| Stadium Name: | Chicago Stadium |
| Nickname: |
|
| Address: | 1800 West Madison Street |
| City: | Chicago, Illinois |
| Country: | United States |
| Coordinates: | [2] |
| Mapframe-Zoom: | 13 |
| Broke Ground: | July 2, 1928[3] |
| Opened: | March 28, 1929 |
| Closed: | September 9, 1994 |
| Demolished: | February - May 1995[4] |
| Owner: | Chicago Stadium Corp. |
| Operator: | Chicago Stadium Corp. |
| Construction Cost: | $5 million - $9.5 million (est.) ($ in dollars) |
| Architect: | Hall, Lawrence & Ratcliffe, Inc.[5] |
| Builder: | Paddy Harmon |
| Tenants: | Chicago Blackhawks (NHL) (1929–1994) Chicago Stags (BAA/NBA) (1946–1950) Chicago Majors (ABL) (1961–1963) Chicago Bulls (NBA) (1967–1994) Chicago Sting (NASL/MISL) (1980–1988) |
| Seating Capacity: | 18,676 (basketball) 17,317 (ice hockey) 18,472 (ice hockey with standing room) |
The Chicago Stadium was an indoor arena in Chicago that opened in 1929, closed in 1994 and was demolished in 1995. It was the home of the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls. It was used for numerous other sporting events, opening with a championship boxing match in March 1929. The Stadium was built by Paddy Harmon, a promoter, who sank his entire fortune into the project, only to lose control to the Stadium shareholders, and leave his family nearly penniless a year later when he died. After exiting receivership in 1935, the Stadium was owned by the Norris and Wirtz families until its closure in 1994.
The Stadium hosted the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL from 1929 to 1994 and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA from 1967 to 1994. The arena was the site of the first NFL playoff game in 1932; the 1932, 1940, and 1944 Democratic National Conventions; and the 1932 and 1944 Republican National Conventions, as well as numerous concerts, rodeo competitions, boxing matches, political rallies, and plays.
The Stadium was built by Chicago sports promoter Paddy Harmon, first proposed in 1926, not long after the legalization of professional boxing in Illinois. Encouraged by the success of the New York Rangers and New York Americans expansion NHL teams, and their Madison Square Garden, Harmon also wanted to bring an NHL team to Chicago, but he lost out to Col. Frederic McLaughlin. This team would soon be known as the Chicago Black Hawks (later 'Blackhawks'). With or without the Black Hawks, Harmon then spent $2.5 million and borrowed more funds from friends, including $600,000[6] from James E. Norris, in order to build the stadium. Eric Hall was the architect and he designed a stadium where all had a view of the action. His design philosophy was "The man who pays the lowest admission price has as much right to see the show as those who sit at the ringside".[7] The building used Art Deco flourishes, including flattened columns, long vertical windows, relief sculptures of various athletics and medallions of wrestlers adorned the walls above entrances.[7]
Breaking ground in July 1928, it opened eight months later, on March 28, 1929. Various reports give the cost at US$5 million, US$7 million[7] and . Chicago Stadium was the largest indoor arena in the world at the time, with permanent seating for 15,000 people, and a capacity for 26,000 with floor seats and standing room. It was situated in Harmon's old "Valley" neighbourhood where he grew up.[1] Its first event was a boxing match between Tommy Loughran and Mickey Walker for a purse of .[8]
Detroit's Olympia stadium, built two years earlier, was a model for the Chicago Stadium. The Stadium was also the first arena with an air conditioning system. However, the system was fairly rudimentary by modern standards, and was memorably given to filling the arena with fog during late-season basketball and hockey games. The Stadium also had no elevators. To get kegs of beer to upper-floor concessions, concession workers formed a line to pass the kegs upstairs. To return the kegs downstairs, the workers simply rolled them down the stairs, damaging the stairs in the process.[9]
Harmon became the Stadium's first president. Building it incurred enemies. Harmon himself helped put out a fire on the Stadium's roof set by disgruntled workmen.[10] Harmon reached an impasse in getting the Black Hawks as a tenant, although both sides wanted the team to move to the Stadium from the Chicago Coliseum, which was much smaller. Fed up with the delay, the Stadium board of directors forced Harmon to resign as president, although he remained an executive with the Stadium..[11] Sheldon Clark became the new president, and he retained Nate Clark as the Stadium's boxing matchmaker.[12] The board acceded to the Black Hawks' terms and the team moved in weeks later. After Harmon was ousted, dynamite was placed at the home of James Norris when Sidney Strotz, treasurer of the Stadium was attending for dinner. The dynamite's fuse went out, preventing its explosion.[13]
Harmon sank his entire fortune into the Stadium, and when he died less than a year later due to a car crash, he had only his shares in the Stadium and $2.50 in cash on hand to leave to his widow and daughter.[14] His funeral was held in the Stadium, paid for by friends, and the Stadium held a benefit boxing show in August 1930 to benefit his family.[15]
Struggling to pay the interest on the Stadium's debt, the Stadium planned to turn the Stadium into a dog track for the summer of 1930 with the backing of Thomas Duggan, but dog racing was ruled illegal in Chicago. Al Capone had operated dog racing tracks in Cook County for several years before the authorities stopped his tracks from operating.[16]
On January 20, 1933, the Stadium went into receivership.[17] Sidney Strotz of the Stadium Corporation and Fred E. Hummel were named receivers. Strotz announced to the media that the Stadium would operate much like it had before.[18] In 1935, the Stadium was sold to Norris and Arthur Wirtz, a Chicago real estate owner. Norris and Wirtz had in 1933 purchased the Detroit NHL franchise and the Detroit Olympia.[19] By court judgment, control of the Stadium changed hands to Norris and Wirtz for a total of, of which $150,000 went for back taxes, $50,000 for reorganization expenses, and $50,000 for new working capital.[20]
The Stadium sat 17,317 for hockey at the time of closure, though standing room pushed the "actual" attendance beyond that figure. The official attendance figures in the published game summaries were often given in round numbers, such as 18,500 or 20,000. The largest recorded crowd for an NHL game at the stadium was 20,069 for a playoff game between the Blackhawks and Minnesota North Stars on April 10, 1982.
| Years | Capacity | |
|---|---|---|
| 1929–1952 | ||
| 1952–1984 | ||
| 1984–1994 | ||
| With standing room |
In addition to the close-quartered, triple-tiered, boxy layout of the building, much of the loud, ringing noise of the fans could be attributed to the fabled 3,663-pipe Barton organ. It was estimated to have the total volume of 25 brass bands.[23] The organ was considered to have the world's largest theater organ console with six manuals (keyboards) and over 800 stops. It was Harmon's intention that the massive organ would be needed to provide the music for whatever event was playing in the building.[23] It was played by Al Melgard for decades during hockey games there, earning the Stadium the moniker "The Madhouse on Madison".
For years, the Stadium was also known as "The Loudest Arena in the NBA", due to its barn-shaped features. When the Stadium closed in 1994, the organ was removed and prepared to be installed in the 19th hole museum. Soon after the museum closed, sending the organ along with another theatre organ to a warehouse in Phoenix Arizona. In October 1996, a year after the stadium was razed, a propane tank explosion melted and destroyed both pipe organs, excluding the console. The organ is currently in the residence of Phil Maloof and is in good working condition with new pipes.
In the Stanley Cup semifinals of 1971, when the Blackhawks scored a series-clinching empty-net goal in Game seven against the New York Rangers, CBS announcer Dan Kelly reported, "I can feel our broadcast booth shaking! That's the kind of place Chicago Stadium is right now!" The dressing rooms at the Stadium were placed underneath the seats, and the cramped corridor that led to the ice, with its twenty-two steps, became the stuff of legend. Legend has it a German Shepherd wandered the bowels at night as "the security team."
During the 1973 Stanley Cup Finals against Montreal, Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz had the horn of his yacht (Kahlenberg Q-3) installed in the building, and had it sound after Blackhawks goals. This practice would, in the ensuing years, become commonplace in professional hockey.[24]
Nancy Faust, organist for 40 years at Chicago White Sox games, also played indoors at the Stadium, at courtside for Chicago Bulls home games from 1976 to 1984, and on the pipe organ for Chicago Blackhawks hockey there from 1985 to 1989. She was replaced at the keyboard in 1990 by Frank Pellico, who serves as Hawks organist to this day.
It also became traditional for Blackhawk fans to cheer loudly throughout the singing of the national anthems, especially when sung by Chicago favorite Wayne Messmer. Denizens of the second balcony often added sparklers and flags to the occasion. Arguably, the most memorable of these was the singing before the 1991 NHL All-Star Game, which took place during the Gulf War. This tradition has continued at the United Center. Longtime PA announcer Harvey Wittenberg had a unique monotone style: "Blackhawk goal scored by #9, Bobby Hull, unassisted, at 6:13." The Chicago Stadium also provided a unique fan experience. On the west side of the building was the Players/Employee/VIP Visitors Parking Lot. It is also where Teams/Bands/Politicians/Performers would enter the building through the legendary Gate 3 1/2 (Appropriately placed between Gates 3 and 4 on the North and South Sides). Although protected by fencing, it was where fans could see the talent get out of their cars or teams exit their buses before going into the building. It was also a great autograph and informal "meet and greet" opportunity.
In 1992, both the Blackhawks and the Bulls reached the finals in their respective leagues. The Blackhawks were swept in their finals by the Pittsburgh Penguins, losing at Chicago Stadium, while the Bulls won the second of their first of three straight NBA titles on their home floor against the Portland Trail Blazers. The next time the Bulls clinched the championship at home was in the newly built United Center in (when they did so against the Seattle SuperSonics), their second season at the new arena, and the Blackhawks would not reach the Stanley Cup Finals again until (in which they defeated the Philadelphia Flyers in six games), their 16th season in the new building, although they won their first championship since in Philadelphia. The Blackhawks last won the Stanley Cup at the Stadium in ; they did not win the Cup again at home until at the United Center.
It was also the last NHL arena to retain the use of an analog dial-type large four-sided clock for timekeeping in professional hockey games. Boston Garden and the Detroit Olympia (as well as the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in its pre-NHL days) had identical scoreboards but replaced them with digital timers in the mid-1960s, with Boston having their digital four-sided clock in use for the 1969–70 NHL season. After removing the balcony-edge game clocks at either end and at mid-ice zones of the Stadium, the replacement four-sided game clock suspended over center ice of the Stadium, built by Bulova[25] as their "Sports Timer", was installed in Chicago in 1943. Each side of the clock had a large diameter 20-minute face in the center that kept the main game time for one period of ice hockey, with a set of shorter black-colored minute and longer red-colored sweep-second hands, and a pair of smaller, 5-minute capacity dual-concentric faces for penalty timekeeping, to the left and right of the primary 20-minute face — with each of the 5-minute penalty timers having its own single hand and each clock face, both the central main timer's dial and flanking penalty timer dials (when a penalty was counting down) illuminated from behind during gameplay. The "outer" face of each penalty timer had a single hand that avoided obscuration of the "inner" face and its own, "solid" single hand, through the use of metal rods forming the outer hand's "shaft", holding its hand's "pointer" head[26] — the set of two concentric faces for each penalty timer dial could handle two penalties for each set, with an illuminated "2" on each penalty timer dial lighting up to display a minor penalty infraction. It was difficult to read how much time was left in a period of play on the main game timer's large face, as each minute of play was marked by a longer line on every third "seconds" increment on the central main dial, due to the minute hand's twenty-minute "full rotation" timing capacity for one period of ice hockey. The difficulty was compounded on the main central dial from the aforementioned minute and sweep-second hands being in constant motion during gameplay. The "Sports Timer's" only digital displays were for scoring and for penalized players' numbers, each digit comprising a six-high, four-wide incandescent light dot matrix display.
That clock eventually was replaced by a four-sided scoreboard with a digital clock, first used on September 21, 1975, in Blackhawks preseason play,[27] crafted by the Day Sign Company of Toronto, much like the one used at the end of the 1960s (and constructed by Day Sign Company) to replace the nearly identical Bulova Sports Timer game-timekeeping device in the Boston Garden, and then in 1985 by another, this one with a color electronic message board. That latter scoreboard was built by White Way Sign, which would build scoreboards for the United Center.
The Stadium was also one of the last three NHL arenas (the others being Boston Garden and the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium) to have a shorter-than-regulation ice surface, as their construction predated the regulation. The distance was taken out of the neutral zone.
After the Blackhawks and Bulls moved to the United Center, the Chicago Stadium was demolished in 1995. Its site is now a parking lot for the United Center across the street. CNN televised the demolition, showing devoted Blackhawks and Bulls fans crying as the wrecking ball hit the old building. The console of the Barton organ now resides in the Phil Maloof residence in Las Vegas, Nevada. Also, the center of the Chicago Bulls' floor resides in Michael Jordan's trophy room at his mansion in North Carolina.
A pavement plaque with the words "Chicago Stadium – 1929–1994 – Remember The Roar" is located behind a statue of the Blackhawks' greatest players on the north side of the United Center. Two friezes from Chicago Stadium were incorporated into a building at St. Ignatius College Prep School, 1076 W. Roosevelt Road.
Two of the Stadium's main parking lots, which are still used for United Center parking, retain signs that read "People's Stadium Parking".
