Stadium

Last week, the Phillies' Bill Giles began his campaign for a new ballpark for Center City. "We can't survive without it," Giles said. "If we don't see a stadium on the horizon by 1999, it'll be very difficult for this group [of investors] to continue. " Does the city need a new sports stadium? Should it be for baseball, football or both? Where should it go, and who should pay for it? Send your responses to Community Voices/The Stadium by July 11 at the address above.

Pennsylvania is considering building new stadiums for the Eagles and Phillies, with the cost equally divided among the teams, the state and the city. If the deal goes through, how should Philadelphia finance its share? A sports lottery? A city or regional sales tax? User fees? Or something else? Send essays of 100 words by Nov. 30, including a phone number for verification, to Community Voices/Stadium at the addresses listed in the Where to Write box above.

You can bet that Emperor Titus, who presided over the Roman Colosseum's 80 A.D. inauguration, didn't fret that the structure would get renamed something like Little Caesars Amphitheater. He may well have thought, however, that the Colosseum forever would be the site of spectacles galore and spectacles of gore. Instead, it's been mostly decline, fall and invasion by cats since then for the huge amphitheater - but better days are possible. A decade-long, $18 million restoration project now under way is the most elaborate in 165 years.

By Rick Eckstein If you build it, they will come. This is usually the mantra of those in favor of publicly financed sports stadiums, including the current proposal for a new soccer stadium in Chester. In this case they are visitors whose spending would turn devastated cities and neighborhoods into exciting destination points. Local schools, merchants, and residents all would benefit as municipal coffers swelled. There's only one problem with this scenario. It's not true. Never has been.

If you visit the memorial to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, you'll step past a giant anchor raised from the sunken battleship. It stands taller than two men and weighs more than an elephant, strong and steadfast even in loss - and it was cast in the city of Chester. If you own a vintage 1950s Ford, there's a chance it was built in Chester, at a sprawling assembly plant that once employed a young salesman by the name of Lee Iacocca. If you listen to the sermons of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or the rock-and-roll of Bill Haley, you can hear echoes of Chester.

Recently, the Phillies' Bill Giles began his campaign for a new ballpark for Center City. "We can't survive without it," Giles said. "If we don't see a stadium on the horizon by 1999, it'll be very difficult for this group [of investors] to continue. " Does the city need a new sports stadium? Should it be for baseball, football or both? Where should it go, and who should pay for it? Send your responses to Community Voices/The Stadium by Friday at the address above.

HOW AM I supposed to empathize with the mayor on the issue of the imminent takeover of our school system given the mayor's track record. We have spent many millions of dollars to fund the new stadium projects. In fact, it is one of the single biggest items on the city budget. (Another big item is education.) We have also spent incredible amounts of money to tow abandoned cars off the street as a way to combat urban blight. So now we are left with a dysfunctional public-education system with staggering rates of failure in math and reading in some districts, yet we are angry at a state takeover.

In your photo of the proposed Broad and Spring Garden site for Philadelphia's new baseball stadium (March 5), the Daily News/Inquirer Building is pictured and diagrammed as staying put. Certainly your employees, Spring Garden residents and some Community College students who use this neighborhood's street parking will be left holding the booby-prize bag in this profoundly ill-considered proposal. I hesitate to use the word "plan," because only the stadium itself, and the roaring crowds within it, seem to have been envisioned on paper.

A federal bankruptcy judge approved an agreement yesterday ending Adelphia's 15-year stadium naming rights deal with the Tennessee Titans. The deal allows the Titans to immediately begin selling promotional inventory and in-stadium advertising that had been given to Adelphia. Adelphia, based in Coudersport, Pa., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection March 27. The company was responsible for paying $2 million a year to the Titans under the $30 million deal signed in July 1999.

Looks like the era of good feelings in Los Angeles had a short shelf life. Less than a month after new ownership seemed to sweep away the gloom generated by the seedy Frank McCourt era and last season's hideous mugging of a fan on opening day, criminals struck again. A fender bender in a stadium parking lot led to the beating of a driver and the arrest of four people, police said Monday. The latest attack occurred Sunday when a man in his 20s had a collision with another driver and three men pinned him down, police said.

THE MINNESOTA Vikings moved to within a governor's signature of getting a new $975 million stadium on Thursday after the state Senate approved a plan that relies heavily on public financing. Gov. Mark Dayton has said he'll sign the measure, meaning the Senate's 36-30 vote was effectively the final barrier for the stadium. The House passed it overnight. After the Senate vote, jubilant Vikings vice president Lester Bagley hugged another team official and shouted, "Let's build it!"

It was 20 years ago that our company was hired to help with the demolition of JFK Stadium. I remember enthusiastically jumping on the assignment, knowing that the razing of the venerable Philadelphia landmark that had stood for more than a half-century as the largest-capacity stadium in the country would be a historic event. Until then, my history with JFK had been memorable but limited. Our family hadn't been big on Army-Navy games, so my only sports-related connection involved years of tailgating in JFK's parking lot for Phillies and Eagles games held across the street at the Vet. However, I was fortunate enough to attend a half-dozen concerts in its monstrously oversize bowl, including Live Aid. Some of those experiences are still vivid.

Nearly half of the state's voters support renaming Pennsylvania State University's football stadium to honor longtime coach Joe Paterno, according to a poll released Friday. The Quinnipiac University survey found 46 percent of respondents favored changing Beaver Stadium's name, while 40 percent said they were opposed. Thirteen percent said they did not have an opinion or had not made up their minds. The survey included responses from nearly 1,300 registered voters polled during six days earlier this month.

A year and a half after first announcing plans for solar power at the Eagles' stadium, the franchise announced Thursday that it had teamed up with a new partner - solar giant NRG of Princeton. NRG will design, build, and operate an array of more than 11,000 solar panels and 14 micro wind turbines that, over the course of a year, will provide six times the power used during all Eagles home games at Lincoln Financial Field, the team said. This time, the Eagles are working with a major player, a company that has already done a similar project at the Redskins' stadium, in the suburbs of Washington.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - President Obama plans to accept the Democratic presidential nomination in the open air of Bank of America Stadium on the final day of his party's convention here this summer, repeating a page from his 2008 convention playbook. Democrats also announced Tuesday that the convention would be shortened from the traditional four days to three to have a day to celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia, and the South. That celebration would take place Monday, Sept. 3, which is Labor Day, at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco 49ers-Pittsburgh Steelers Monday Night Football game started after a 20-minute delay because of a power outage at Candlestick Park. A second power outage caused the game to stop with just a few minutes gone in the second quarter. It ended well after midnight. Lights throughout the stadium first went off about 25 minutes before the scheduled kickoff. The public address system stopped working and fans were left in the dark until an emergency light came on in the far corner of the stadium.

IF YOU ADDED up all the Occupy folks from New York to Oakland, Calif., there would be, contrary to media oversaturation, less than the 100,000 needed to fill the stadium at Penn State. Could all the Occupy folks thumb their way to "Nittany-land"? The football team will not be in a bowl game until the 22nd century, given a pervert on the staff who committed egregious acts, and where everyone upstream, through to the president, tacitly approved the actions. So, there should be plenty of room for the Occupiers in the stadium and tailgate area, which will soon be virtually vacant.