Veterans Stadium Demolition

by Matthew Hotz

When an old building is torn down to make way for a parking lot, it's almost always a bad thing. Not this time.

Early Sunday morning, Veterans Stadium will be imploded. Opened in 1971, the Vet played home to the Eagles through the end of the 2002-03 season and did the same for the Phillies through the end of the 2003 season. Now it stands empty, the concrete bowl stripped of its seats and the playing surface stripped of its NeXturf.

The Vet was classic Philadelphia: a bad idea to which the city made a long-term commitment, like the wage tax or SEPTA. The playing surface was universally reviled, as the artificial turf and the unyielding concrete that lay beneath it laid waste to the knees, ankles and spines of all who traversed it. It played host to teams in two different sports but was a master of neither.

During baseball games, no matter how many people were in attendance, thousands of seats would be visibly empty because it was just way too big for baseball. The yard lines, end zones and midfield Eagles logo were all clearly visible during baseball games, and the cutouts for home plate, the pitcher's mound and each of the bases stood out like sore hamstrings during football games.

In death, the Vet will be as it was in life: noisy, dirty and a little dangerous. See the implosion in person if possible, and catch it on TV if you can't be there in the flesh. (The closed site is bordered by Lawrence Street to the east, 18th Street to the west, with the Schuylkill Expressway to the north and I-95 to the south.)

This is a once-in-a-generation moment. Philadelphia rarely fixes any of its institutionalized problems and never does so with a solution as swift, elegant and picturesque as an implosion.

If only the city could get rid of the wage tax with a few well-placed explosives.

Veterans Stadium Demolition, Sun., March 21, 7 a.m., 3501 S. Broad St., philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com.

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