The First Day of the 2013 Baseball Season

Hello All:

First, I'm excited that pageviews for this blog have gone up into the triple digits.  Thanks for your support and keep reading.  I enjoy sharing with you my thoughts on Historic Preservation, Urban Planning, and Design.

Today, this being the first day of the 2013 Baseball season,  I thought I'd take a look at venerable Los Angeles institution, Dodger Stadium.  For those of you who live in Los Angeles you know the place, just north of Downtown Los Angeles in Chavez Ravine.  Dodger Stadium is the third oldest continuously used baseball park in the United States.  The stadium began its life when Dodger President  Walter O'Malley lobbied the City of Brooklyn, where the team originated, for a new stadium.  When a deal couldn't be reached, he moved the team to Los Angeles.  The Dodgers first home was the Los Angeles Coliseum, where they played between 1957 and 1961.  The stadium project was controversial because it caused the forced displacement of the Latino residents of Chavez, in a rather racist application of Takings and Eminent Domain.  Opening Day took place on April 10, 1962.  Since then, Dodger Stadium has hosted 147 million fans, All-Star Games, Olympic Baseball competition, the World Series, Papal Mass in 1987, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, and U2 (losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/la/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=history).  Since 1962, the stadium has undergone renovations in order to enhance the fans' experience and address the most pressing issue, parking.  Hey it's L.A.

The most recent renovations took place under the new owners, Guggenheim Baseball Management, carried out during the offseason.  The budget was $100 million and you would think that it would've produced some significant architectural transformation.  Not really, at least not obviously.  The outfield scoreboard is bigger and show high-definition images.  There have been upgrades to the locker rooms, batting cages, and to the wireless system.  According to Janet Marie Smith, the Dodger Director of Planning and Development, the goal of the upgrades was to improve the infrastructure in order to change how the fans think about and interact with the stadium.  The aim of Smith and her associates was to make Dodger Stadium more public.  O.k. I always thought it was a pretty public place.

I guess the real question is how much more public ballpark the stadium will become under the new owners, that is its engagement with Downtown Los Angeles.  Truth be told, the stadium isn't as public as one would think.  News to me.  The stadium was designed by engineer/architect Emil Praeger and Walter O'Malley to produce a private individualized experience as humanly possible in place that seats 56,000.  To that end, there's no main entrance or central plaza.  The stadium was designed for the Los Angeles car culture-fans could drive just about drive up to the place, park in a massive circular lot near their section, and enter through one of eleven portals.  Yeah right, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've gone to game and one really killer Bowie concert, parked a mile away from my seat.  Inside, you experience cheering for the home team with thousands of your new best friends in an almost tribal rite that takes place between April and September (October, please??).  However, circulating from one level to another is an adventure since the stairs and escalators are hidden.

The relationship between Dodger Stadium has been, for lack of a better word, a paradox.  It is in the middle of Los Angeles but apart from it.  While you can see the magnificent downtown skyline, you can't see the stadium from the downtown.  The ballpark is sunk into the hillside giving it a shy quality, unusual for something this big and well-known.  The detachment seems to be part of the attraction.  It was intended to make the visitor feel as though he/she were leaving the city to go to this idyllic place-Elysian Park.  Paradox-part of the Los Angeles character.  However, the city in 2013 is a far cry from the city in 1962.  It's bigger more diverse and embracing non-automobile transportation.

Janet Marie Smith was hired by team President Stan Kasten after spending time with the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, and Baltimore Orioles.  Smith brought on board noted architect Brenda Levin, landscape architect Mia Lehrer and Thomas Quirk of the Massachusetts firm D'Agostino Izzo Quirk Architects.  Previous changes were limited to the lower bowl of the stadium during the much hated reign of Frank McCourt.  Most of the new work is centered around the outside of the stadium, particularly redesigning the sequence that moves fans from their cars to their seats.  There's still no single entry point but the exterior walkways have been push outward, about thirty-five feet, into the parking lot.  Play areas, planters, and souvenir shops were inserted into the spaces carved out by the walkways.  Inside the stadium, the last few rows of seats from section on four levels were removed and replaced with drink rails so fans could stop and watch the game standing up.  The effect of removing the seats was a widening of the concourses and made it easier to see the game.  Quirk and his firm also redesigned two sections of field level seats to improve the sightlines.

Reconfiguring some of the parking lots, the team said they've kept the same number of spaces.  The seating capacity is down, but the team thinks it could make up the difference by selling standing-room seats.  Really?  who wants to stand for three hours?  The new signage pays better attention to Dodger history, especially the Brooklyn years.  The motivating factor behind making the stadium more public is the bottom line.  Get the fans to spend more money.  Of course, Guggenheim Baseball Management didn't buy the team out of any sense of altruism.  Further, by making this most private stadium more public minded, it retains its original architectural character defining features, which is could for any potential historic designation.

The goal of the new owners is huge and the step being taken are hesitant.  A shuttle from Union Station, a cooperative effort between the Metro Transit Authority and the Dodgers beginning this year, will use a dedicated lane on Sunset Boulevard.  The long term plans for the excess land on the periphery of the parking remain unclear.  The stadium sits on 260 acres and only some of it is used for cars.  The unused land holds a great deal for potential for some really big ideas and a rethink the team's relationship with city.  Some ideas include, a solar array, housing, tie itself to the city's transit network.  How about something really radical, razing Dodger Stadium and building a ballpark downtown, freeing up Chavez Ravine for new uses.  NO WAY SACRILEGIOUS.  These are just some of the questions as the new baseball season gets underway in Los Angeles.  These questions have implications for other sports venues across the United States as cities expand and become more regional.