1923 Yankee Stadium 3D Renderings

[SultanOfWhat]

Some issues with the tricky LF alley gate. Probably best to post the reference photos here. Some of the images below are annotated.

[chip]

Looking good bk,

But I also see a couple of things in the first rendering.

It looks like there is a row of seats between the concrete
wall and the first box seat divider rail. That is a crossing
aisle and should not have seats. The first row should be
behind the box seat divider rail. Also you have the seats
in the box seat area up against the grandstand wall. There
is no way to access those seats because of the vertical box
seat rail. I think you need to remove the first two seats on
the far right and slide the seat horizontal divider rails to the
left. So if you count the seats from right to left you should
have four seats the vertical divider then six seats.

Can you render the left field corner from above so I can
see the rest of those box seat sections?
I’ll check the rest of the railing locations.

[bkhockey3]

Chip----For the last rendering, I put in the last two sections in LF of high detail seats and mistakenly put in that extra first row---my original seats do not have that first row. Here is a screen grab of the LF railings------am not sure at this point if I have an extra seat in the rows that I can change that without tremendous amount of work, especially since the arm rest part of the seats has to line up directly under the railing that runs up the rows.
Sultan----- The LF and bleacher gates are now way more accurate.

[bkhockey3]

Just wanted to show off Sultan's eagle-eye for detail---quite a difference in the new bleacher gates.

[SultanOfWhat]

Images below illustrate a few issues discussed above, and add a detail here and there. It's good to have chip looking at the model, as he has gone through his own battles in figuring out how the seats are arranged for his own model.

As chip says, the first row of seats in the lower LF grandstand is behind the railing:




Here is the aisle that chip mentioned, which would be necessary to get to those seats nearest the LF alley:




If you look at the image just above, it seems ambiguous as to whether there is such an aisle abutting the LF alley in the next section up (without the interior railings amidst the seats). However, in the image below, we can see a man walking down just such an aisle in the second section up from the playing field:




Maybe there is some sort of maintenance-related stuff hiding the aisle in the second image above in that second section. Or maybe the aisle is wider in the section closest to the playing field.


We know that on OD 1923 the fencing was already installed in the railings in the area indicated by the red arrows below. So I started thinking about the railings across the LF alley (yellow arrows below), which may also have had fencing, as they would have helped to protect fans from falling from a height. However, I can't make out fencing in the yellow arrowed railings in the image below. Having fencing in those railings would be logical, but I'd like to find photographic proof that they were there on OD 1923. The image below was taken in 1923, probably between April 26 and May 3.




There has to be some way to secure those large bleacher gate doors, and we see evidence of a bolt-type latch below. But having a single-side bolt might eventually mean having to go through one of the small bleacher gates onto the playing field to open the large swinging doors (after fencing was installed in the door railings, meaning that the maintenance crew couldn't just reach their hand through the railings from the bleacher side and undo the bolt). So maybe there was a connector that allowed the bolt to be inserted and removed from both sides of the fence. [EDIT: Even after the fencing was installed, maybe the crew could have still put their arms below the bottom railing in the gate door to reach a bolt on the playing field side]




Came across an article about the stampede in the RF bleachers in 1929 that killed two people. That article stated that there were 14 steps leading down to the passageway seen here.




From the "new" Harding pic that shows him arriving at the box seats (April 24, 1923) we can just make out this detail for the way in which the small gate hinges were connected to the concrete wall:




The latch has been faithfully replicated already, but here we have a glimpse of the catch (red arrow). I thought that the latch was a spring version that moved in an arc, but it seems to simply move up and down (see the bolts and the latch's area of travel):




We have an unobstructed view of the catch in this 1930 photo:




Here is a good look at the hinge of one of the small gates in the RF bleacher wall. Hey, there's a screw missing! Also, we see an arm going under the bottom railing, which might reflect on the large gate bolt issue.

[bkhockey3]

Hope to have another bleacher view today.

[bkhockey3]

Now back to the ball joints.

[SultanOfWhat]

That looks much better. Now the wooden frame structure of the gate is distinct from the swinging doors. Before and after:




This construction photo shows the LF bleacher exit gate's wooden frame structure standing alone (before the swinging doors were installed:

[SultanOfWhat]

Posted these in the YS thread, but want them in this one, too, as they are from 1923. Ruth showing a happier expression than in some other photos of this meeting of the two most famous men in the country at the time (April 24, 1923):

[SultanOfWhat]

The scoreboard looks fantastic now, but I just noticed that there is a slight bit of text missing from the bottom right of the scoreboard, which we can just make out in photos of OD 1923.

Here is what that area was used for in later years (TO-MORROW", etc.). Photo is from 1929:




There are surprisingly few surviving photos that show the scoreboard on OD 1923. Here is one, but the scoreboard is out of focus, and cut off:




Here is the Johns-Manville asbestos roofing ad from the July 16, 1923 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. The image used is an aerial photo taken on OD 1923. We can see that there is indeed some text along the bottom right of the scoreboard (which the 3D model currently lacks):




Here is a shot of the scoreboard from 1923 with an inset of the image above. The red arrows show the AT BAT - BALLS - STRIKES - OUTS row, and the blue text indicates the unknown text:




Here is another photo that appears to be from 1923 OD that I had forgotten about. We can see that the text at the bottom right seems to be in 3 components, and that it begins to the right of the middle of the scoreboard:




Just to get most of these like photos in one post, here is one that I had thought showed 1923 OD, but the lack of text at the bottom right doesn't match the Saturday Evening Post image (known to be from OD 1923). Of course, the text might have been added sometime during the game. In any event, this photo is from very early in the 1923 season, before the clock was installed on the top of the scoreboard, and before the grass leading to the large bleacher exit gate in CF was worn by foot traffic. Again, no scoreboard text on the lower right, though:




Here is another very early 1923 image, probably taken before the Yankees set out on their first road trip (April 26th). The scoreboard is again blurry, and cut in half:




Here is a photo from the 1923 WS. By now, the clock has been installed atop the scoreboard, three billboards have been repainted in left field, and the Tex Austin's Rodeo banner has been replaced by one advertising the first-ever football game in Yankee Stadium (Syracuse-Pittsburgh, October 20). Also, the word "TO-MORROW" has been painted on the scoreboard, and in a different spot than the 1923 OD text, starting to the left of the middle of the scoreboard. This is in an area to the left of the 4 rectangular placard slots in the lower right. We can also see what looks to be a "NY" placard at the lower right corner.




So the 1923 OD scoreboard had some sort of 3-segment text at the lower right, probably part of an announcement of the next day's game versus Boston. I'll try to come up with some options for this. Here is the text at lower right that we should be trying to replicate:

[SultanOfWhat]

Noticed something about the umpire notations on the scoreboard. It looks like there was one slot to identify each of the two umpires working on OD 1923 (one for the plate, and one for the bases):




At first, this suggests that a number inside the program indicated each umpire, and the corresponding number was posted on the scoreboard in the proper slot. We see such numbers for the respective umpires in this 1929 close-up:





However, no numbers for the umpires are shown in the program for Opening Day 1923. The umpires were simply identified by name (at bottom left):




So maybe the scoreboard had "E" for "Evans" and "H" for Holmes. I'll look into it a bit more, and will also suggest something for the "TO-MORROW" text area.

Any other photo/scorecard references relating to the treatment of umpire names and numbers would be helpful, especially those with known seasons.


[EDIT: to complicate matters, Retrosheet has 3 umpires working on OD 1923 in YS. They were:

Umpires: HP - Tommy Connolly, 1B - Billy Evans, 3B - Ducky Holmes



Baseball Reference concurs:

Umpires: HP - Tommy Connolly, 1B - Billy Evans, 2B - (none), 3B - Ducky Holmes.]

[mjrbaseball]

According to the 04/18/23 box score on Retrosheet, there were three umpires on Opening Day: HP - Tommy Connolly, 1B - Billy Evans, 3B - Ducky Holmes.

(It seems we were both looking this up at the same time!)

[SultanOfWhat]

According to the 04/18/23 box score on Retrosheet, there were three umpires on Opening Day: HP - Tommy Connolly, 1B - Billy Evans, 3B - Ducky Holmes.

(It seems we were both looking this up at the same time!)

Yep! I just wanted to see what the actual boxscore said.

Here are two of the umpires:





And here is the third, standing at the hot corner, H.E. "Ducky" Holmes:






Here's a pic from 1923 that must be from the WS, as it has Huggins conferring with 4 umpires in YS:

[mjrbaseball]

On the next game section, would it not say:

          TO-MORROW      4 PM     N.Y.   vs.   BOST.

[SultanOfWhat]

On the next game section, would it not say:

          TO-MORROW      4 PM     N.Y.   vs.   BOST.

That's close to what it would have said later in the season, after the "TO-MORROW" part was painted in an open space starting just to the left of the middle of the scoreboard. On Opening Day, it looks like they just used the 4 slats in the scoreboard (at the bottom right), which would have been too small to have the word "TO-MORROW" in one of the slats. I'm still amazed that we don't have a single good image of the scoreboard on OD 1923, and that there are still mysteries about that day after so much research. On OD 1923, this is what the text looked like (the line on the bottom right):

[SultanOfWhat]

That photo of Huggins conferring with the umpires brings the ground rules to mind. I'm not sure if the following feature was added to address a ground rules issue, but a set of railings was installed in the RF corner sometime after OD. I don't see these railings in a photo that I've dated to circa September 1, 1923, so these railings were probably added shortly before the World Series, maybe to cut down on balls bouncing over the original 33" concrete wall running from near the RF foul pole to the bleachers. Here are the railings:










Bonus shot of Jack Lenz doing his thing in YS:







CORRECTION: Here is the photo from circa Sept. 1 1923. Looks like there are already some extra railings in place, but I can't see the white ones. Don't want to dwell on it, as it doesn't affect the OD 3D project, but just thought it was interesting.

[SultanOfWhat]

From the 1923 OD program, we know that the scorecard just had the names of the umpires, but with no numbers yet assigned to them. But we have this 1923 scorecard for a game in YS versus the Tigers:





Looking inside, this scorecard by this time does indeed assign numbers for the umpires:




So I would say as far as the 1923 3D scoreboard is concerned, the best thing to do would be to insert "10" for the "PLATE" umpire (Connolly's number in scorecard versus the Detroit), and "1" for the "Bases" umpire (for Evans, the first base umpire on OD 1923). We can just assume that the program printer didn't get around to obtaining the umpire numbers, which is not surprising in the rush to print up the special program for OD, which had more pages than the type of program we see for the 1923 game versus Detroit. But we see something in those slots for the umpire numbers on OD 1923, and in the newly discovered Getty photo (probably from a game on April 22-25), so we might as well go with the numbers we have from the later program for OD. Not sure if the scoreboard could also have referenced "Ducky Holmes' no. 5 without confusing fans, as there seems to have been only one slot for the "BASES" umpire, and one number placard installed. Looks like The AL assigned an extra umpire to this very high-profile game on OD 1923.


Here is a view of the scoreboard from the Duke photo (circa May 1, 1923). It looks like there is just one slot for each umpire number, which are wider than those for BALLS, STRIKES, etc. This is because the umpire number might be a double digit, as in the case of the "10" for Connolly.





So this is my suggestion for the umpire numbers (but using the appropriate scoreboard font):







By the way, here are the dates in 1923 for Tiger visits to YS:




Here is the Detroit page for that scorecard. I suppose it might be possible to narrow down the date of the program by using the indicated rosters, but that would be difficult.





Should have a suggestion for the "TO-MORROW" text by....tomorrow.

[SultanOfWhat]

Here are two images I haven't seen. The first shows Ty Cobb in CF hamming it up on June 18th, 1923:




Here's an interesting look at the grounds crew working on the home plate area. Could be 1923, 1924, or maybe later. Maybe analyzing the visible details will narrow it down.

[bkhockey3]

Wow----Just caught up on thread----will add umpire numbers. Between work, freelance work, getting my son set up in college, and my home computer needing repairs, I just opened stadium file for first time in quite a while. Gotta get my bearings and see where I left off. Hope to render something new in the coming days.

[SultanOfWhat]

Do we know at what time the game following OD 1923 would have started (Thursday, April 19)? I think someone above mentioned a possible 3:15 start time.

I've read that the first pitch on OD 1923 was at a few minutes after 3:30, but that was a special day.

So, any info on that specific second game start time, or on start times in 1923 in general? Trying to finalize the text on the bottom right of the scoreboard.

[Chris Jones]

Hey Dad...wanna have a catch?

(and yes, the newly installed/attached original frieze was brown copper).

[elmer]

game time apr 19

[SultanOfWhat]

elmer, thanks so much for that clipping. Nice to see the game time confirmed for the following game.

[SultanOfWhat]

One of the benefits of staying with this project for so long is that new references occasionally come to light. The photo of the four Yankee pitchers, the Duke photos, and the 1923 architectural review are good examples of this.

I was uncertain about the color of the Young's Hats ad. The only colored object I could find in relation to that advertiser was a pillow, which was red/burgundy and had white letters. As the Young's sign in 1923 YS was quite dark, we went with that. But I knew that the Chiclets sign was darker than the Young's hats sign (both billboards from the same photo are seen below):




Shades in isolation (Chiclets on top once again):




As new items are being added to the internet all the time, it made sense to search for more Young's Hats references in color. Here's the first one that turned up:




So banana yellow was one possible shade. But then another reference popped up:




So we have two Young's Hats references, one banana yellow, and one yellow-orange.





If we just go by the relative shade, I would say that the Young's Hats background for the YS billboard should be the yellow-orange shade, as it is quite dark. It's very tricky to guess precise colors due to filters, emulsions, etc., but as the Chiclets and Young's hats billboards were both illegible in the resulting photo, I doubt the photographer was using a filter.

Here is a reference for the yellow-orange color. Probably best to go with that shade, as it seems indicated by the shade, and we already have a banana yellow element in the Adlers Gloves billboard.




Two yellow ads should probably be enough for the LF billboards, so we should look to change the Van Heusen billboard to another color (it is now yellow). The Van Heusen never looked quite right, anyway.

[SultanOfWhat]

While reading through some old NYT articles, I came across something interesting regarding the banner that was run up the center field flag pole on Opening Day 1924, that also touches on the color banner photo we used as a reference for the 1923 OD banner.


First, a refresher as to what the 1923 OD banner looks like, as designed by mjrbaseball and bk:




The best view of it going up the flag pole on OD 1923:




A ways back in this thread, I posted the color reference photo of what we thought was the OD 1923 banner, and mentioned that it looked like there was more than "1922" written in the bottom row. But as the photo wasn't clear enough to say for sure, it had to stop there. Here is the image:




Closer:




Here's a snippet of the NYT article, which describes OD 1924. The World Champions banner was not unveiled and run up the flag pole until May 14, 1924. So, on OD 1924 (April 23), an "American League Champions" banner was run up the flag pole, but with a twist:




So it looks like the banner we see behind Ruth is probably the banner described in that 1924 NYT article, as it appears that three dates are in that bottom row. It is possible that the Yankees simply added "1921" and "1923" to either side of the "1922" of the banner unveiled on OD 1923. The color pattern of the current banner in the 3D model should still be fine. Just thought I would share that article, which suggests the banner history of YS is more complicated than we thought.


Still too blurry, but maybe the dates are as seen below: