Thursday, November 6, 2008

Fenway Park Expanding

Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make that attendance grow:

The Boston Red Sox are adding more seats to 96-year-old Fenway Park.

The team is working on adding 560 new seats to the Major League's oldest and
smallest ballpark Workers are using jackhammers in the rain Thursday in the lower deck and cranes are on the field as part of another round of offseason renovations. It's the eighth year of ballpark improvements since the team was purchased by the group led by John Henry and Tom Werner.

This year's work also includes waterproofing and repairing the lower deck, fixing the roof beyond third base and adding seats to the upper deck beyond the first base line.
At some point I think they're gonna bump into the laws of physics with these expansions, but I guess they're not there yet.

They should just do what Big Ten football stadiums do: go to full bench seating, and each year move the little painted numbers closer and closer together. Then, as in college football, every single game can bring forth a new "record" attendance.

5 comments:

EricInBoston said...

they are goign to be on a 24-7 schedule to complete all the work planned over the winter.

we do work with a bunch of companies working for them and that was the chatter at the permit office.

Mark S said...

Give the ownership group its props for they are getting as much out of limited space as anyone could imagine. Won't be surpirsed if they start suspending folks in climbing harnesses of the Green Monster or from the lights.

EricInBoston said...

another note.. the waterproofing involves taking up the existing seats not under the overhang.. not 100% sure if this means new seats will be put in or the exisiting seats will be put back.

Anonymous said...

The Sox have been pretty clear about keeping the total capacity of Fenway below 40,000 and the neighborhood and the City of Boston will hold them to it. What they do is add seats in some places and take away in others. I am looking forward to the day that they will be able to put in wider seats in the upper grandstand (where I can afford to sit) that will actually my big butt.

The Sox in-house architect is Janet Marie Smith who worked on Camden Yards with Lucchino in Baltimore. She has done a fantastic job improving Fenway without losing its essential character.

madspinach said...

Remove those unsightly poles, and then come talk to me. With the money that this franchise has, it's a god damn shame that we still have obstructed views from the 1980's.