NEW YANKEE STADIUM
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, United States. It serves as the home ballpark for the New York Yankees, replacing the previous Yankee Stadium, built in 1923. The new ballpark was constructed across the street, northeast of the 1923 Yankee Stadium, on the former site of Macombs Dam Park.
The ballpark in the Bronx opened April 2,2009, when the Yankees hosted a workout day in front of fans from the Bronx community. The first game at the new Yankee Stadium was a preseason exhibition game against the Chicago Cubs played on April 3, 2009, which the Yankees won 7–4.The first regular season game was played on April 16, a 10–2 Yankee loss to the Cleveland Indians.
Much of the stadium incorporates design elements from the previous Yankee Stadium, paying homage to the Yankees' history. Although stadium construction began in August 2006, the project of building a new stadium for the Yankees is one that spanned many years and faced many controversies.
Defying the economic slump facing the world today, the stadium at a cost of 1.5 billion USD is the second most expensive stadium in the world after the Wembley stadium. The wall beyond the bleacher seats is "cut out" to reveal the subway trains as they pass by, like they were in the original facility. A manually-operated auxiliary scoreboard is built into the left and right field fences, in the same locations it existed in the pre-renovation iteration of the original Yankee Stadium.
HISTORY
Planning
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner began a visible campaign for the building of a new stadium in the 1980s, going to the extreme of making statements alleging unsafe conditions around the original Yankee Stadium, disregarding the possibility that such statements could discourage attendance at his own team's games. Among the options allegedly considered by the Yankee ownership was moving the team across the Hudson River to New Jersey.
Shortly before leaving office in December 2001, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced "tentative agreements" for both the New York Yankees and New York Mets to build new stadiums. Of 1.6 billion USD sought for the stadiums, city and state taxpayers would pick up half the tab for construction, 800 million USD, along with 390 million USD on extra transportation. The plan also said that the teams would be allowed to keep all parking revenues, which state officials had already said they wanted to keep compensating the state for building new garages for the teams.
Financing
70 million USD of New York state tax revenue was used to build parking garages (as authorised by the State legislature). The parking garage project cost 320 million USD. City and state taxpayers paid up to 7.5 million USD annually in lost taxes resulting from the sale of 225 million USD in tax-exempt bonds authorised by the New York City Industrial Development Agency (administered by the New York City Economic Development Corporation) to finance construction and renovation of the parking garages.
Features
The new stadium is meant to be very similar in design to the original Yankee Stadium, in its original 1923 state. The exterior resembles the original look of the 1923 Yankee Stadium. The interior, a modern ballpark with greater space and increased amenities, it also features a playing field that closely resembles the previous ballpark before its closing.
Design and Layout
The stadium was designed by the architect firm Populous (formerly HOK Sport). The exterior was made from 11,000 pieces of Indiana limestone, along with granite and pre-cast concrete. The exterior features the building's name V-cut and gold-leaf lettered above each gate. The interior of the stadium is adorned with hundreds of photographs capturing the history of the Yankees.
The seats are laid out similar to the original stadium's stands, with grandstand seating that stretches beyond the foul poles, as well as bleacher seats beyond the outfield fences. The field level and main level comprise the lower bowl, with suites on the H&R Block level, and the upper level and grandstand level comprising the upper bowl.
Approximately two-thirds of the stadium's seating is in the lower bowl, the inverse from the original Yankee Stadium. Approximately 51,000 fans can be seated, with a standing room capacity of 52,325. The new stadium's seating is spaced outward in a bowl, unlike the stacked-tiers design at the old stadium. This design places most fans further back but lower to the field, by about an average of 30 feet. Over 56 suites are located within the ballpark, triple the amount from the previous stadium.
Seats are 19–24 inches (48–61 cm) wide, up from the previous stadium's 18–22-inch (46–56 cm) wide seats, while there is 33–39 inches (84–99 cm) of leg room, up from 29.5 inches (75 cm) of leg room in the previous stadium. Many lower level seats are cushioned, while all seats are equipped with cup holders. To allow for the extra seating space, the stadium's capacity is reduced by more than 4,000 seats in comparison to the previous stadium.
Many design elements of the ballpark's interior are inspired by the original Yankee Stadium. The roof of the new facility features a replica of the frieze that was a trademark of the previous ballpark.
In the original Yankee Stadium, a copper frieze originally lined the roof of the upper deck stands, but it was torn down during the 1974–75 renovations and replicated atop the wall beyond the bleachers. The new stadium replicates the frieze in its original location along the upper deck stands. Made of steel coated with zinc for rust protection, it is part of the support system for the cantilevers holding up the top deck and the lighting on the roof.
Monument Park
Monument Park, which features the Yankees' retired numbers, as well as monuments and plaques dedicated to distinguished Yankees, has been moved from its location beyond the left field fences in the original Yankee Stadium to its new location beyond the center field fences at the new facility. The newly relocated Monument Park is now situated under the sports bar.
The new location of the monuments is meant to mirror the original placement in center field at the original pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, albeit when they were on the playing field.
Conclusion
Yankee Stadium features a wide array of amenities. It contains 63 per cent more space, 500,000 square feet more in total, than the previous stadium, with wider concourses and open sight lines on concourses. Along with 227 miles of wired Ethernet cable, the building has sufficient fiber-optic cable wiring that Cisco Vice President and Treasurer David Holland call the building "future proof".
Over 1,100 high-definition video monitors are placed within the stadium and approximately 10 million USD worth of baseball merchandise is housed within the ballpark.
The center field scoreboard, which measures 59 x 101 feet and offers 5,925 square feet of viewing area, is the third-largest high definition scoreboard in the world (behind the 8,736 square foot board at newly renovated Kauffman Stadium and the new 8,066 square foot board at the renovated Tokyo Racecourse). Displaying 5,925 ft² of video, the scoreboard can display four 1080p high definition images simultaneously.
PROJECT TEAM
Design
Cambridge Architectural
Architect
Populous
Installation of mesh system
Capco Steel
Facility developers
Hunter Roberts Construction Group,
