Mr. Ilitch - About that arena...

[GUSHI]

It's fugly

[canuck]

It's fugly

Fugly is such a nice description of it, and economical too.

[rb336]

Don't see anything fugly about it. graceful lines, airy, textured

[wolverine]

This is a cartoon done by an artist. Put it in the real world and show me what you got.

Hahaha, what? It's built.

I've seen it in person, it's really cool.

[gumby]

Looks like a damn wicker basket.

[mikefmich]

Well since you've only been here since October... you'll hear plenty... check out how photogenic the outside of Tiger Stadium is from the other 1954 Detroit thread....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIZhz...endscreen&NR=1

There's a difference between nostalgia for an old ballpark with good sight lines [[I wonder how many visitors liked being photographed in front of those blank walls), and the aesthetics of the new [[albeit poorer sight lines) stadium. Looks and sight lines are often mutually exclusive...

Seriously? If all you care about is a pretty background for an image, should you even be commenting on ball parks? I could care two cents about what a stadium looks like outside. What I do care about is sitting in the 10th row on the first base side, & it being akin to sitting in left field at Tiger Stadium.

Ditto on ice distance for a hockey arena....upstairs at Olympia was super in that regard. While I'm at it, the whine about obstructed views at both places is plain silly. Thousands of seats.....few were affected.

Tiger Stadium stunk? So did the shithouses on the Bob-Lo boats. Exactly how much time does one spend in the shithouse? The smell of Briggs Stadium is etched into my mind until the day they roll me into the oven.....and it's a damn good smell memory.

Ball Park Franks.....beer....cigars. The excitement I had as a kid walking out the ramp to the sunlight, green grass, along with the smells never waned as an adult. I miss hell outta that.

[Gistok]

Seriously? If all you care about is a pretty background for an image, should you even be commenting on ball parks? I could care two cents about what a stadium looks like outside. What I do care about is sitting in the 10th row on the first base side, & it being akin to sitting in left field at Tiger Stadium.

Ditto on ice distance for a hockey arena....upstairs at Olympia was super in that regard. While I'm at it, the whine about obstructed views at both places is plain silly. Thousands of seats.....few were affected.

Tiger Stadium stunk? So did the shithouses on the Bob-Lo boats. Exactly how much time does one spend in the shithouse? The smell of Briggs Stadium is etched into my mind until the day they roll me into the oven.....and it's a damn good smell memory.

Ball Park Franks.....beer....cigars. The excitement I had as a kid walking out the ramp to the sunlight, green grass, along with the smells never waned as an adult. I miss hell outta that.

I'm not going to argue over nostalgia... versus aesthetics... you had some great memories at a wonderful ball field.... GOT IT.... but the forum is littered with people who complain about Comerica Park for little more reason than Tiger Stadium is no more. We both miss Olympia, so I get where you're coming from, but you were into baseball, and I was not.... but what I find interesting is the number of people here now who lament that JLA is going away. When you went to Olympia and then switched to JLA... you probably didn't like JLA.

But now some people are lamenting the potential loss of it. I understand that.

I bet that kids of the future will likely remember the carnival atmosphere of Comerica Park with nostalgia, just like many before liked Tiger Stadium without it.

None of the tourist groups I've taken to Comerica Park... were there during game time [[tight schedules since they were only in Detroit for a day). And they liked what they saw... it gave them a favorable impression about America's pastime. Granted it's sugar coated... but I'm there to give them a slice of he city... before they go off to Chicago or elsewhere in he midwest [[I give tours to "performers"... European dance and choral groups...) so it's apples and oranges as far as what YOU might give an out of towner a tour of. And I can understand that....

[EL Jimbo]

Seriously? If all you care about is a pretty background for an image, should you even be commenting on ball parks? I could care two cents about what a stadium looks like outside. What I do care about is sitting in the 10th row on the first base side, & it being akin to sitting in left field at Tiger Stadium.

Ditto on ice distance for a hockey arena....upstairs at Olympia was super in that regard. While I'm at it, the whine about obstructed views at both places is plain silly. Thousands of seats.....few were affected.

Tiger Stadium stunk? So did the shithouses on the Bob-Lo boats. Exactly how much time does one spend in the shithouse? The smell of Briggs Stadium is etched into my mind until the day they roll me into the oven.....and it's a damn good smell memory.

Ball Park Franks.....beer....cigars. The excitement I had as a kid walking out the ramp to the sunlight, green grass, along with the smells never waned as an adult. I miss hell outta that.

The obstructed seat issue affected a heck of a lot more than a few. I can think back to my last memory at tiger stadium. We had lower deck seats down the third base line about 30 rows back. We didn't have a pole in the way, but because of the big overhang of the upper deck, we couldn't see the ball once it got higher than 10 feet in the air. I remember somebody hit a home run into the upper deck in left...I didn't see any of it because that overhang. The only reason we even bought those particular seats is because it was a sellout due to the stadium only having a month left before they closed it.

I won't argue that the upper deck in Tiger Stadium were, by far, the best seats in baseball. However, the cost of having those seats were that at least 1/3 if not half of the seats in the lower deck were practically useless because your sightlines were affected vertically. And yes, it is absolutely true that there is not one seat in Comerica Park that rivals the best seats in Tiger Stadium. The difference is that at Tiger Stadium, you either sat in great seats or bad seats. At Comerica Park you sit in good seats or OK seats. There really isn't a bad seat in Comerica, but there were PLENTY of bad seats at Tiger Stadium. The nice thing about Comerica is that if you spend your money, you're going to be able to have at least a decent view of the game no matter what. At Tiger Stadium, that wasn't always the case.

[WPitonya]

I live about 6 blocks from this new arena. In person, it looks beautiful. The cladding has so much texture and character, especially comparing it to the ugly, cheap looking Atlantic Terminal across the street. I would welcome this to Detroit; glass is nice, but glass mixed with this interesting rusty steel-looking cladding is better IMO.

[ghettopalmetto]

I live about 6 blocks from this new arena. In person, it looks beautiful. The cladding has so much texture and character, especially comparing it to the ugly, cheap looking Atlantic Terminal across the street. I would welcome this to Detroit; glass is nice, but glass mixed with this interesting rusty steel-looking cladding is better IMO.

Call me old-fashioned...

I don't understand why buildings all have to resemble artistic sculptures, and make some kind of bullshit statement. Is there anything wrong with designing a building that looks like, a building??? Birds nest this, crumpled foil that, freaking picnic basket.

Stupid-ass Frank Gehry worship.

[WPitonya]

While I like some of Frank Gehry's buildings, I do not worship him by any means. In fact, my degree is in Historic Preservation so I am very partial to historic structures rather than new....call ME old-fashioned. Since the Olympia is already unfortunately demolished and we can all agree that the exterior of Joe Louis is not pleasing to the eye, Detroit has a great opportunity to build a new arena that is interesting to look at.

[canuck]

Call me old-fashioned...

I don't understand why buildings all have to resemble artistic sculptures, and make some kind of bullshit statement. Is there anything wrong with designing a building that looks like, a building??? Birds nest this, crumpled foil that, freaking picnic basket.

Stupid-ass Frank Gehry worship.

I also have a hard time with some of the personal expression on a grand scale that has become an extension of the fashion designers' signature corny-copia. The whole architect vanity thing has become the daffy new norm. I am thinking of british architect Will Allsop' buildings. I was in Toronto at New Year's and saw the much lauded OCA building on stilts which I like by the way, but the lobby is such a disappointment that I instantly thought; this guy is not the great designer everybody wills him to be.

[rb336]

I like some of alsop's work. The Hamburg Ferry terminal just looks​ like a building version of a ferry. some of his do look like they should be on the covers of bad sci-fi novels.

[Brian1979]

essentially, Jason, it's a matter of taste. Your taste is no more objective than anyone else's. Frankly, Tiger Stadium was nothing special. It was no Wrigley Field, it was cramped for anyone over 6', it stank, the previously mentioned obstructed views, etc. The Joe is as bland and dull as a pre-fab warehouse and has similar acoustic characteristics. If those are your ideas of "character," I'll take someone else's any day of the week

LMAO I have heard it all now. Tiger Stadium was a much better place to watch a game than Wrigley Field. And you don't think Wrigley is cramped? And trust me Wrigley stinks just as much as Tiger Stadium did, maybe even worse.

Wrigley is a dump.

[Brian1979]

Also Comerica isn't all that. When the ball is hit it's hard to follow the flight of the ball due to the park being so spacious and designed poorly. I'd much rather watch a game in Tiger Stadium than Comerica, you were closer to the field in Tiger Stadium, the place reeked history, it was Detroit, it was rough looking, tough looking and you went there to watch a baseball game, nothing more.

When they closed Tiger Stadium that was a sad day, Comerica will never ever be able to be what Tiger Stadium was.

Why didn't Ilitch invest into a new arena for the Wings instead of the Tigers? I mean back then he was pouring more money into the Red Wings than he was the Tigers. Tiger Stadium did not need to be replaced and should still be standing today, all the place needed as a renovation and it would of been good for another 50 years.

[drjeff]

[QUOTE=mikefmich;308756]Seriously? If all you care about is a pretty background for an image, should you even be commenting on ball parks? I could care two cents about what a stadium looks like outside. What I do care about is sitting in the 10th row on the first base side, & it being akin to sitting in left field at Tiger Stadium.
QUOTE]

If you're sitting in the lower deck, Comerica Park is a far, far better place to watch a game. The seats are not any further from the field than they were at Tiger Stadium and none of them are obstructed.

The upper deck at TS was the best place in baseball to watch a game and will never be replicated. In that respect Comerica Park is far inferior. But at least be realistic in your criticism of Comerica Park. Just because it isn't TS doesn't mean it sucks, and frankly it's a lot better than many of the others stadiums built in the past 20 years. I've been to many of them. Try sitting in the upper deck at Camden Yards sometime. You may as well stay home. It is much, much farther up from the field than in Comerica Park. The same is true of the stadiums in Atlanta and San Diego to name a couple.

[canuck]

I like some of alsop's work. The Hamburg Ferry terminal just looks​ like a building version of a ferry. some of his do look like they should be on the covers of bad sci-fi novels.

I also like the quirky stuff he put out, but I hope he has given more care to the interior design for his other stuff. He probably has the gift of gab to sell his stuff. In a way, I am reminded of Claes Oldenburg's sculptures which have a resonance with the great Chicago skyline that he experienced as a kid. This was his late entry to the Chicago Tribune building competition of 1922 [[1967); the spoof on the architect's vanity is pretty obvious.

[mikefmich]

I'm not going to argue over nostalgia... versus aesthetics... you had some great memories at a wonderful ball field.... GOT IT.... but the forum is littered with people who complain about Comerica Park for little more reason than Tiger Stadium is no more. We both miss Olympia, so I get where you're coming from, but you were into baseball, and I was not.... but what I find interesting is the number of people here now who lament that JLA is going away. When you went to Olympia and then switched to JLA... you probably didn't like JLA.
.

I was excited about JLA in terms of having more seat capacity, & looked forward to my first visit. You're right....I hated the place. Norris auctioned off a ton of memorabilia that was at Olympia and did no decorating whatsoever.
The place was bland as soup served at Bergen-Belsen.

They've done some decor in later years, I've kinda warmed to the place if for no other reason that I got to personally witness a hometeam winning a championship, a rare treat for anyone.
However....when I think back to how the walls could seemingly pulsate with the roar of the crowd, and those cool mezzainine seats...I will always like Olympia better. Not for the nostalgia, but the experience of a hockey game there. However, you will not count me as one of those who will cry about the demise of JLA.

Am I nostalgic for Briggs Stadium? Yeah, that is surely part of it. But if Comerica gave the same near the field experience as the corner did, I think I could get over it easier .

[kenp]

Did you see the price tag to build the Barclay Center, 4.9 billion. Thats amazing!
UM is playing basketball their in Dec, I plan on going. Xmas season in NYC, bring cash

[Gistok]

mikeofmich.... I may have come off as a bit too insensitive to all those that lament the loss of Tiger Stadium... bad choice of words. Not ever building that has wonderful memories is a great work of architecture. And yes the smell of stale beer and roasting peanuts does "add to the ambiance'.

I don't in any way begrudge the anger of those that saw the demise of the old ballpark. And this didn't come to me in some revelation... but in something as silly as a commemorative sheet of USA postage stamps that I came across today in my possession.

It was called "Baseball's Legendary Playing Fields". And on the stamp sheet were

Ebbets Field Brooklyn
Tiger Stadium Detroit
Crosley Field Cincinnati
[[old) Yankee Stadium NYC
Polo Grounds NYC
Forbes Field Pittsburgh
Fenway Park Boston
Comiskey Park Chicago
Shibe Park Philadelphia
Wrigley Field Chicago

I guess that as a kid going to a game with his dad or grandpa... it didn't matter what the outside or inside of the field looked like architecturally... or even if they have a urinal trough in the bathrooms that reeked to high heaven...

What was important was the experience that the kids-dads-granddads had with each other, and the magic of that experience with the game.

I sometimes take the architecture a little too seriously.... as a friend once told me... "they could have a Hoe-Down at the Acropolis, and I probably would enjoy it!"

So I take back some of what I said about the old parks.... I stand chastened and rebuked!

But those "fuhriners" really do like the Comerica Park tigers [[never having experienced a game)...and perhaps that wasn't the best analogy to make towards old versus new ballparks...