The Yale Bowl is one of 61 National Historic Landmarks in Connecticut. Its grass football field, also known as the “Class of 1954 Field,” is set 20 or 30 feet lower than the surrounding grade; the bowl is a manmade crater where scooped out dirt firms a reverse mount of dirt upon which bleachers are set and through which access tunnels are dug, using the super-cool 1914 winder material of raw concrete. In the last 20 years Yale has stabilized the ancient concrete battlements and tunnels, replaced a burned-down press box and built, for the first time, locker rooms.
Now the football team wants to turf the field. Preservationists are outraged, sports-environmentalists are saying the artificial turf may be as dangerous as bacon, and there is even talk of a dome.
Well, dome aside, “Turf” would allow for hundreds of events and for scores of thousands to actually see and use this historic site beyond the six football games and random clinics it now harbors.
So: Is the unnatural, unhistoric and possibly unhygienic carpeting of the Yale Bowl field heinous or egalitarian?
And why do that, when the bathrooms use the aesthetic of 1929 Hungarian coal mine latrines?
Join me as I explore the issue on the latest episode of “Design Czar” on WNHH-LP. You can also find the episode free for download on Soundcloud, iTunes, or any podcatcher under “WNHH Community Radio.”
That's me, I think, top row on the lower left. guarding the rope between general admission and reserved seats when in high school
Every Saturday . Every Fall
Could see great up there and save the $3 admission which was lots of money at the time.
One week was assigned to the first 10 rows of Section 1 where all the Yale big shots hung out
Boring and could see just about nothing from that supposedly honor spot spot