They Don't Build 'Em like They Used To

REALLY!    You would NOT recognize Soldier Field in Chicago, for what they did to that once August Edifice...

Eighty entrances is not too many considering that there were no restrooms. 

Very fancy cattery.

May they never tear down Fenway. Love it, love it, love it.....

Good morning all & have a most wonderful day.

We know a man who cited Fenway and the availability of rowing partners as his reason for moving to Boston.

Today's topic and the Robert Hall references from yesterday, have got me to thinking that life I have been living has been more privileged that than it seemed.

Our town had a Robert Hall store but I, having had congenial relationships at the excellent downtown menswear establishments, never set foot in the place.

It was one of those deals where, with a wink and a nod, you would get the hint: "Not today, Sir," and sure enough, when you came back, that sweater would be drastically reduced and maybe held in protective custody. That was long before I became a guy who wears exactly the same looking outfit about two hundred and eighty days a year and even that didn't seem so odd until just now.

When it comes to arenas and stadia, it would have been impossible to appreciate the views that many fans enjoy had we not walked way up to where some friends were seated at halftime during warmups. It was like sitting on the kitchen table watching ten tiny men run around on a court the size of a TV Guide on the floor.

At figure skating events, we have been the people seated on the level of the ice with nobody between us and the performers where it was a thrill to shake hands with Kristi Yamaguchi and to learn that Katarina Witt, who always looked like a relative behemoth, was really about 5' 5" and one-twenty.

At Wrigley Field or Miller Park, in Milwaukee, we have had very good, great or luxury box seating. While it is easy to scoff at the hothouse flowers in luxury boxes, being one wasn't all that bad considering the proximity of the private restroom... about ten paces .

On the other hand, I would not have missed for the world the experience of standing side-by-side with other fans staring straight ahead while peeing into a slanted stainless steel trough and singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."

So, there it is: sitting here on a sunny Wednesday morning (garbage day- always a little extra thrill for a retired guy) counting my blessings: a beautiful wife, a wonderful close family and a past filled with a higher level of nice things than I realized or fully appreciated.

Now, if someone would just come up with something to replace the gnawing little ditty that hazel placed inside my head...

Like the Tower of Babel, folks seem to like bigger and bigger, and when you get the group mentality in full force, things like the Wave emerge or in the case of ancient Rome, the old "thumbs down". Our games like our wars are full of emotion and victory at all cost which includes raising taxes on those who never use the venue and building luxury suites and imposing EMINENT DOMAIN. Don't get me wrong, I thing the entertainment value is huge. It's just that holding on to a little history from time to time might not warrant one being called an obstructionist.    

TT~

You are onto something: when the latest greatest thing is built and then torn down all in one lifetime, it makes you wonder.

the sun is shining, just look at the view........ enjoying everyone's posts, especially Stoney's reference to the sing along in Wrigley Field's piss troughs.  Stoney, was that you who peed on my shoes??  Off to PT

I've heard the new Red Skins field doesn't compare with the old, torn down field where the stands would shake with the crowd's cheering.

PL~ was that you who ate asparagrass?

Peter Lake,

Nobody wears suede treads to a ball game.

Stoney~ You can talk "propper"!- you said stadia instead of stadiums. The scoolmarmish hackles rose this morning when I saw the link to worldstadiums.co

RY -There has never been anything as healthy as a stalk of asparagus in Wrigleyvillw, let alone Wgrigly Field.... but three dogs with everything can do wonders ;)

Stoney's tale of male bonding at the trough put me in mind of interesting lavatory arrangements  in some ancient Welsh buildings. the "privy" is built overhanging a river or stream, and would have two, or even three wooden seats, side by side- a bit too intimate for my liking!

 hazel leese~ It gets worse: I once emailed a young columnist who in an appearance on C-span had properly used the plural 'agenda' and singular 'datum' in the same sentence. He wrote back to say that it was only because his grandparents and parents; schoolteachers all and other anal retentives would notice. As to oldtime Welsh privvies: Yikes!! on several different levels not least from the viewpoint of boaters, anglers and... fish.

PL~Ya know that Police Station a coupla blocks east? I happen to know they once caught a guy that smuggled not just asparagrass,but celery,olives and tomatoe juice into Wriglville,and they caught him by following the trail of pimentos removed from the olives he was stuffing with blu cheese....it was a sad day when he went away....and say, what ever happened to that 'monkey' in the cage accross the street?

Stoney~ that evil part of my mind is chuckling at the thought of such an image of the multi-holer, and then making reference to a family going to Church, and also sitting in their own pew.....

God, I need to lie down in a darkened room- just had my central heating oil tank filled up,

KINDLEE:  You are definitely Right in what you said ... Destruction of Moments of History for the sake of, "NEW & IMPROVED" is really dumb ... We are suffering the suffering the onslaught of a Mind-Set bred into us in the last fifty years by Madison Avenue ... NEW is NOT necessarily better .......
 
HAZEL:  You must feel the way we do when we fill up our Pick-Up Trucks and Suburbans ...  It is especially shocking in Texas, where we should never have to Pay more than a Dollar a Gallon for Gasoline, cuz we grow the stuff here .......
 
STONEY:  I usta wonder why I'd see guys at Wrigley wearing Waders ... Made me think of my Aunt Esther who never failed to remind us, going out the door, "Don't Forget Your Rubbers ..."   Today of course, that phrase has an entirely different connotation .......
 
PETERLAKE:  Three Dogs with the "Works" will get a guy to the Stretch, and thats about time the Coldbeer catches up ... Back in the Seat by the Middle of the 8th. , (Suede Tennies and all) and its time for some Kielbasa and Coldbeer, or maybe a Slice or two ... Thats always a Good Afternoon !!!

I don't want to pull rank here, but by the way you are all avoiding the topic, I thought that my expertise might put an end to all intended discussion and allow you to get back to the topics that you value the most...food, beverages and cats.  I know that the purpose of P.E. Curiosities is to encourage discusssion and to somehow channel the discussion along a selected path, so I enter the fray.  Concrete is something that I know and know well. I will try to keep this simple.  Concrete can be engineered and designed to meet whatever parameters the customer can imagine.  Concrete can be designed with identical properties to 2000 year old Coliseum specifications or to specifications that will disintegrate in 100 years or to a specification that will allow the concrete structure to float, a veritable concrete boat.  It is all up to the buyer.
 In the greater scheme of things, using concrete as a metaphor for the construction industry in general, we receive the quality that we are willing or able to purchase.  If you expect a stadium to last 1000 years, then don't do your homework and be surprised that it lasts 100 years because you chose to award the job to the lowest bidder, the one who swears he can do for half the price what every one else says will cost double. Are you going to buy your clothes at J. Peterman or at Robert Hall?  (I once had a golden flavored sport jacket from Robert Hall that my parents bought for me in my teens.  The ladies loved it.  It served its purpose well).  Caveat emptor.  Now if you would like to enter into discussions of banking, ecomomics and government, have at it.  I am here on a spiritual mission, one that will prepare me for an onslaught of angelic hosts and beautiful vestal virgins that are being swept my way because this is where god asked me to station myself during this incarnation.  You may now continue to talk amongst yourselves.

Admittedly, I do have a problem whenever they tear down the old and build a new.....anything.  The old structures have a character and history that the new ones simply do not have, nor will they ever with the mindset of the "bigger and better" crowd. 
 
I had an art teacher who would take us on field trips around downtown Baltimore.  We were to note the old buildings, the fenestration on them, the columns, all the decorations and lovely touches peculiar to older buildings. To this day, over fifty years later, I still do that......look around and, well, appreciate.  There simply isn't anything like that now.
 
In my sculptures, often I choose to do older people, their faces with lines and sags, people with a personality showing; character.  It's the same with these grand old buildings.
 
Of course I'm tired of the ball players holding their collective breath and turning blue if they don't get a new stadium, especially when there is so much that money needs to go to....so much.

GOOD  STUFF  ANDY !!!!!!!

Well put, paolos.
Do we know one another?
 
Andy:  I like what you wrote.  Write on, please...
 
Jalopkin:  Hello, dear man!

Ah, Miss P4 !!!  And a Good Afternoon to YOU !!!  Trusting all is well, and seeing by the Comments of today that we still seem to gravitate back to many of the same, Reliable Subjects, regardless of what the Topic may be ... Probably because those things of which we all seem so fond are the closest things to, Constants, that many of us have in our lives .......  Don't know whether we should have a Group Pity Party or Celebrate ....... Suddenly, I am overwhelmed with the feeling that I would be much happier and feel a whole lot safer if Harpo Marx were in the White House .......

PETERMAN FASHION WATCH

In Roman Polanksi's new film "The Ghost-Writer," Ewan McGregor seems to be wearing the men's brown 3/4 length moleskin jacket that was offered during the winter (I have one; I think Stoney has one).

No, park 4, I don't know that we know each other. I do have a thought for Andy.  I believe that the will and ability to produce quality is still with us.  I would bet that as a sculptor, you are able to produce work that would rival Rodin or Michelangelo.  If not, I would expect that you strive to this mark. The same is true for the modern architect and craftsman.  Regardless of his vision, even the greatest architect has to work within budgetary constraints.  As for the ball players wanting a new stadium, it is the taxpayer that builds the beast and we, the taxpayer, are us.  We pay for whatever degree of obsolescence we receive.  That's all I have, it's back to my cave I go.
  

Andy,
 
You speak eloquently and beautifully.  Whenever I look at a book full of actors' headshots, the one that makes me stop and take note is invariably a photo of someone over 50.  There is no substitute for having a lived-in face.
 
As for buildings:  When I first came to New York, at the age of 18 (lo, these many years ago!), I heard a man say, "Without our old buildings, every city would be every city.  It's our old buildings that give each city its unique character."  And this philosophy stands firm in many of us against the "new equals better" drum.
 
However, I must take issue with my friend Jalopkin's claim that this notion is bred in "the last fifty years by Madison Avenue."  The notion is way WAY older than that.  In fact, it had its heyday more than fifty years ago.  The sense of nostalgia that we feel for older and more traditional institutions is stronger and more widespread now than ever before.
 
By the time New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission was founded, we had already lost the original Madison Square Garden and the original Metropolitan Opera.  It was the destruction of the original Penn Station in 1963 (and that's nearly fifty years right there) that provoked the new landmark laws into existence.
 
Now, speaking of old buildings that give a city unique character, there may be no city in the world as closely associated with its most famous architectural staple as Rome and the Colosseum.  The "out-of-hand" entertainments held in that great monument crystallize the supremely poetic irony of ancient Rome.  These people who gave us the first paved roads, the first public schools, the first plumbing systems, and the first vaulted arches, who made some of the most noted strides in art, science, literature, music, warcraft, statecraft, and culture, and became the symbol of intellectual, economic, and political pride, power and accomplishment throughout the world, also took a giddy joy in watching young, strong, able-bodied men die slow, painful deaths.

Just spoke at career day where my wife teaches. Those
first graders are a tough crowd-Gotta get some fresh material for the
Tommy T shtick-Glad I wore my Superheroes shirt. Saved the day. Every time I think we are losing the battle to advance civilization, the children bring me back to center. They are the teachers. 

Ah Jalopkin, but Harpo Marx IS in the white house :)  Or is it a combo of the three stooges?
 
Paolos - If only I could create the beauty of a Michelangelo or Rodin; if only - and yet, if so, it would not be appreciated today.  If didn't have a digital chip in it ear buds, it would turn to dust on the shelf.
 
We have the ability to produce quality, but the will is in such a small portion of us that it gets beaten down and beaten down again. 
 
I see beauty in a well-lived in face; a moss covered building, but most today only see beauty in a certain shade of green ($$$$$) and, relative to yesterday's topic, the bathroom scale on a small number.
 
Yes, the taxpayer (us) pays for these ridiculous expenses, and gladly, while children go hungry; while their schools have antiquated text books and teachers must take second jobs.  We replace the old with the new and yet expect, somehow, this generation to respect us, to see more than an old bent body, when we are the old, wrinkled and not quite up to their perception of beauty. 

ANDY:  He must be Karl's Ishmaelite Cousin .......     Wonder where he parks his Camel and his Goat ??? With the those two he's got three options for a Date, and every one with a farbisseneh punim ...
 
 
And HOWDY to you, DPR !!! You must be busy of late ... and thats a GOOD thing !!!

DPR -- Thank you.  However there are those, even with preservation committees and laws who just do as they wish.......more holding their breath and turning blue until they get their way.  In Maryland, Owings Mills to be precise, there was a building, the original Samuel Owings Residence for which the area was named.  It housed a fine restaurant and wine cellar and yet there was a move afoot to raze it and build something new.  So, though it was still in court and undecided. whoops!  It was razed.  Now, how does one put Humpty Dumpty back together again?  They were wrong, they paid their fine and so in its place stands a new modern building instead of one of those fine old structures with stone steps leading to the low ceilinged basement, pegged oak floors -- you get the picture.  Sad.  And yes cities are starting to look the same with a McDonald's or Starbucks on every corner and a gentrification of downtown being done by the same people in each city - so that the harbor in Boston gives one a sense of de javu if you're from Maryland.  If dropped down into a city, without signs, it would be difficult to know just where you were.
 

I'm fortunate to live in an city that prizes its Victorian era buildings. The "painted ladies" are awarded Historical Society status and are well preserved.
 
Paolos, speaking of concrete boats...there is one permanently docked here that has become part of the pier. The Palo Alto was built in 1918 as a supply ship, but the war ended before she ever saw service. Instead, she was sold to an amusement park company, towed to Seacliff State Beach and used as a party boat offering a casino, dance hall, arcades and other entertainment before the owners were ruined during the depression. "The Palo Alto Cement Ship" now lies in ruins, a home for birds, but still a tourist attraction.

When I am in a town or city, I always get a cricked neck. The main street in most our towns has been wrecked at street level by shop fronts & windows installed with total disrespect to the character of the buildings, so you have to look UP to see the wealth & diversity of architcture. We are very forunate in the UK to have so many wonderful buildings, or remnants of them. Cathedrals, castles, stately homes. to such curiosities as a cottage near Llangollen, North Wales called "Ty Hyll", which means "ugly house" - such places were literally thrown up overnight, as an ancient land law said that it you could get your house built in a day & a night & have smoke coming out of the chimeney by next morning, it was yours. Apart from the castles of Wales, generally speaking the words Welsh Architcture are a bit of an oxymoron. But paolos,they do love their bit of concrete, my pet hate being the grey pebbledash coating on exterior walls , a dismal hue that seems to suck the light out the sky. DreadPirateRoberts (now, there's a good Welsh name)- the last paragraph of your comment reminded me of a scene in the Monty Python film The Life of Brian that starts with somebody asking "And what did the Romans ever do for us?" We don't have anything as grand as the Colusseum, but we do have Roman remains- some of our roads are built on the routes previously paved by the Romans. I wonder, when it was built, did the citizens mutter darkly about modern arcitcture and taxpayer's money, as we are so fond on doing. It must have been a very adventurous & innivotive structure in its day.
If there were seats reserved for vestal virgins in stadia these days, they'd probably have touble filling them! As for the bloodthisty entertaiment - have you seen the games kids (and adults) play on those playstation thiggys? Scary. It's enough to get your toga in a twist.

I wish this thing had a spell check on it.

Are we all sure that picture is the Colusseum? It looks like a multi-storey car park built in the 1960's! Anybody ever been there?

hazel leese ~ I have been there. I posted two pictures, one of the interior and one of the exterior, as I found it in the hot (105 degrees) summer of 2007. Finished in 80 A.D. of marble and brick...no concrete anywhere - that wasn't invented until the mid 1700's.

 
paolos~

Interesting post at 2:29 PM its condescension and teacher's pet quality notwithstanding.

Sometimes, just adhering to the topic, as you see it, is sufficient and in that, you did good.  

Kindlee~ that was meant to be a joke.

HAZEL LEESE:
Get yourself a Google tool bar, it has spell check for when you add or comment on a web page. Saved my butt a few times. 

KSS-- Last time you shared this you were going commando in it I believe.....
 
I want to see this movie.
 
PAOLOS--- huhhhhh?????????..........
 
ANDY-- you are on a roll today--- a really excellent one at that!
 
PARK--- I think you might.....

I think so, too.
 
Hi bebe.

HOWDY BEBE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 
 

IVAN, IVAN, IVAN-- good evening to you my dear.......

BEBE:  Is it justme ... or have we not seen much of you in the last day or two ???

IVAN-- I started to post twice yesterday & stopped, but I have been reading all. Thank you for noticing.

OKAY!...some things Roman were,and are remarkable. That said, you could not list them all here,we would never,in all our astute observation,have them all..probably no single human could.   Did you know that to this day, railroad tracks are the width of Roman chariot wheels? Not a coincidence, they made trais the tracks followed,and they were the same everywhere;so there was never a problem of conversion (WE crashed a landing on Mars, metric vs, inch)

bit late on a comment here - but Julie Masi -  it seems there are never enough bathrooms in any building, arena,  airport, etc. if you are a woman!