The Real Yankee Stadium Redux

UPDATE: I went to the final game in the original Yankee Stadium and the opening pre-season game of the newest Stadium (to be reviewed).

THAT'S what the Stadium looked like when I was a kid. There was a lot more shock and awe than in the concrete remodeling Steinbrenner made in the 1970s. I went to a lot of games there, including the final game.

As you can see, not all the games were crowded. Even on Saturday afternoons, you could often easily get three seats to yourself in the upper deck. During rallies, the procedure was to hold the seats to each side of you and smash them up and down in unison with the rest of the crowd. A few hundred people doing that could make a lot of noise. My brother and I would catch double headers in the bleachers — 18 innings in the sun for $1.

The monuments were still on the field (during the renovation, the Yankees moved the center field fence in 50 feet, so that monuments were behind the wall). We once saw Bobby Murcer chase down a fly that bounced right behind them. He sped around the monuments and faced the center field wall, anticipating the rebound off the wall. But it bounced past him, and he wheeled around and dashed towards the ball. It bounced of the monuments and back to him, and ran around to the side to see where to throw the ball. I think it was an inside the park home run.

Supersize me

V&V: Supersize Me
V&V: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (new Yankee Stadium update)
V&V: Making A Neighborhood Around Yankee Stadium — Designs By University of Miami Architecture Students

Urbanized: The Movie

PS: If, like me, you have Flash turned off in your browser, you will get an eternal "loading movie..." message until you turn Flash on.

The Second Semi-Annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award Redux

OBG originally posted March 21, 2007

It's cold. It's winter. It's minus 20 degrees, an arctic wind is blowing in from the Russian steppes, and you're walking on the biggest street in Moscow. Above you in the swirling snow loom three towers that increase the wind chill factor to minus 100 degrees. All the vokda in Russia won't fix this picture.

Haha Hadid? No no Nanotchka! (more wind-blown photos here)

Like ants to the slaughter.

 

1st Annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award

Audi's Urban Future Is A Lot Like Alphaville

V&V: 1st Annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award

V&V: Second semi-annual Slouching Towards Alphaville Award

CNU 20 Redux

DID YOU MISS CNU 20? There's a good recap at My Big Fat New Urbanism Conference Rundown. I like to start with Part 2, then go to Part 1.

And from the floor of the conference:

UPDATE: There's a good series of posts here on different sessions at CNU 20. I'd start with this one. It's about a plenary debate between Dan Solomon and Andréa Duany that Dan called "My Dinner With Andrés."

The Best New Urban Retail Book

BOB GIBBS worked for the most profitable mall developer in the country, where he learned the many simple but effective principles that national retailers like the Gap and Apple use to beat the pants of local retailers. For example, he can tell you exactly how many cents per square foot a store's income will rise if they change thier store lighting from flourescent to a particular warm incandescent bulb the national retailers have identified. There are similar rules for exterior signs, window arrangement, store arrangement and the like - all tied quite precisely to how the affect sales per square foot. These figures are all known, because all the cash registers in malls are linked to the mall's computers, since the mall owenr gets a percentage of sales.

Buy it, you'll like it. And you'll learn a lot, about successful and unsuccessful retail, why Mom & Pop's usually don't compete very well with the chains, about retail rules in general and about how those rules relate to architectural design in general.

Hint: Follow the KISS Rule most of the time. KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid.

Example: Regarding all the fancy and expensive streetscapes that are in vogue now, Bob has the sakes figures to prove that you want Main Street customers to look at the shop windows, not the sidewalks. Obviosuly sales per square foot are not the point of urbanism, but most Main Street redos are about economic vitality, and it's nice to know that these rules support good, simple design.

Principles of Urban Retail, Planning and Development @ Amazon

St. Mo

The Sambola!