Rooftop Seating Through the Years

Boston’s South End Grounds, built in 1894. On everyone’s list of one of the most picturesque ballparks of all time. A somewhat slipshod fence was built to prevent the properties on the first base side outside the park from getting a good view into the park.

 

With the help of Tom Shieber of the Baseball Hall of Fame and their virtual reality tour of the ballpark, I created this image of South End Grounds with the rooftop seating clearly shown on the left.

 

West Side Park or West Side Grounds, home of the Chicago Cubs 1893 – 1915.

They even had their own inside the park version of rooftop seating, when they expanded the bleacher seating that was built in front of their centerfield clubhouse to include a section on top of the roof.

Bennett Park, home of the Detroit Tigers from 1901 = 1911. The owner of the Tigers disliked these so much that he came up with a novel solution.

This is from Marc Okkonen’s excellent “Baseball Memories 1900 – 1909”.
I can’t recommend this book enough.

And here’s my rendering, based on Marc’s drawing in his book (with his permission).

Shibe Park, Philadelphia. Home of the A’s. That is one solid street length set of non revenue enhancing bleachers! Ownership despised these freeloaders and set out to build a spite fence to thwart them. The following photos are screen captures of a Modern Marvels video posted by SultanOfWhat on Baseball-Fever.com

Take that you freeloading bums!!

Which brings us to today. With the construction of the large video boards and signage, Cubs ownership is being forced to buy the properties across the street whose view is blocked, after previously squeezing them for a cut of their revenue several years ago.

 

Petco Park in San Diego created a built in version of rooftop seating with the inclusion of the Western Metal Supply Co. building into the footprint of the park. What’s not to like about this?

And now, with the Ballpark Village construction complete across the street from New Busch Stadium, St. Louis has gotten into the mix with this “officially a part of the ballpark” addition.

This post wouldn’t be complete without this twist. A couple years ago the Cubs built a spite fence so you couldn’t look OUT of the ballpark and see something from their usual tv cameras. A certain casino ad. Because you know… baseball and gambling don’t mix *cough*Draft Kings, FanDuel *cough*