Live chat with Brett Abrams
Abrams is author of Capital Sporting Grounds: A History of Stadium and Ballpark Construction in Washington, D.C. What would you like to know about the history of stadiums in our nation’s capital?
| Live chat with Brett Abrams | (04/07/2009) |
1:53 | GreaterGreaterWashington: Welcome to our live chat with Brett Abrams, author of Capital Sporting Grounds: A History of Stadium and Ballpark Construction in Washington, D.C. |
1:54 | Brett Abrams: Good afternoon. |
1:54 | GreaterGreaterWashington: We’ll get started in just a few minutes. In the meantime, feel free to submit your questions. |
2:01 | David Alpert: Welcome, Brett. Thanks for joining us. |
2:01 | Brett Abrams: Good to be here on Greater Greater Washington. |
2:01 | David Alpert: What made you decide to write a book specifically on the topic of stadiums in Washington DC? |
2:02 | Brett Abrams: The controversy on the Nationals Stadium constantly promised economic development in exchange for building the stadium and that has been a specious argument. |
2:03 | Brett Abrams: I wondered what rationales advocates for stadiums in Washington used in the past. |
2:03 | David Alpert: Speaking of public funding, several people have asked questions about our current stadium debates. Let’s start there and then go back into history a bit. |
2:03 | [Comment From Michael Perkins ] Mr. Abrams, thanks for chatting with us today. Do you think that taxpayer funding of stadiums makes sense today? Do they provide enough benefit to justify public funding? |
2:04 | Brett Abrams: stadiums can sometimes be worthwhile to the city but the leaders have to engage in a long, strenuous negotiation with the team owner. |
2:04 | Brett Abrams: unfortunately, most of the time, the negotiations seem more like extortion. |
2:05 | [Comment From Cavan ] If public funding is a bad idea, what other tools should a jurisdiction use to encourage a stadium situation that is good for all parties? |
2:07 | Brett Abrams: The city has the name and the population as potential neogtiation tools. |
2:08 | Brett Abrams: Washington is the national capital and has beautiful and historic locations for a stadium. However, most of the time team owners think about their financial well being. |
2:09 | [Comment From David Alpert ] Your book talks about many other sites for stadiums that would have been even more “public” like sites on the Mall, which leaders considered in the 1930s. For the benefit of the readers who haven’t gotten to read the book, can you give a brief overview of those Mall sites that were under consideration? |
2:10 | Brett Abrams: The Captial Planning Commission and the Park Service along with the Board of Trade pushed for a stadium right at the end of East Capitol Street. They envisioned an Avenue of the Staes, with each state having a building in which to conduct business running the length of East Capitol. |
2:11 | Brett Abrams: The Stadium would sit at the end of this grand street and would serve as a balance to the west side of the Mall. |
2:12 | Brett Abrams: One of the earliest ideas was a Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Stadium situated within a plaza to balance with the Lincoln Memorial. The urban planners liked symmetry. |
2:12 | David Alpert: They also considered locations on the Ellipse and near what’s now the National Archvies, right? |
2:12 | David Alpert: And East Potomac Park? |
2:13 | Brett Abrams: Yes, the East Potomac Park Stadium was p[art of a larger Public Recreation Plan designed by the Army Corps of Engineers. |
2:14 | Brett Abrams: The existing golf course emerged from those plans. The plans illustrated that the government wanted a stadium for the Army-Navy Game but they also wanted a place that District residents could use for their own recreational purposes. |
2:15 | [Comment From David Alpert ] Our conception of the Mall seems to have shifted from more of a city park like Central Park, mainly for the purpose of recreation, to the current system which is mostly for tourists. (Though that view is still controversial.) What precipitated that shift? Is that just a very recent conception of the Mall since the Vietnam War Memorial was built? |
2:16 | Brett Abrams: The culture has shifted from the civic ideal of the Progressive Era that sparked plans such as the East Potomac PArk and the swimming pools created in NYC under Robert Moses.
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2:16 | David Alpert: Cavan points out something about East Potomac: |
2:16 | [Comment From Cavan ] East Potomac Park would have made sense for a stadium because since it’s artificial land. No one has ever lived there since it’s on top of infill on top of natural sand bar that was only above water during the lowest tides. |
2:17 | Brett Abrams: Fortunately, the DC Kickball group and the softball leagues are using the Mall for the purposes of game playing. It is an open question as to whether they ought to pay to use the Mall for a money making purpose. |
2:17 | David Alpert: I’m curious if you have thoughts about why we lost that civic ideal and whether it’s something we can get back. |
2:18 | Brett Abrams: The East Potomac Park stadium idea lasted up to the 1950s. In the book there is an open debate between a letter writer to the Post and US Grant III on the use of that park for a stdium. Grant wanted to locate the stadium in Anacostia Park to fulfill the idea of balance with the Mall. |
2:19 | Brett Abrams: Isn’t one part of Obama’s appeal that he is promising a return to greater concern and compassion for the well being of our citizenry and citizens? |
2:19 | David Alpert: Good point. |
2:20 | [Comment From Michael Perkins ] In your mind, what was DC’s best stadium for the local community? Which was the worst? |
2:21 | Brett Abrams: The most intriguing stadium is the American League Park I, located on H and Florida, NE from 1901-1903. If that had been successful we can hardly imagine what that would have meant to the development of the east side of DC. |
2:22 | Brett Abrams: The worst stadium would be building a new one in Anacostia Park so that DC could host a Super Bowl once decade. |
2:24 | David Alpert: Was that H Street stadium unsuccessful just because of its franchise, or did the location not work as well? |
2:24 | Brett Abrams: There was limited and erractic street car service to Eckington and other portions of the eastern section of the city at that time. If the team had been successful and drawn bigger crowds, the area around H St, NE and toward Benning Road would have flourished sooner and striven to serve the stadium and its customers. |
2:25 | David Alpert: That was a real-word stadium we actually got. How about the ones we didn’t: |
2:25 | Brett Abrams: Newspaper reports carried complaints about having to take two erractic trolleys to the park rather than the single line up Seventh Street. Still, a successful team would have resulted in high attendance and a change in the street car operations. |
2:25 | [Comment From David Alpert ] If you could pick one of the historic stadium plans to have gotten built, which one would it be? Would you choose the East Capitol stadium we got, or a different plan elsewhere? |
2:26 | Brett Abrams: In the mid-1930s, architect Jule H. de Sibour and George Preseton Marshall patented a retractable roof stadium and proposed that it be built in Anacostia Park. That was visionary! |
2:27 | [Comment From Geoff Hatchard ] old Griffith Stadium was built into the neighborhood (to the extent that the outfield wall had nooks to go around the back yards of houses in Ledroit Park), and the new ballpark wasn’t built into an existing neighborhood, though it’s been pitched as a catalyst for neighborhood development. do you think that a new neighborhood can really grow up around the ballpark, or will it remain more “Disneyfied” than “Wrigleyville-esque” in the future? |
2:30 | Brett Abrams: The old parks, like Griffith, built for an American Association team in 1891, were placed where space was available. The new ones lack that type of limitation and can be Disney-like because of that. Is there anything immediately nearby the new stadium that offers that kind of warehouse that Camden Yards has? I don’t think so, so therefore I’m leaning toward Disneylike. |
2:31 | Brett Abrams: I also liked the proposal for a 200,000-seat stadium that would have been a World War I and WWII memorial. Had that been built, would we have the current WWII memorial? |
2:32 | David Alpert: I wonder how many people would have preferred that. |
| 2:32 | Which would have been better on the site of the WWII Memorial? The WWII memorial ( 75% ) ( 25% ) |
2:33 | Brett Abrams: Give that the proposal was from 1945, I imagine it would have been blown up by now. Which makes me wonder, when the DC United leave RFK, will they be blowing that up and if so, when? |
2:33 | David Alpert: OK, many people are interested in discussing the economics of stadiums and teams. |
2:33 | Brett Abrams: sure |
2:33 | [Comment From Michael Perkins ] Without public funding, can you even keep a sports team in a city anymore? Won’t some other city decide to outbid you? |
2:33 | [Comment From Geoff Hatchard ] What do you think, in the long run, of the movement of franchises into and out of the city (such as the Redskins leaving and the talk of them coming back, and United’s pending departure)? Is it simply a matter of money, or do you see another motivating factor as key? |
2:34 | Brett Abrams: Generally yes. However, Washington has a television market that is large. Problem was Angelos handicapped the city on that negotiation point. |
2:35 | David Alpert: What did Angelos do that handicapped the city? |
2:35 | Brett Abrams: Redskins are intriguing. Cooke wanted a new stadium since 1981. He wanted to maximize his profits but he also generally wanted to stay in DC. The biggest obstacle was the location issue. They focused on Anacostia Park. which is landfill and polluted. EPA had to do a environmental impact statement on the area |
2:36 | Brett Abrams: Angelos bargained with the other baseball owners to hold the leverage over the cable television network (MSN). |
2:37 | Brett Abrams: EPA would have found problems with building on the site without a massive cleanup. |
2:37 | [Comment From Squalish ] Is it possible to use a modern mega-football stadium (100k seats plus extensive boxes) often enough to justify putting it into a city center? What are the most diverse usage profiles for stadiums that get beyond the paltry ‘8 games a year’ without being designed as dual-sport structures? |
2:38 | Brett Abrams: Football stadium’s limited use makes them extremely problematic. In most cities, the area where the stadium sits is barren most of the year. How many mega concerts can be booked for stadiums that aren’t going to the Verison Center or Wolf Trap etc. |
2:38 | [Comment From Ed (DC) ] Politics aside, how economically feasible do you think DC United’s vision of a mid-sized (24,000-seat) mixed-use stadium is? Would a stadium that doubles as a concert venue, on a Metro line, be able to compete with Merriweather and Nissan to the point where it could work financially? |
2:40 | Brett Abrams: There are a limited number of concerts and other events so they may compete but they would also be draining those businesses. Scholars who have examined public funding and the economic development argument have noted that the development of restaurants and other stores would have happened anyway, somewhere else in the city. |
2:41 | David Alpert: What about our last stadium fight: |
2:41 | Brett Abrams: Note that Jack Johnson, the PG County Exec, noted that the benefit to the County would be mostly cultural. |
2:42 | Brett Abrams: That’s debateable because it you watch an NFL Redskin telecast, they show images of the Capitol and other DC landmarks not PG locations. The Redskins still kept the Washington name as well. |
2:43 | David Alpert: I suppose you could argue that DC got the best of both worlds as a result. |
2:41 | [Comment From Michael Perkins ] Do you think DC got a good deal when it came to the Nationals Ballpark? |
| 2:41 | In hindsight, is DC better off having done the Nationals ballpark deal, with all its costs, or worse off? Better off ( 79% ) ( 21% ) |
2:44 | Brett Abrams: The city took a hard hit financially. My question is, has the ownership lived up to their part of the bargain? |
2:45 | Brett Abrams: What a city pays for, is the cache of having a winning team and getting the attention in the media that comes with being in league championships. Is that worth the cash? |
2:45 | Brett Abrams: Look at the headlines regarding Michigan State and Detroit with the NCAAs. |
2:45 | David Alpert: Here are some questions from people who seem to think so: |
2:45 | [Comment From William ] Doesn’t the District., sandwiched by VA and MD, drawing entertainment dollars into the city make DC different from other jurisdictions where suburb and city share a more common tax base in terms of advantage for the District to host sports venues? |
2:47 | Brett Abrams: Your are right that the city gets tax revenue from the visitors. However, what is currently happening is there is a small turnout for games so the revenue pool is small too. I like the location of the new stadium and I hope the team can become successful so that it will draw. |
2:47 | [Comment From Cavan ] Do you find it ironic that in the past 40 or so years, the offers from team management to fund 100% of construction costs have been no more successful at being approved than projects that use public money? |
2:48 | Brett Abrams: Yes, but there are exceptions. Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami is a very successful privately-funded stadium. |
2:49 | [Comment From Cavan ] Have you heard any arguments on either side of the D.C. United stadium issue that aren’t a repeat from previous stadium issues in our region? |
2:49 | Brett Abrams: The Oakland A’s situation was interesting. The people in Fremont, CA forced the team and city to go through an EIS (environmental impact statement). The team volunteered to pay it then backed off when they realized that citizens were going to protest over parking and traffic issues as well. |
2:51 | Brett Abrams: It was pleasant to hear Johnson admit that the cultural benefit was as important as the economic development rationale. Otherwise, I think we are stuck on the economic development rationale, which is partly the result of the lcak of focus on a civic ideal. |
2:52 | [Comment From Geoff Hatchard ] Do you think the move to upgrade all the high school football stadiums in the city is a good one, or is it a long term money sink? What about baseball? Should there be a move to include grounds for other sports at all high schools in the city? |
2:52 | Brett Abrams: Wow, that question of school funding is so loaded. lol |
2:53 | [Comment From Geoff Hatchard ] sorry, it wasn’t meant to be! |
2:54 | Brett Abrams: There is a valid argument to be made that having grounds for athletics are important for the physical and mental well being of the school aged and adults in the city. How much that costs gets back to governments being able to effectively negotiate with private and the public workforces that would be involved in getting the job done. |
2:54 | David Alpert: Finally, let’s talk about comparisons across cities a bit. |
2:55 | Brett Abrams: Civic ideal is absent from the National Park where as it was a portion of the new Yankee Stadium—-putting in public amenities, etc. Why haven’t the Nationals stepped up on the issue of monies for baseball fields in DC. Wouldn’t that build interest in their business? |
2:54 | [Comment From David Alpert ] Were you able to research other cities for your book? Was DC more favorable or hostile to the idea of a stadium than in other cities during the 20th Century? What about now? |
2:56 | Brett Abrams: DC was hampered by the governing structure of having to have Congress vote for funding. |
2:57 | Brett Abrams: There was such support on the House and Senate DC Committees but so little support elsewhere in the Congress. In fact, you can read resentment in many of the comments. |
2:57 | [Comment From Michael Perkins ] The pattern in DC was that the multipurpose arena (Verizon Center) served as the nucleus of a rapidly growing downtown. Is that pattern the norm for other cities? |
2:57 | David Alpert: And relatedly, since we’re almost out of time: |
2:57 | [Comment From Jason ] Though this is more an arena question than a stadium question, would downtown Washington have recovered sooner had the proposed Eisenhower Center arena been built in the early 70’s rather than the Capital Centre? |
2:58 | Brett Abrams: Not in cities like Philadelphia, where the stadiums sit near the bridge in South Philly. Boston’s Fleet Center is in the North End but the Big Dig had more to do with opening that area up then getting rid of the Boston Garden. |
3:00 | Brett Abrams: It would have been interesting if the Bullets and Caps had been in the city for all those years. I think the Version Center came at an upswing in the market that might not have been available in the 1970s in DC. Look at how much the entertainment area in Manhattan changed in the early 90s as compared to its 1970s look. |
3:00 | David Alpert: Well, that’s all the time we have for today. |
3:01 | David Alpert: Thanks very much to Brett Abrams for joining us. I learned a lot! |
3:01 | Brett Abrams: David, what are your thoughts regarding civic virtue. How can the city officials push the team to work on building Washington pride. |
3:02 | David Alpert: I’ll try to write a post about that excellent question. I think we can’t really expect it from a for-profit entity like a baseball team in our current economic system. We need to get civic virtue from public entities instead or change the way teams are owned. |
3:03 | Brett Abrams: Agreed. However, if the private entity can see a profit in it. Building ball fields would get more kids playing baseball and would spark more interest in the team. |
3:04 | Brett Abrams: It also serves as great public relations and they really need that after last year’s rent fiasco. |
3:04 | David Alpert: Thanks to everyone for participating and especially to Brett Abrams! |
3:04 | David Alpert: You can all buy Capital Sporting Grounds on your favorite online book retailer. |
3:04 | Brett Abrams: Thank you all for your excellent questions. Wish I could have gotten to them all. |
3:04 | David Alpert: Our next chat is on Thursday, April 16th featuring Chris Zimmerman, a member of the Metro Board of Directors, Arlington County Board, and the regional TPB. |
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