downtown business district from African American neighborhoods, there were obviously people that believed that to be true. When city officials laid the basic plans for the stadium project largely in secret, it gave the appearance that they had something to hide.

It was quite possible that they just wanted to hide the fact they were luring a team away from another city. But their behavior led to speculation and rumors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the stadium and its surrounding parking lots essentially did wall downtown off from the African American neighborhoods to the south. Whether this isolation was intentional or not, it was ultimately the outcome. After nearly forty years of sports in the Summerhill neighborhood, team officials abruptly moved the team to the

252 suburbs in 2017. Just like the tug-of-war between Milwaukee and Atlanta in the 1960s,

Cobb County offered the team better financial terms and an overall “better” deal. Just as they did in the 1960s, the Braves jumped at the opportunity to move.

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Figure 5: Map of Greater Atlanta Area

Approximate locations of stadiums and neighborhoods mentioned in the chapter. At the top of the map is SunTrust Park, the Braves’ new home in Cobb County. In the center toward the bottom are the 1996 Olympic Park, the site of Turner Field and Atlanta Fulton

County Stadium, and the approximate area of the Thomasville renewal area.

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Figure 6: Map of Southern Atlanta

In the large box at the center is the approximate area of the Washington-Rawson renewal area, in the Mechanicsville, Summerhill, and Peoplestown neighborhoods. Inside of that, the approximate locations of Turner Field and Atlanta Fulton County Stadium are labeled. The approximate area of the Thomasville renewal area is marked to the southeast.

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Conclusion

In the post-World War II United States, cities across the country created policies relating to housing and urban renewal that favored white residents, while excluding groups like African Americans and Mexican Americans. An often ignored aspect of these policies was the construction of sports stadiums in cities across the United States.

As was the case with the construction of the interstate highway system, stadium construction represented another tool that city officials could utilize in order to continue the exclusion of the powerless, in favor of the powerful. Often these projects were planned in conjunction with one of the federal housing acts put into place between the

1930s and 1950s. These acts were often used to clear structures that city officials labeled as “blight” or “slums;” this clearance left large spaces of available land that was viewed as a perfect location for a stadium and its connected parking. These stadiums, and the sports teams that called them home, became a point of civic pride for city leaders and even the citizens displaced by their construction. As sports became an extremely profitable business, officials were willing to do whatever necessary to keep a team from leaving their city or to attract one for the sake of both image and improvement.

Governmental policies meant to benefit city residents instead were utilized for stadium construction, which in turned benefitted wealthy sports entrepreneurs. If communities and lives were damaged in the process, then it was just the cost of doing business.

Compounding this process was the special status of sports teams as private entities with no responsibility to disclose their financial data to fans, or to city leadership.

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In fact, because of the 1922 United States Supreme Court decision in “Federal Baseball

Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League,” major league baseball was considered exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act. 1 It solidified the power of major league baseball, and meant it would be nearly impossible for an upstart league to ever match its supremacy. Hence the need for public financial assistance in terms of facilities construction was unclear. Theoretically, teams could be sitting on millions of dollars in profits, but no one would be able to verify these totals with certainty. When a city offers taxpayer funding toward a new stadium, they are not basing that decision based on a team’s financial needs. They are basing it on fears the team could move to a different city, or on the idea that a new stadium will bring money into city coffers as well as burnish the municipal image.

For the most part, economists are united in the opinion that sports stadiums do not generate local economic growth and do not benefit cities in a financial sense. Roger

Noll, an economist who specializes in stadium economics, and economist Andrew

Zimbalist outline the ways in which stadiums are a detriment, more than a benefit to a city. In 1997 Noll wrote that the average stadium ends up costing the host city almost

$10 million a year. Noll also discusses how cities attempt to market the benefits of stadiums. He points to four points officials almost always make when it comes to stadiums – the new stadium will create construction jobs, fans who attend games spend money in nearby businesses, the team will attract tourism and businesses to the city, and it will create something Noll calls the “multiplier effect.” With this multiplier effect, the increase in local spending leads to more jobs. Stadium supporters often claim the new

1 In the decision, it was determined that baseball was merely entertainment and not an actual commercial enterprise. Oddly enough, the other major team sports of football, basketball, and hockey are not exempt from anti-trust legislation.

257 structures will be “self-funding,” generating enough revenue for the city to replace the money spent in subsidy to the team. 2 Zimbalist and Noll found minimal benefits to the individual municipalities, however:

In every case, the conclusions are the same. A new sports facility has an

extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and

employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a

reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in

terms of its impact on net tax revenues. Regardless of whether the unit of analysis

is a local neighborhood, a city, or an entire metropolitan area, the economic

benefits of sports facilities are de minimus.” 3

Zimbalist and Noll wrote that there were actually occasions where the federal government considered intervening in the team movement and stadium construction bonanza, but ended up doing nothing. Baseball’s Washington Senators left Washington,

D.C. two different times – after the 1960 season they moved to Minneapolis and became the Twins, and then D.C.’s expansion Senators franchise left for Arlington, Texas, in

1971 and became the Rangers. After the second team departed for Texas, the ensuing uproar led the U.S. Congress to commission an inquiry into professional sports. The report that came from that inquiry recommended that baseball lose its anti-trust exemption, but no further action ensued. After football’s Baltimore Colts and Oakland

Raiders relocated in the mid-1980s, Congress initiated another inquiry; again, with no results. Congress once again considered the issue in the 1990s as other teams either

2 Roger G. Noll and Andrew Zimbalist, “Sports, Jobs, & Taxes: Are New Stadiums Worth the Cost?,” The Brookings Review, Vol. 15 No. 3 (Summer, 1997) pp.35-39. 3 Ibid.

258 moved, or considered movement to another city. As in the 1970s and 1980s, no changes ultimately came from Congress. 4

While much of the economic research noted above focuses on the more recent wave of stadium construction, from the 1990s to the present, there is evidence that the wave of construction during the 1950s and 1960s also was not financially beneficial to communities. A 1978 article in U.S. News and World Report entitled “More ‘White

Elephant’ Sports Stadiums” noted that “City after city is finding that projects start with high promise and wind up costing more than expected.” 5 This article also claimed that few stadiums built with public funding make enough funding to cover all of their costs.

Both Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh and Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta were listed among the dozen or so unprofitable venues. With Atlanta’s stadium, the article claimed that it:

“…meets operating costs, but has not brought in enough money to pay off the

total principal and interest due each year on its capital debt of more than 20

million dollars. The city of Atlanta carries two thirds of the stadium’s financial

burdens, and Fulton County pays the rest.” 6

The only sports facilities that were not a complete fiscal failure for their cities were arenas, since their year-round use for a variety of events made profitability more likely. 7

However, when the Civic Arena was finally demolished in Pittsburgh in 2010, taxpayers still owed $9.3 million on the building. The debt was not scheduled to be fully retired

4 Ibid. 5 “More ‘White Elephant’ Stadiums,” U.S. News & World Report, 5 June 1978 from Allegheny Conference on Community Development papers, MSS 285, Box 238, Folder 15, Detre Library and Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.

259 until 2018. 8 Three Rivers Stadium still had $44 million in debt in 1999, just two years before it was demolished to make way for PNC Park and Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. 9

This dissertation is not, however, simply a story about land or finances – human lives were impacted by these decisions. The three cities selected, Pittsburgh, Los

Angeles, and Atlanta, were chosen because they represented something unique and/or groundbreaking in terms of stadium construction. Pittsburgh was home to one of the few team-owned Negro League baseball parks, as well as home to one of the first concrete and steel ballparks constructed in 1909. The city saw two separate stadium urban renewal projects, one that involved a multipurpose “cookie cutter” park, and one that constructed a hockey and performing arts arena. Los Angeles was the first city to construct a stadium using one-hundred percent public funding with the Memorial

Coliseum in the 1920s, and nearly forty years after that, the first city to construct a stadium using a mixture of public and private funds. Atlanta was one of the first cities to build a stadium without a specific team in mind – its leadership hoped to convince an established team to move to their city. It was also one of the first major southern cities to attempt to draw a professional sport, in this case baseball. These three cities, like many across the United States, saw their inner city communities negatively impacted by the new stadium construction. The cases examined in this dissertation represent only a few of the dozen or so cities that chose to destroy established urban neighborhoods in favor of new stadiums. These stadiums were supposed to help revitalize the city and boost the local economy, but they often failed and proved injurious to the urban fabric. Indeed, the

8 Jeremy Boren, “Pens gone, but Igloo $9.3 million in debt,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, May 14, 2010, (Accessed January 10, 2018). 9 Kevin Clark Forsythe, “The Stadium Game Pittsburgh Style: Observations on the Latest Round of Publicly Financed Sports Stadia in Steel Town, U.S.A.; and Comparisons with 28 Other Major League Teams,” Marquette Sports Law Review, Volume 10, Issue 2 Spring, Article 8, 2000.

260 stadiums not only replaced residential areas, they also evolved into self-contained “safe” venues that were themselves economically segregated and stratified.

The rise of sports as a major business began to emerge in the early twentieth century. It evolved, and reached its current state as a mega-business in the years after

World War II. That postwar period saw the concept of massive multipurpose stadiums and the concept of a stadium as both a playing field and a “marketplace.” There were now concession stands, and numerous stores and stalls that sold team-related merchandise. Another creation of this period was the creation of the “stadium club.”

This was an area of the stadium notable for its exclusivity; it typically contained a bar and/or a restaurant that was considered “higher-end” than the normal stadium fare. These often came with steep membership fees that few fans could afford. In order to access these areas, a season ticket holder may be able to pay an extra $250 above and beyond the cost of the tickets in order to gain access to this more “exclusive” area. In the case of

Dodger Stadium, their “club” was successful by “encouraging members to think of themselves as better situated than nonmembers.” The club members could even enter the stadium through a private entrance, ensuring that they would not have to interact with other fans. 10 Stadiums also added private suites, which could be rented or purchased by individuals or corporations at a steep price. While sports stadiums always separated fans by class based on the prices for tickets, this is the first time that stadiums included something so exclusionary. People that lived in the communities demolished to make way for these stadiums would likely never be able to afford to watch a game from one of

10 Jerald Podair, City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), Kindle edition, 253.

261 these private clubs. An elite club section was just another perk for the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the residents of these urban neighborhoods.

Near the turn of the twentieth century it was already clear that sports was increasingly viewed as a civic asset. City leaders and residents realized that sports teams allowed for bragging rights, and there was pride in the majestic new concrete and steel structures appearing across the eastern United States. Even though officials did not provide public financial support to teams and their stadiums in the early 1900s, the city’s identity was still intertwined with that of its increasingly popular sports teams. As the twentieth century progressed, team owners started to utilize that pride to their advantage.

Five different baseball teams shifted cities during the 1950s – the Braves moved from

Boston to Milwaukee, the Browns moved from St. Louis to Baltimore, the Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City, the Giants moved from New York to San

Francisco, and the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. City officials began to realize that these teams had no loyalty to their current locations if someone else offered a better deal. The Dodgers were extremely popular in Brooklyn, and once they moved it seemed like no city was safe from losing their team. Conversely, cities without teams developed plans to lure franchises to their town, while cities with teams developed plans to keep them from leaving for greener pastures. As baseball considered expansion, and the other professional sports gained in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, it meant that more and more cities were now in the market to make themselves “major league” with the acquisition of a professional sports team.

At times, city officials became so desperate to acquire or keep a team, they were willing to meet almost any demands. When teams (and even many fans) began to tire of

262 the multipurpose stadiums that opened during the 1960s and 1970s, they demanded new facilities. Instead of a structure that housed both baseball and football, now each sport required their own building – both funded with a percentage of public money. The multipurpose stadiums were supposed to bring in money for cities, satisfy both baseball and football teams and their fans, and serve as a massive, futuristic piece of architecture near the city center. However, in less than thirty years most people regretted their creation and wanted them replaced with new venues. As of 2018, the only one that remained was the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, which is considered an embarrassment to twenty-first century professional sports. Both of its tenants, baseball’s

Athletics and football’s Raiders, have made it very clear that they would like a new venue. After they tired of waiting, the Raiders finally announced that they will move to

Las Vegas by 2020.

If there are few financial benefits for cities when it comes to new stadiums, and they seem to cause more harm than good to the community, then why do cities continue to provide public funding to these venues? Certainly it is, in large part, the fear of losing a team with deep historical roots. This is particularly the case for rust belt cities, where, for years residents have watched both jobs and people, leave for other parts of the country. Allowing the local sports teams to join the exodus is unacceptable – when football’s Bengals threatened to leave Cincinnati if they did not get a new stadium, residents supported public funding for the new venue, despite hating the concept. A local reporter told authors Kevin J. Delaney and Rick Eckstein that residents believed, “We need to hang on to this so we don’t become another one of those Podunk towns that doesn’t have football.” Some of the residents polled said they “held their nose” and

263 voted yes on increasing the sales tax because “I don’t want the city to turn into Dayton.”

This was despite the fact that several of these people mentioned the fact that a wealthy team owner should not get a public handout. 11 In this story, there seemed to be few people that liked the idea of a public handout, but the loss of their team seemed even worse.

Caught in the middle of this fight to keep teams at any cost are the low-income people that happen to live on a piece of land that has come to be coveted by a team owner and city officials. In Pittsburgh and Atlanta African American families were forced out of their homes, while in Los Angeles Mexican American families were removed from the

Chavez Ravine neighborhood. In some of these cases people were promised more affordable and better quality housing. However, as this study shows, this was never the case once city government became complicit with franchise owners. In the case of

Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, civic officials saw these traditional neighborhoods as valuable real estate – land that could be put to “better” use. One Pittsburgh official admitted that perhaps the land in the Hill District should go to wealthy residents, like in

San Francisco’s Nob Hill. In other cases, it was seen as land that could be valuable to business interests, and which would economically benefit the adjacent downtown area.

While there were other businesses and government programs that displaced poor people from the urban core, none seemed to have been so compounded as that relating to sports development, a situation that had, at its core, the love-hate relationship of a city and its sports teams. This study shows that at times few residents or officials were thrilled to hand over benefits to sports teams, but then nobody wanted to contemplate the alternative

11 Kevin J. Delaney and Rick Eckstein, Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battle Over Building Sports Stadiums (New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press, 2003), Kindle edition, Loc. 775.

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– losing a team to a rival city. To hang onto teams, cities, and their residents, often paid the ultimate price.

265

Bibliography

Primary Sources

News Publications

Atlanta Daily World

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Chicago Tribune

Cleveland Call and Post

Cleveland Gazette

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Deadspin

Los Angeles Times

New York Times

Pittsburgh Courier

Pittsburgh Gazette

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat

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Sporting News

Washington Post