Kingdome
| King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium | |
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The Kingdome The Dome |
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_in_front_of_the_Seattle_Kingdome_Stadium_on_6_October_1982_(6371846).jpg)
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| The Kingdome behind the USS Leahy (right) | |
| Data | |
| place | 201 S. King Street, Seattle , Washington
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| Coordinates | 47 ° 35 '44 " N , 122 ° 19' 59" W |
| owner | King County |
| operator | King County Department of Stadium Administration |
| start of building | 2nd November 1972 |
| opening | March 27, 1976 |
| First game | Seattle Sounders - New York Cosmos |
| demolition | March 26, 2000 |
| surface | Artificial turf (AstroTurf) |
| costs | 67 million US dollars |
| architect | Naramore, Skilling & Praeger |
| capacity | 59,166 seats (baseball) 66,000 seats (American football) 40,000 seats (basketball) |
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| Events | |
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The Kingdome (full name: King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium ) was a multi-purpose stadium with a closed dome roof in the US city of Seattle in King County , Washington state . Inaugurated in 1976, the arena was owned and administered by King County. To this day, the Kingdome is the only stadium in which the all-star games of the three major leagues NFL , NBA and MLB were played. Between 1976 and 2000, around 73 million people visited the multi-purpose stadium for events. In 2000, the Kingdome was finally demolished due to concerns about the structural integrity of the building during earthquakes.
Building description
The dome roof was 660 feet (201 meters) in diameter. The roof was held in place by 40 curved and radially arranged reinforced concrete beams. On the outside, these rested on a pull ring located in the plane of the outer wall , in the middle of the dome above the playing field they connected to a pressure ring perhaps 30 to 40 meters in size.
history
Seattle showed interest in becoming a location for a professional baseball team early on in the 1960s. For this purpose, the first plans for a stadium with a roof dome began at that time. Through discussions such as B. the location and financing, the construction project was delayed. A change of the Kansas City Athletics failed just like the Cleveland Indians were under discussion, but owner William R. Daley decided against Seattle in 1965. The main reason was the Sick's Stadium . The baseball stadium, built in 1938, did not meet the requirements with its 11,000 seats.
In 1967 the city received a franchise agreement for an expansion team for the MLB American League ; which later was named Seattle Pilots . However, the league made it clear that the Sick's Stadium was not sufficient at that time and that a modern stadium was needed as a prerequisite for a professional team. In addition, the Sick's Stadium had to be expanded to 30,000 seats by the start of the 1969 season.
As a result, the stadium was renovated first, but due to delays, rising costs and bad weather, only 18,000 seats were available in April 1969. In July of that year there were around 25,000 places. But also the facilities of the stadium were only second rate such as B. the clubhouse . The piping system was not expanded, which resulted in the fact that there was hardly any water pressure, especially when there was a large audience, and the players had to shower in the hotel or at home. A total of around 678,000 spectators attended the season games. That made an average of less than 4,200 viewers per game. It was the main reason the Seattle Pilots went bankrupt after just one season and the team moved to Milwaukee as Milwaukee Brewers in 1970 .
This was the decisive factor in building a new stadium in Seattle, although there was no major league team in the city. In May 1970 the location at the Seattle Center was rejected. As early as February 1968, an election in King County voted for US $ 40 million in public funds to be used for the arena. From 1970, the feasibility of building a stadium on King Street was examined for two years . This met with resistance in the Seattle Chinatown-International District . There were concerns about the stadium's impact on shops and businesses east of the proposed location.
Despite this, the groundbreaking ceremony for the building took place on November 2, 1972. The celebration was accompanied by demonstrators who disrupted the ceremony with loudspeakers and mud balls . On December 5, 1974, the NFL franchised an American football team in Seattle. It took another 16 months to complete and the opening on March 27, 1976. The inauguration coincided with the United States 200th birthday celebrations. A show with over 6,000 participants was offered in front of 54,000 spectators. In the first year more than 2,425,000 visitors came to the Kingdome . Ultimately, the stadium construction cost 67 million US dollars.
The largest crowd for a single event came on May 14, 1976 in the Kingdome . The Baptist pastor and revivalist Billy Graham delivered a 74,000 spectators revival meeting from. A total of 434,100 visitors came to the multi-day event from May 9th to 16th. The highest attendance at an American football game of 62,532 visitors came on August 14, 1976 for the game of the Seahawks against the Los Angeles Rams in the arena. Despite the problematic acoustics with sound problems such as echo formation and reverberation in the spacious arena, numerous concerts have taken place over the years. Paul McCartney gave his first concert with the Wings on June 10, 1976 during his Wings Over America tour . It was McCartney's first appearance in the United States since the Beatles' last American tour in 1966.
Other artists and groups like u. a. Johnny Cash , The Rolling Stones , Pink Floyd , Madonna , Level 42 , Guns N 'Roses , Faith No More , U2 and many others performed in the arena. On July 17th, the British rock band Led Zeppelin made a stop for a concert in the Kingdome on their 11th US tour. A few days later on July 27th, the band broke off the tour due to the death of Robert Plant's son. It was the rock group's last US tour. The multi-purpose arena was the penultimate station of the Monsters of Rock festival on July 27, 1988 . Also present were the headliners Van Halen , the, Scorpions , Dokken , Metallica and Kingdom Come . 69,132 fans gathered in the stadium for a Rolling Stones concert on October 14, 1981. This was the largest crowd at a concert in the Kingdome .
In the 1990s there were first votes that the Kingdome was no longer appropriate for American football and baseball games. In 1992, owner Jeff Smulyan sold 54% of the shares in the Mariners to a group around the then head of Nintendo of Japan Hiroshi Yamauchi because of poor visitor numbers in order to prevent financial loss. The purchase also began to raise public funds for the city and King County for a new, pure ballpark. In March 1994, King County's District Administrator Gary Locke commissioned a needs assessment for a new stadium.
The roof construction repeatedly caused difficulties. Leaks were discovered three months before the opening. The repair attempts made the situation worse rather than better. Until the end of the Kingdome , the problems could not be resolved. In 1983 the cladding was changed to ventilate and dry the roof. But this had to be completely reversed. Two years later the ventilation system was damaged by persistent winter weather ; then more water dripped over the roof into the stadium.
In the late 1980s, attempts were made to repair the drainage to allow the wet foam insulation of the roof to dry out. In 1993 King County decided to remove the outer headlining to give it a special coating. The facing should be removed with sandblasting ; but that didn't work. The work was then carried out with pressure washers; as a result, more water seeped through the roof. On July 19, 1994, four ceiling tiles, each weighing around 12 kilograms, fell down into the spectator area due to water damage and it was 30 minutes before the visitors were to be allowed into the stadium for a Mariners game against the Baltimore Orioles . Overall, the dome was clad with 850 of the ceiling tiles. The Kingdome was initially closed for repairs .
As a result, the Seattle Mariners had to play their last games of the 1994 MLB season away. The season ended earlier than expected. On August 11th of that year, the players of the baseball league went on strike because of the salary cap ; The players' strike did not end until April 2, 1995 after 232 days. The Seattle Seahawks evaded preparation games and the first three NFL home games of the 1994 season in the Husky Stadium of the University of Washington . On the weekend between November 4th and 6th, 1994, the Kingdome reopened after the repair work. The Seahawks met the Cincinnati Bengals on Matchday 10 of the NFL season . The home team lost to the Bengals with 20:17. In total, the renovation cost $ 51 million and two workers lost their lives in a crane accident.
On September 19, 1995, the use of public funds for a new ballpark was rejected in an election. Shortly thereafter, the Mariners reached the MLB play-offs for the first time in their history and came under. a. a 3-2 win over the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series . There they failed 4-2 at the Cleveland Indians and missed the 1995 World Series . Reaching the play-offs showed that the Mariners in Seattle have a large following and the team should remain in town after considering a move. The Washington State Legislature, the state parliament of the US state Washington, then approved a separate financial concept for the stadium construction.
In January 1996, Seahawks owner Ken Behring announced that the team would move to Los Angeles at Anaheim Stadium , as the Los Angeles Rams located there moved to St. Louis , Missouri . The reason for Behring's move should be safety concerns about the Kingdome's earthquake safety. The move failed because the Seattle Seahawks would not have come out of the Kingdome lease before 2005. Then Ken Behring tried to sell the team and a potential buyer was found in Microsoft co- founder Paul Allen . Allen was the driving force behind building a new home for the Seahawks . He funded a vote in Washington State on the use of public money to build a football stadium on the Kingdome site . A majority was in favor of funding and building a new home for the Seahawks . Then Paul Allen bought the team and the end of the Kingdome was sealed.
One day before the stadium's 24th birthday on March 26, 2000, the Kingdome was blown up. Early on Sunday morning, thousands of onlookers gathered to watch the event. At 8:30 a.m., the explosive charges were detonated and, as planned, the gutted building collapsed. After around 17 seconds, it only left a large cloud of dust. At the time, it was the largest building (by volume ) that was demolished by demolition. After the rubble had been removed, construction of the Seahawks Stadium started in April. 97% of the Kingdome concrete was recycled in the new build, making up 35% of the concrete used there.
Sports
American football
As the first major league team , the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL moved into the Dome in 1976 . The first game was a pre-season game against the San Francisco 49ers . Due to its closed concrete construction and the noise of the fans, it was the loudest venue in the league. The NFL Pro Bowl took place on January 17, 1977. The game ended with the AFC's 24-14 victory over NFC . For Pro Bowl MVP was Mel Blount of the Pittsburgh Steelers selected. From April 2000 to July 2002 the Seahawks Stadium (today: CenturyLink Field) with 67,000 seats was built at the location of the Kingdome . Overall, the stadium complex cost 430 million US dollars . Until completion, the team played the NFL seasons 2000 and 2001 again at Husky Stadium .
Soccer
Also in 1976, the Seattle Sounders NASL football team premiered in the sports arena. They came second twice (1977 and 1982); each they lost the Soccer Bowl against the New York Cosmos with 1: 2 (1977) and 0: 1 (1982). They stayed in the multipurpose arena until it was closed in 1983.
baseball
Shortly after the Seattle Pilots were relocated to Milwaukee, the City of Seattle, King County, and Washington State sued the MLB American League for breach of contract . The American League offered a baseball team franchise agreement if the lawsuit was dropped in return. With that, a new MLB professional baseball team came to Seattle. The team was later named Seattle Mariners and played their first home game on April 6, 1977 against the California Angels . In 1979 the MLB All-Star Game Station made in the multi-purpose arena. The National League won 7-6 against the American League and the Pittsburgh Pirates' Dave Parker was named MVP of the game. During a Seattle Mariners game on May 2, 1996 against the Cleveland Indians , a minor earthquake struck the Kingdome; whereupon the game was canceled. After being checked by engineers, the game resumed the next day and ended with a victory for the Indians . In 1999 the baseball team moved to Safeco Field, which was built for over $ 517 million and has a closable roof. At the time it was the most expensive ballpark in the world.
basketball
The third major league team came in 1978, the Seattle SuperSonics from the NBA to the Kingdome. In the first two seasons, the Sonics reached the NBA finals. The opponents in the final were the Washington Bullets . In 1978, the defeated Bullets , the Sonics after seven games with 4: 3 and Wes Unseld became the NBA Finals MVP explained. The following year, the SuperSonics triumphed 4-1 over the team from Washington City . The final series MVP became Dennis Johnson of the Sonics . The basketball team returned to their old venue, the Seattle Center Coliseum (later: KeyArena ), in 1985 , where they played from 1967 to 1978. In 1984, 1989 and 1995, the covered stadium hosted the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four tournament. In the 1984 final, the Georgetown Hoyas defeated the Houston Cougars 84:75. Five years later, the Michigan Wolverines won against the Seton Hall Pirates just under 80:79 after overtime . In the last Final Four in 1995 at the Kingdome , the UCLA Bruins had the upper hand with 89:78 over the Arkansas Razorbacks .
Web links
- ballparksofbaseball.com: Kingdome (English)
- ballparks.com: Data on the Kingdome (English)
- ballparktour.com: History of the Kingdome (English)
- football.ballparks.com: information about the Kingdome (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ monolithic.com: A series of sports buildings that have not yet been built using the monolithic dome technology (including the Kingdome). (English)
- ↑ historylink.org: Report on the history of the Kingdome building 1959 to 1976 (English)
- ↑ youtube.com: Video about the Sick's Stadium (English)
- ↑ seattlepilots.com: fan page about the Seattle Pilots ( memento of the original from December 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ historylink.org: Kingdome opened on March 27, 1976 in front of 54,000 spectators (English)
- ↑ blog.seattlepi.com: Seattle History: The Kingdome's biggest events Article from June 1, 2011 (English)
- ↑ community.seattletimes.nwsource.com: Report on the problems with the roof of the Kingdome (English)
- ↑ databasefootball.com: Game report Seahawks - Bengals (English)
- ↑ youtube.com: Video of the demolition of the Kingdome (English)
- ↑ webcitation.org: Kingdome largest blown up building in the world ( Memento from September 9, 2010 on WebCite ) (English)
