1923 Yankee Stadium 3D Renderings

[bkhockey3]

Want to do another seat section today and start riveting all the beams and girders. Will take some time to plan it out, then once one assembly is done, will have to re lay them out. Be patient, it'll be worth the time.

[chip]

Bk,
I’m a little confused.
Aren’t all the upper deck curved sections the same?
Can you take the section that you have done copy and rotate it and place it in the next section?

[bkhockey3]

Chip----For some reason it won't work and cannot figure it out--I followed the blueprint as close as possible for the sections, the exit ramps are EXACTLY centered in each section. Maybe it will work for the middle 6 or 7 sections. I know it's tedious as hell, but your method has worked and when I think of how the seats looked prior to this thread, I can deal with the tedium. When I was at the thread on my blackberry, I noticed some people's locations were listed-------------LEBRON isn't worth the anger your area is feeling. Anyway------I'm going to bump map the sides of the beams, but won't proceed putting them in place until I'm sure whether or not rivets appear on the back side of the beams. So if anyone has conclusive images please let me know.

[bkhockey3]

Side rivets in.

[SultanOfWhat]

In chronological order:

1926 WS (interesting how the steel beam is rooted in the concrete):






Kiosks from above, 1927 WS:




I think this is the pic to which Richard was referring (he felt it indicated glare from the frieze), probably 1928-1932; erroneously captioned as 1932 WS:




1947 WS, lightened to show beam rivets (1937 construction):

[bkhockey3]

Sultan----good--I had put rivets on the back---figured it would be easy to take if needed to. Can now proceed with metalwork---the only question holding it up is: there would only be rivets on one side of all the small pieces? That's a lot of glare!!!! The frieze is way lighter than the stands fronts and beams----------it would be in the stage after dark brown on it's way to light green, but at what point in the weathering process does the metal lose it's sheen?

[bkhockey3]

Forgot to mention---YS 1923 sent me image of the mint seat color. I sampled it, made it a little cleaner and applied the color to my seats. Compared to the color I had, the new color is dramatically lighter and slightly yellower. May have to lighten the stands concrete.

[bkhockey3]

This seat color mat well be the most accurate color of the stadium.

[SultanOfWhat]

OK, I finally found a vintage Yankees scorecard (second image, 1926 WS).






So would the scoreboard have listed the players by batting position and fielding position thus (using scorecard above)?:

1 CF 2 SS 3 RF 4 LF

What would happen if, say, player 21 (Bengough) took over the catching duties and batted 9th? Would the scoreboard have still said 9 C? if so, how would the fans have known about the switch, or who was playing and batting where?

So the question is: if the players were listed by batting slot (1-9), how were substitutions, pre-game managers' switches or line-up shuffles dealt with?


RE: the new seat color, have you accounted for the fact that the paint may have faded from its original color over the last 85+ years?

RE: the purported glare from the frieze --- that was Richard's belief. I don't think that the light effect in the picture in question is from glare off the frieze. That photo was taken at least 5 years after the copper had first been exposed to weathering. It was almost certainly quite brown by then, with a fair portion of green (see 5-year copper tile in chart below), and probably fairly dull as far as light reflection.


BTW, here is a corner of the frieze from the 1942 color image Bob posted:



The 1942 image above was taken 14 years after the copper frieze portion of the 1928 extension was exposed to the elements. There is clearly a green patina there, though it is not quite complete, and the frieze still appears to show variation.


Pretty close to the 15-year copper tile in the weathering chart below, though weathering might have been a bit slower back in the 1920s-early-1940s:




Lastly, this article (I think it was from the frieze thread) states that the frieze flag poles were 32 feet tall:

[bkhockey3]

The frieze must have looked like a mess for a number of years. Not saying it was painted, but interesting that article says painted white and installed, cause when the shot of the frieze being installed was posted to this thread, I thought the section may have been covered in some white paper or something, cause it showed no tone whatsoever. Have been carefully getting the beams and girders ready to replace the old ones. Made some tweaks to the small pieces. Need to start laying out the dots to make the bump map for the small pieces. Also need to rework the MD front facings. With the new beams and stands fronts, putting on the white section numbers will not be as easy as before. Sultan---that color for the seats I've darkened and saturated more than the sample. After the metalwork is done may go back and darken a little more.

[Gylmar]

Since the Yankees didn't wear numbers until 1929, you had to buy the scorecard to be able to understand the uniform numbers posted on the scoreboard. If the manager made a lineup change they would post it on the scoreboard then you would make the change in your scorecard if you were keeping score.

[SultanOfWhat]

Since the Yankees didn't wear numbers until 1929, you had to buy the scorecard to be able to understand the uniform numbers posted on the scoreboard. If the manager made a lineup change they would post it on the scoreboard then you would make the change in your scorecard if you were keeping score.

OK, but how would they do that? How would the scorboard refer to, say, player 24 (Aaron Ward, given the scorecard above) batting in the 6 hole and playing LF? Would it say 1 CF - 2 SS - 3 RF - 4 LF - 5 1B - 24 LF - 6 2B ? And what about Lou Gehrig jumping around in the lineup, from the 3rd to the 4th to the 5th slot? Was he assigned a player number (scorecard-wise) for the season, or did his player number change based upon the particular series being played, where he was expected to bat in the batting order, and the printing of scorecards?


bk, I think the frieze's transformation would have been more graceful given its design. The many details and open spaces in each frieze section would have made variations less glaring.

Here are two of the earliest color images of the frieze of which I'm aware (aside from Bob's 1942 pic). They both seem to match the copper weathering chart pretty well.


The first image is from 1948 (Babe's farewell). The frieze has been in place for 25 years:




This image, from the 1949 WS is interesting in part because most of the frieze (behind home plate and part of the way towards LF) has been in place for 26 years, while the LF extension portion of the frieze has been in place for 21 years. Am I imagining things, or is the LF portion a bit more mottled, still showing variation?:

[YankeeStadium1923]

Hi guys,
Have been following this thread with interest. great job by bkhockey and everyone else. That frieze remnant that YS1923 reposted belongs to me. it has always appeared to me that the brownish part is where some of the patina has scraped off (although I am no expert). Also, I belive the railings were not made of copper but rather cast iron. Also - in regards to the flagpoles i belive the flagpole toppers were fasioned to look like baseballs complete with stiching. I have a picture of one somewhere that survived - I have been unable to locate it, will keep trying. keep the good work guys!

Hey Frank,

I remember the posting in the Frieze thread that you had a piece of the copper frieze. One lucky man.

The original Yankeee Stadium seats were made of cast iron and therefore have an indian red primer. It's possible the same indian red primer was used for the cast iron railings. I have an old section plaque that has indian red and mint green on the back of the plaque where it would have bene in contact with the railings.

[YankeeStadium1923]

This seat color mat well be the most accurate color of the stadium.

The sample taken was from an excellent seat sample from Yankee Stadium with minimum rust in comparison to others seats I have seen in the past. In fact the bottom slat of the seat back only has mint green paint drips on the natural wood leading me to believe it was probably up againt a back wall or column and possibly covered from the elements.

[YankeeStadium1923]

I just went through some old Kodachromes I purchased on Ebay years ago of the Jehovah Witness rallys at Yankee Stadium. The slides show some nice accurate color of the frieze from 1958.

I looked at the slides under a loop and it looks as if the frieze was never painted up until the 1966-67 white wash. The color shows the natural patina of aged copper.

I will scan the images and post. I do not have the greatest scanner for slides but will try and capture the best images I can.