Quote:
Originally Posted by SEFTA
I always thought it odd that they did not place the Sports Complex just to east. Waterfront stadiums seem so popular and would have probably included large waterfront parks. Watching the city coming back to life, tho, I'm now glad that that didn't happen. Now I want to see waterfront mixed use communities.
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Just going off Wikipedia, it looks like JFK Stadium was built in South Philly for the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition (basically the World's Fair). It looks like they had a pretty elaborate setup which required a lot of space (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesqui...tenial_map.jpg) which is probably why they put it down there. I can't find much useful information on the Wikipedia pages for the Vet and the Spectrum, but my guess is they wanted them to be nearby the already existing JFK Stadium, and that was basically a bunch of city-owned swampland that wasn't really being used for anything after the Sesquicentennial. (Fun fact, the City still owns the land that the Linc and CBP are built on, but there's a complicated ground lease through PAID/PIDC, who then lease the ground to the Eagles and Phillies.) Of course, I think we all know the more recent history - the Phillies thought about a Center City (Chinatown, I believe) ballpark before deciding to stay down there.