1923 Yankee Stadium 3D Renderings

[bkhockey3]

Sultan--how can we steal those blueprints? Rebuilding cars from the grund up--tires and all!

[bkhockey3]

Think the cars will be much better looking.

[bkhockey3]

Trying to redo one car a day!

[mjrbaseball]

Trying to redo one car a day!

Very nicely done! Especially the chrome on the radiator.

One thing - should have spoked wheels. (Are the wheels wooden?)

[SultanOfWhat]

Very nicely done! Especially the chrome on the radiator.

One thing - should have spoked wheels. (Are the wheels wooden?)

The wheels were actually solid steel.


The new cab looks great.

[bkhockey3]

A few more details and cab will be temporarily done--wanna update other car models before I attempt to put checkering on cab.

[SultanOfWhat]

Some more images of the taxicabs follow. It looks like the toy versions of the Checker Cab and the Yellow cab were a bit too orange. The Yellow cabs were said to have a "saffron" color for much of the lower body, and black paint for the top portion of the cab (see third pic below). A saffron square has been added to some of the images below.

The Checker and Yellow Cabs seem to have used the same basic cars, which were a holdover from the Commonwealth auto company taken over by Checker Cab. So once the taxi has been modeled, simply changing the paint color and markings will provide two taxi fleets.

The tan, green, black and checkered colors of the surviving 1923 H-2 Checker cab might be authentic. In any event, painting the Checker cabs with that color scheme and the Yellow cabs in the saffron-and-black would provide a good contrast between the cars.


Here are a few pics of the Checker and Yellow cabs that show that both had crank-starts. In the first version, a strap has been added, probably to keep anyone from messing with it:




Yellow cab with crank-stat and saffron-and-black coloring:




This color ad has a yellow that was not orange enough (probably due to printing limitations), but it does show the yellow-and-black scheme:







EDIT: new taxi with driver is excellent. I suppose the Checker cabs could either be given the paint job of the surviving car (tan, green, black and checkered), or they could be left the darker orange shade.


Note: driver in 3D version is too large/tall. These cars were quite high:

[SultanOfWhat]

Some clarification on the door handles for the taxis:


The left side of the vehicle only has a handle for the back door. Apparently, the driver would have to enter/exit through the front door on the right side of the car, or use one of the back doors. No handle is visible on the drivers door in any of the photo references. It's not certain there was even a functional door on the driver's side in the front.





The right side of the vehicle had two doors (front and back) that opened, with a handle for each door.





The handle in the front door on the right side should be closer to the edge of the door (towards the back).




These two pics show the shape of the door handles:

[bkhockey3]

Sultan----making changes and building new babe car.

[SultanOfWhat]

Wanted to point out the relative wheelbase lengths of the two cars being created:

[SultanOfWhat]

The BOX TICKETS sign seems to have shrunk a bit:




As we can see in this OD 1923 pic, it protrudes well above the smooth concrete top lip, even when leaning out from the building at an angle:




There are two things to look for in the pic below. The first is that the BOX TICKETS sign looks to be 6-7 feet long. The second it that the concrete ledges on which the railings around the drop-off to the basement windows are placed are actually higher than we currently have them:




Here are two versions of a view recently posted by LPeters. They give another view of these high concrete ledges. I can't confirm that the railings are original (and they seem to have been re-painted silver), but the ledges do look at least as high as in the 1923 White Construction pic:






Making the concrete ledges a bit higher on the left side of the exterior would also help with our problem regarding the railings at or near the club entrance being too low on the smooth concrete band. Also note above that the entrance to the right of the club entrance (here signed as being for SEASON BOXES) seems to have 4 stairs.


The reason that the concrete ledges were higher on the left side of the exterior seems to be that the ground fell away more steeply on that side than on the right side. We can see lower concrete ledges on the right side in the FBI Story pics, and in the pic below:




It looks, though, as if the concrete ledges were thinner farther down the left side., This makes sense, as they are not part of an entrance, with the need to have elements rooted in a lower elevation attain the height needed to be in sync with the "ground floor level" within the Stadium:




The original blue prints state that the "main deck concourse" (indicated by a line running through the top of the tile decorations) was at a level of 41'0''. That seems to be one of the "levels" the builders would try to maintain, with other elements such as the thickness of the smooth concrete band and the concrete ledges changing slightly as need to maintain the "levels".




EDIT: The blue prints we used to construct the club entrance were depicting that entrance on the right side of the exterior, before the club entrance was moved to the left side. Therefore, the blue prints showing only 4 stairs seem to be inaccurate. It looks from the images above that there would have to be at least 6 stairs on the actual club entrance staircase to reach "ground floor level", due to the lower street level on the left side. Obviously, changing topo levels for the exterior might create some problems at this point. If the concrete ledges can't be raised to make the railings higher at the club entrance, at least we are aware of the reason for the discrepancy.

[bkhockey3]

Finishing up the red car---need to put checkers on cab-------this is the new fleet.

[bkhockey3]

Just the cab checkers left!

[SultanOfWhat]

Those new cars look great! I'll have some images of the cab markings later today.

Also will post NYPD marking images.

[bkhockey3]

Sultan--still not sure how to approach that LF wall and sidewalk issue-----also will check size of standing sign---think I scaled it down when I scaled Press Gate sign on RF sign.

[SultanOfWhat]

Sultan--still not sure how to approach that LF wall and sidewalk issue-----also will check size of standing sign---think I scaled it down when I scaled Press Gate sign on RF sign.

I'll have some time later this evening to try and help with these issues.

The BOX TICKETS sign seems to be longer than the PRESS GATE sign. After all, the BOX TICKETS part has 11 characters (including a space) on the bottom line.

[bkhockey3]

Sultan---will adjust tonight and start figuring out how to checker the cab.

[SultanOfWhat]

Regarding the Yellow Cab colors:



The Yellow Cab just says

Yellow
Cab
Co.

on the back door.

It would also be good to have the rates (shown 3rd pic below) forward of the front door.





Modern pic of Yellow Cab name is below. It would be best to duplicate the original name placement, above, which seems to be higher than shown in this pic:




These rates are from the cab driven by Harold Lloyd in Speedy (filmed in 1927):

[SultanOfWhat]

Another look at the Yellow Cab name. I think this was the cab color in 1922-23, as you currently have it:




An even better look at the name, from a later cab that has a more banana yellow paint job:




Closeup of name is below. I have seen the same font on Yellow cabs from 1922-3:

[bkhockey3]

New cab---not sure if rates from 1926 were same as 1923.

[mjrbaseball]

Not sure what to say about Speedy's rate, but according to the official NYC Taxicab Fact Book (page 18), the first increase in cab fares didn't come until 1952. It says "before 1952", the rate was 20¢ for the first ¼ mile, 5¢ each additional ¼ mile, and 5¢ each 2 minutes of wait time. The first change was in July 1952, to 25¢ for the first ⅕ mile, 5¢ each additional ⅕ mile, and 5¢ each 90 seconds wait time. It was 12 years before the next rate change.

[mjrbaseball]

However ...

A 1930 Time magazine article on taxi strikes says:

...
Meanwhile in New York City taxi grumblings, never still, grew louder. All companies complained that current prices were too low for profits. The city has some 250 cab companies, owning 24,000 taxicabs, operated by 70,000 drivers. The prevalent rate, cheapest in the U. S., is 15¢ for the first quarter-mile, 5¢ for each succeeding quarter-mile.
...

[SultanOfWhat]

That cab looks great!

As for the rates, things were a bit complicated. There were several attempts to rein in in the number of NYC cabs in the early 1920s, as there was an oversupply, and this lead to problems with aggressive taxicab driver behavior, insurance issues, etc. There were also different schedules of fares for different cars, indicated by green, white, or red metal flags over the meters. The cab fares actually declined in mid-late 1922. I have some old NYT articles saved somewhere, and I will read them to try to figure it all out. I expect the fares were either based on 20 cents or 15 cents per quarter mile, though.


I found this image of NYS from behind a batting screen. If we return to the issue of the batting screen for the 1923 Stadium, it would be a goal to replicate the see-through nature of this screen:


Actual image is 1920 X 1280:





Have to share this 1923 NYT article I found, from a less-PC time:




BTW, to clear up a little bit of confusion, I have found old Yellow Cab co. vehicles that had "Checker Cab Manufacturing Co." nameplates inside. It seems that Checker Cab manufactured vehicles that were driven by the Checker Cab Co. and the Yellow Cab Co. Another cab co. in NYC in 1922-3 was Diamond Cab. I found one example of a photo. If the cab body is the same as the Checker model, I'll post it.

[SultanOfWhat]

To see how many different taxicab rates were available in NYC in late 1922, read this .pdf (if you dare!):

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...BF668389639EDE

That article (NYT, Sept. 17, 1922) says that the biggest companies used green flag rates. The most common green flag rate was probably 20 cents for the first half mile, 10 cents for each additional 1/4 mile. However, I'm not sure that the cabs in 1922-3 had written rates on their sides, as in the case of the Speedy cab in 1927. The article above says that there were 3 "tariffs" or fare types available to cabs with a green flag, 2 for white flag cabs, and 2 for red flag cabs.


Here is a 1923 taxi meter from a Checker cab that has a red flag over the meter (the paint is faded, but its red):

[SultanOfWhat]

Trying to address a number of things tonight.

Here are some ideas for the lighting of the images. It should be possible to add interest by making the lighting a bit more dramatic. April 18, 1923 was a blustery day of mixed sun and clouds, which would allow for many moments of the sun shining onto the Stadium in varying patterns through breaks in the clouds. The game started at 3:30 PM and ended at 5:30, which would allow for a lower sun position later in the game that would make for a more reddish lighting at a lower angle, if desired. I'll try to find the sunset time for the YS location on April 18, to judge where the sun would have been at a given time. Probably will have to research Daylight Savings Time...


There are very few clear color photos of YS exterior with good sunlight before the 1967 paint job, so pictures of NYS will also be used below.


The first two photos show rather flat lighting:






This next one shows a nice effect of a cloud shading a portion of the Stadium while the rest is bathed in light. Maybe this effect could be tried in reverse (sunlight on the main gate and area from the club offices around to the press gate, with other areas in light shadow, as seen here):




The next two show dramatic effects from the angle of the sun, resulting in light and shadow. We couldn't attain for the 1923 Stadium quite the impact seen here, as NYS has a main gate that juts out quite a bit, and a sharp top cornice thereon, casting strong shadows, but it's still interesting:






These next couple of images show how a westering sun can dramatically alter the mood and look of the Stadium: