John F. Kennedy Stadium
formerly an open-air stadium in Philadelphia
John F. Kennedy Stadium, formerly Philadelphia Municipal Stadium and Sesquicentennial Stadium, was an open-air stadium in Philadelphia that stood from 1926 to 1992. It was built of concrete, stone, and brick on a 13.5-acre (55,000 m2) tract in South Philadelphia. It was located at the east side of the far southern end of Broad Street, as part of the Sesquicentennial, at a location which is now part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. It was designed by the architectural firm of Simon & Simon in a classic 1920s horseshoe shape resembling Harvard Stadium, which was built in 1903. The seating enclosed a football field surrounded by a running track. Bleachers were eventually added to the open (North) end of the stadium and at its peak the facility seated in excess of 102,000 people.
Each section of the main portion of the stadium contained its own entrance, which displayed the letters of each section above the entrance, in a nod to ancient Roman stadia. Section designators were divided at the south end of the stadium (the bottom of the "U" shape) between West and East, starting with Sections WA and EA and proceeding north. The north bleachers started with Section NA.
Opening and names
Leaders of Philadelphia's sports organizations gathered at the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce in March 1920 and announced their intention to build a 200,000 seat sports stadium to attract national and international sporting events. The city immediately submitted its candidacy to host the 1924 Summer Olympics.
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This entry incorporates text from “John F. Kennedy Stadium” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.