John F. Kennedy Stadium, formerlyPhiladelphia Municipal Stadium andSesquicentennial Stadium, was an open-air stadium inPhiladelphia that stood from 1926 to 1992. It was built of concrete, stone, and brick on a 13.5-acre (55,000 m2) tract inSouth Philadelphia.[1] It was located at the east side of the far southern end ofBroad Street, as part of theSesquicentennial, at a location which is now part of theSouth Philadelphia Sports Complex. It was designed by the architectural firm of Simon & Simon in a classic 1920s horseshoe shape resemblingHarvard Stadium, which was built in 1903.[2] The seating enclosed a football field surrounded by a running track. Bleachers were eventually added to the open (North) end of the stadium and at its peak the facility seated in excess of 102,000 people.
Each section of the main portion of the stadium contained its own entrance, which displayed the letters of each section above the entrance, in a nod to ancient Roman stadia. Section designators were divided at the south end of the stadium (the bottom of the "U" shape) between West and East, starting with Sections WA and EA and proceeding north. The north bleachers started with Section NA.
Leaders of Philadelphia's sports organizations gathered at the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce in March 1920 and announced their intention to build a 200,000 seat sports stadium to attract national and international sporting events. The city immediately submitted its candidacy to host the1924 Summer Olympics. At the time, the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field was the city's largest ballpark with a capacity of 30,000 seats; the Philadelphia Athletics'Shibe Park sat 23,000, and the Phillies'National League Park sat 18,000. The initial meeting in 1920 favored building the stadium as a memorial to the nation's war dead and placing it inFairmount Park at its entrance to theBenjamin Franklin Parkway.[3]
The stadium was built as part of the1926 Sesquicentennial International Exposition. Originally known as Sesquicentennial Stadium when it opened April 15, 1926, the structure was renamed Philadelphia Municipal Stadium[4] after the Exposition's closing ceremonies. In 1964, it was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium in memory of the35th President of the United States who had beenassassinated the year before inDallas.
The stadium's first tenants (in1926) were thePhiladelphia Quakers of thefirst American Football League, whose Saturday afternoon home games were a popular mainstay of the Exposition. The Quakers won the league championship but the league folded after one year.[citation needed]
TheFrankford Yellow Jackets also played here intermittently until the team's demise in 1931. Two years later, theNational Football League awarded another team to the city, thePhiladelphia Eagles. The Eagles had a four-season stint as tenants of the stadium before moving to Shibe Park for the 1940 season, although the team did play at Municipal in 1941. The Eagles also used the stadium for practices in the 1970s and 1980s, even locating their first practice bubble there before moving it to theVeterans Stadium parking lot following the stadium's condemnation.[citation needed]
The stadium became known chiefly as the "neutral" venue for a total of 41 annualArmy–Navy Games played there between 1936 and 1979. The streak was briefly broken duringWorld War II, when travel restrictions forced three games to be held on campus and one game to be played inBaltimore. From 1960 to 1970 the stadium served asNavy's home field when they playedNotre Dame. It also hosted the Notre Dame-Army game in 1957, marking the only time the Cadets have hosted the Fighting Irish outside of New York or New Jersey.[5] ThePennsylvania Railroad and its successors,Penn Central andConrail, offered game-day service to all Army-Navy games, using a sprawling temporary station constructed each year on the railroad's nearby Greenwich freight yard. The service, with 40-odd trains serving as many as 30,000 attendees, was the single largest concentrated passenger rail movement in the country.[6][7]
A.F. "Bud" Dudley, a formerVillanova University athletic-director, created theLiberty Bowl in Philadelphia in 1959. The game was played at Municipal Stadium and was the only cold-weather bowl game of its time. It was plagued by poor attendance; the1963 game betweenMississippi State andNC State drew less than 10,000 fans and absorbed a loss in excess of $40,000. The Liberty Bowl's best game was its first in 1959, when 38,000 fans watchedPenn State beatAlabama 7–0. However, even that crowd was swallowed up in the environment.Atlantic City convinced Dudley to move his game from Philadelphia to Atlantic City'sConvention Hall for1964. 6,059 fans sawUtah routWest Virginia in the first indoor bowl game. Dudley moved the game toMemphis in 1965 where it has been played since.[8]
The stadium hosted Philadelphia's City Title high school football championship game in 1939 and 1978.St. Joe's Prep defeatedNortheast, 27–6, in 1939.Frankford beatArchbishop Wood, 27–7, in heavy rain in 1978.[9]
On September 16, 1950, theCleveland Browns, playing their first season in the NFL after dominating the defunctAll-America Football Conference (winning all four league titles), played their first NFL game against the two-time defending NFL ChampionPhiladelphia Eagles as a prelude to what would eventually in time become theNFL kickoff game. Philadelphia was the center of the professional football universe at the time; not only did the city host the defending NFL champions, but the league offices were also in town, headed up by NFL commissioner (and Philadelphia native)Bert Bell. To accommodate the anticipated ticket demand, the game was moved fromShibe Park; this proved to be a wise decision, as the contest drew a then NFL-record 71,237 — virtually doubling the Eagles' prior attendance record of 38,230. Many thought Bell had scheduled this game of defending league champions to teach the upstarts from the AAFC a lesson. Instead, the Browns shredded the Eagles' vaunted defense in a 35–10 rout and went on to win the NFL Championship that first year in the league.
In 1958, some 15,000 fans attended aCFL game between theHamilton Tiger-Cats and theOttawa Rough Riders with proceeds from ticket sales going to local charities. (Hamilton won, 24–18, in what remains the only regular-season CFL game played between two Canadian teams outside of Canada.)
The stadium was home to thePhiladelphia Bell of theWorld Football League in 1974. The Bell seemed to give the WFL instant credibility when it announced a crowd of 55,534 for the home opener, and 64,719 for the second home game. However, when the Bell paid city taxes on the attendance figures two weeks later, it emerged that the gates had been wildly inflated. The team sold block tickets to area businesses at a discount, and the tax revenue was not reported. In turn, many of these businesses gave away the tickets for free. The actual paid attendance for the home opener was only 13,855, while the paid attendance for the second game was only 6,200—and many ofthose tickets were sold well below face value. The "Papergate" scandal made the Bell and the WFL look foolish, and proved to be a humiliation from which neither recovered. The team played atFranklin Field in 1975; the league folded late into that season.
On September 23, 1926, an announced crowd of 120,557 packed the then-new Stadium during a rainstorm to witnessGene Tunneycapture the world heavyweight boxing title fromJack Dempsey. UndefeatedRocky Marcianoknocked outJersey Joe Walcott at the stadium on September 23, 1952, to win boxing's heavyweight championship.
JFK Stadium was one of fifteen United States stadiums (and along withFranklin Field, also in Philadelphia) inspected by a five-memberFIFA committee in April 1988 in the evaluation of the United States as a possible host of the1994 FIFA World Cup.[12] By the time the World Cup was held in 1994, JFK Stadium had already been demolished two years prior.
ThePhiladelphia Flyers won their secondStanley Cup on May 27,1975. The next day they celebrated with a parade downBroad Street that ended at the stadium. Five years later, thePhiladelphia Phillies won their firstWorld Series on October 21 of that year. The following day, the team paraded the exact route.In 1981, The Rolling Stones announced their World Tour via a press conference at JFK.[13]Through 1989, theBroad Street Run course ended with a lap around the track at the stadium.
JFK Stadium was known for hosting some of the largest and most prominent rock music acts of the late 20th century, including (but by no means limited to):
August 13, 1977:Led Zeppelin was scheduled to conclude their1977 North American tour at the stadium, but the final five concerts of the tour were cancelled following the death ofRobert Plant's five-year-old son Karac. The original Led Zeppelin never played in the U.S. again, although the surviving members, including Plant,Jimmy Page, andJohn Paul Jones (drummerJohn Bonham died in 1980 frompulmonary aspiration following excessive alcohol intake) reunited to perform atLive Aid at John F. Kennedy Stadium on July 13, 1985.[15]
September 25 and 26, 1981:The Rolling Stones opened their1981 U.S. Tour in support of their new albumTattoo You with two shows at JFK Stadium, in front of 90,000 fans each night. Opening acts included Journey andGeorge Thorogood & the Destroyerss.Mick Jagger met the press at JFK Stadium on August 26, 1981, to announce the tour. Apparently in honor of the old stadium's football heritage and thePhiladelphia Eagles' recent NFC championship, Jagger performed in something resembling a pair of football trousers and knee pads and a Philadelphia Eagles jersey that became part of his stage wardrobe for the rest of the tour. The Rolling Stones pre-opened the tour with a warm-up show at the Sir Morgan's Cove club inWorcester, Massachusetts, on September 14, 1981.
June 19, 1982: An all-day festival called the J.F.K jam featuredHuey Lewis & the News,Joan Jett and the Black Hearts,Loverboy,The Kinks and headlinerForeigner, who were touring their 6×-platinum "4" album and inflated a colorful, 30-foot-high facsimile of a Wurlitzer-style jukebox as they performed "Juke Box Hero" in the show's final minutes.
August 21, 1982:Blondie concluded theirTracks Across America Tour at the stadium. They disbanded shortly after it when guitaristChris Stein was diagnosed with a rare life-threatening disease known aspemphigus; the band's final album,The Hunter, had also sold poorly. They did not perform live again until 15 years later, in 1997.Genesis was the headliner and used the open air stadium for one of their spectacular nighttime laser and fireworks shows. The show started at 3pm and also featuredElvis Costello &The Attractions,A Flock of Seagulls, andRobert Hazard & The Heroes.
September 25, 1982:The Who performed at the stadium early in what was then labeled theirFarewell Tour, which also supported their albumIt's Hard. Opening acts wereSantana,The Clash, andThe Hooters. Total attendance was 91,451, one of the largest ticketed single-show, non-festival stadium concerts ever held in the U.S., according toBillboard.[17]
September 1984:The Jacksons performed at the stadium for four sold-out shows during theirVictory Tour with 200,000 in attendance, one of the largest audiences of the tour.
July 10, 1987:Bob Dylan andThe Grateful Dead performed in front of 70,000-plus on a day when it was 90 °F in the shade and fans near the stage were sprayed with water.
September 19, 1987:Pink Floyd performed at the stadium in front of a crowd of over 120,000, which included general admission on the field, and the show was still not sold out to full capacity.[citation needed]
July 7, 1989: The stadium's last concert wasGrateful Dead withBruce Hornsby & The Range as the opening act. Fans at the show recall concrete crumbling and the stadium's bathrooms in poor shape. The Dead closed the show with "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", which proved to be the last live song played at the last official performance in the stadium.[18] Twenty-one years later, in 2010, the recording of this concert was released on a CD/DVD combination, titledCrimson White & Indigo.
August 28 and 29, 1989: In preparation for opening their 1989Steel Wheels Tour at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on August 31, 1989,The Rolling Stones set up their stage inside JFK Stadium for two full dress-rehearsal performances on August 28 and 29, 1989. A few dozen fans were allowed to enter the stadium to attend these rehearsals.[citation needed]
Six days after the Grateful Dead's 1989 show,Mayor Wilson Goode condemned the stadium due to multiple findings by city inspectors that the stadium was structurally unsafe as well as a potential fire hazard. Just hours before the concert, city inspectors had discovered piles of combustible materials, numerous electrical problems, and crumbling and/or falling concrete. By this time, some 20,000 people were already in the stadium, with another 20,000 in line waiting to enter. The Grateful Dead were only allowed to perform due to strict no-smoking regulations that had been enacted some time before.[19]
While renovation and repairs of the stadium were discussed, this was quickly rejected due to the exceedingly high costs, and it was demolished on September 23, 1992.[20][21][22][23]
^Antonick, John (June 22, 2005)."Unique Game".West Virginia Mountaineers. MSNsportsNET.com. Archived fromthe original on May 26, 2011. RetrievedApril 26, 2009.
†= Team's stadium under construction or refurbishment at time 1 = A team used the stadium when their permanent stadium was unable to be used as a result of damage.
_by_Grif_Teller%2c_1955.jpg)
