Four Decades of Stadium Planning in Detroit, 1936-1975
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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2016 Olympic Bids, Professional Sports, and Urban Politics: Four Decades of Stadium Planning in Detroit, 1936-1975 Jeffrey R. Wing Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Wing, Jeffrey R., "Olympic Bids, Professional Sports, and Urban Politics: Four Decades of Stadium Planning in Detroit, 1936-1975" (2016). Dissertations. 2155. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2155 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2016 Jeffrey R. Wing LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO OLYMPIC BIDS, PROFESSIONAL SPORTS, AND URBAN POLITICS: FOUR DECADES OF STADIUM PLANNING IN DETROIT, 1936-1975 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN HISTORY BY JEFFREY R. WING CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2016 Copyright by Jeffrey R. Wing, 2016 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this dissertation often seemed like a solitary exercise, but I couldn’t have accomplished it alone. I would like to thank Professor Elliott Gorn for his advice and support over the past few years. The final draft is much more focused than I envisioned when I began the process, and I have Prof. Gorn to thank for that. His suggestions and comments on each of my drafts made my writing more concise, and he challenged me to consider the story of stadium-building in Detroit as part of a broader examination of the connection between professional sports and urban politics during the mid-twentieth century. I must also thank Professors Timothy Gilfoyle and Michelle Nickerson for their helpful suggestions during the dissertation proposal stage and at the dissertation defense. My early ideas for this dissertation were so broad that I would have been stuck writing a 1,000-page manuscript, but their thoughtful questions and recommendations saved me from that fate. I would also like to thank Prof. Gilfoyle for serving as the chair of my dissertation proposal and reading several versions of my proposal before I presented it to the committee. On a more personal note, I have several people who helped make this possible. My wife’s parents gave me a place to stay during my research trips to Michigan, and they have encouraged me since the beginning of the dissertation process. I must also thank my mom and dad for their support and encouragement. They have always believed in me iii and knew that I would eventually finish this project, even if I was unsure at times. This dissertation would not have been possible without them. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Lyndsay, for everything she has done for me over the past six years. On more than one occasion, she has pushed me out the door to go the library and work. Lyndsay has also taken on so much of the responsibility for our daughter, Natalie, so I could write and edit chapters on the weekends. She has been my cheerleader and best friend, and she has helped me see the light at the end of the tunnel. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: “A SPLENDID AID TO CIVIC DEVELOPMENT”: THE EARLY YEARS OF THE DETROIT OLYMPIC COMMITTEE AND THE SEARCH FOR AN OLYMPIC STADIUM SITE 19 Fred Matthaei and the Establishment of the Detroit Olympic Committee 19 To Build or Not to Build: The Stadium Debate Begins 27 Choosing a Stadium Site 31 Olympic Politics 41 Obstacles to Stadium Construction 51 1964 Games: Another Bid, Another Disappointment 54 CHAPTER TWO: “THIS IS THE ERA OF THE ‘HAVE-NOTS’”: OLYMPIC BIDS AND STADIUM PLANNING IN THE 1960S 58 Olympic Bids in an Era of Protest 61 Stadium Funding and Its Challenges 68 Stadium Construction and Urban Redevelopment 74 Renovating the State Fairgrounds 84 Ford and Fetzer Remain Uncommitted to Fairgrounds Location 87 Where to Build? Debating the Fairgrounds Location 93 Stadium Design: Taking Cues from Projects in Other Cities 97 CHAPTER THREE: STADIUM STALEMATE: WILLIAM CLAY FORD CONSIDERS LEAVING DETROIT 101 Downtown Stadium Plan Gains Momentum 104 1967 Riot Temporarily Delays Stadium Planning 112 Ford’s Frustration Continues; Lions Issue Their Own Stadium Study 114 Fairgrounds Keeps Fighting But Local Press Favors Downtown 117 Suburbs Join the Stadium Debate 121 Boosterism and the Stadium Boom 124 Franchise Relocation and Its Effect on Stadium Construction 127 Professional Sports and Urban Politics 131 Conclusion: Stalemate in Detroit Leads Ford to Move Ahead with Pontiac Plan 134 CHAPTER FOUR: “SYMBOLS ARE IMPORTANT”: DETROIT AND ITS SUBURBS COMPETE FOR “BIG LEAGUE” STATUS, 1969-1971 136 1969: The Downtown Stadium Plan Gains Momentum 139 1970: Pontiac Makes a Serious Push for Ford’s Attention 163 1971: Ford’s Decision and Its Effect on the Downtown Stadium Plan 176 v CHAPTER FIVE: “BOON OR BOONDOGGLE?”: OPPOSITION GROUPS FIGHT BACK AGAINST RIVERFRONT STADIUM PLAN 185 Construction Costs and Financing Issues Delay Stadium Progress 189 The Lawsuit and the Beginning of the End for the Riverfront Stadium Plan 204 The Pontiac Stadium Plan Continues Forward 214 Detroit’s Riverfront Stadium Plan Falls Apart 217 CONCLUSION 221 BIBLIOGRAPHY 229 VITA 241 vi ABSTRACT Between 1936 and 1975, political and business leaders in Detroit tried to gain support for the financing and construction of a municipal stadium. The stadium plan originated as part of an attempt to bring the Summer Olympics to the city. The municipal stadium was to serve as the main Olympic stadium and be used for a variety of events after the Olympics were finished. Later, after Detroit leaders gave up on the Olympics after several failed bids, the stadium plan evolved into a domed facility on the downtown riverfront for the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, the city’s professional baseball and football teams. This dissertation examines the attempts of political and business leaders in Detroit to build a municipal sports stadium over the course of four decades in order to illuminate key themes in Detroit history. A thorough examination of the city’s efforts to build a multi-purpose stadium contributes to a more nuanced depiction of the city’s growth and decline throughout the twentieth century. Detroit became an important industrial center with the rise of the American automobile industry during the first half of the century and became a symbol of urban decay, racial warfare, and poverty by the 1980s. Exploring the municipal stadium story within this process of growth and decline will illuminate the history of urban politics, planning, race, and economics in Detroit. Several sport historians have analyzed the growth of professional sports as part of American urbanization and modernization, but few scholarly treatments have assessed the specific political and economic factors which led to the planning and construction of professional sports facilities and the cultural significance which city residents attached to vii those facilities. Most studies of urban sport history focus on major cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago, but they have neglected many cities of the industrial Midwest, including Detroit. An examination of the history of Detroit’s failed attempt to build a municipal stadium contributes to a clearer understanding about the role of urban politics, economics, and culture in the Rust Belt, particularly in terms of Detroit’s political economy during this period and the growing political and economic power of suburbs during the mid-twentieth century. viii INTRODUCTION In August 1975, the Detroit Lions of the National Football League began play in the brand-new Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium (later known as the Pontiac Silverdome), after four decades in Detroit. The new facility was the largest domed stadium in the world upon opening, with a capacity of more than 80,000. Although the Lions were perennial also-rans in their division for more than a decade, more than fifty thousand Detroit area residents bought their season tickets before a single game was played. The new facility promised to be an economic boon for the city of Pontiac and the Detroit metropolitan area, pumping an estimated $33 million into the local economy and creating around 2,000 jobs on football game days.1 The Pontiac stadium issue was resolved after a lengthy battle between Detroit city and business leaders and Lions owner William Clay Ford over the location of a new stadium in the Detroit metropolitan area. But the full story stretches back much farther. Detroit civic leaders had tried to gain support, acquire funds, and develop plans for a municipal stadium since the mid-1930s. In 1936, the establishment of the Detroit Olympic Committee represented the first organized effort to construct a publicly funded, multi-purpose sport facility in the Motor City. After successive failures to secure an Olympic bid for the city throughout the 1940s and 1950s, stadium supporters proposed that the facility be constructed as a home for the city’s professional sports teams instead, 1 “Pontiac, Mich. Stadium ‘a symbol,’” Chicago Daily Herald, 18 June 1975. 1 2 rather than solely for the purpose of hosting a Summer Olympiad. William Clay Ford and Detroit Tigers owner John Fetzer were intrigued by the thought of a modern stadium in Detroit, as long as the facility met their specific demands and requirements. In early 1969, Detroit leaders began planning for a multi-purpose, downtown, domed stadium along Detroit’s riverfront to house both the Lions and baseball’s Detroit Tigers.