Philadelphia stadiums, all long gone and replaced. JFK, The Spectrum and Veteran's Stadium

I've had this image downloaded for quite awhile now, it was from Wikipedia at one point.

I had been to over 120 events during my teen years and into my twenties and perhaps thirties at these venues.

JFK Stadium was the oldest and could seat 120K+ people. It was used for large sporting events or large concerts. The last band to play there was the Grateful Dead in ~1990. I still have some pieces from the rubble after it was knocked down with cranes and wrecking balls. I saw Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour there on 9/19/87. It was quite a memorable night. The stadium is one more like a college football style stadium. Perhaps comparable to Notre Dame. I can only say that because I've been there. JFK was old and beat up, but had the same entry by every gate model that I saw at Notre Dame.

I saw other things there like a stunt car show where motorcycles and cars performed fancy driving on what was meant to be a track that people ran races on. People around the world saw Live Aid in 1985 at this venue. The seats were just benches. This is the bottom most venue in the image. When the rubble was cleared after it was knocked down slowly, it made way for the Corestates Center to be built.

Like many of the venues of today, it changed names to the First Union Center, the Wachovia Center and is now known as the Wells Fargo Center. The Philadelphia Flyers Hockey team play there along with the 76ers basketball team. They handle most of the concerts that come to Philadelphia by the popular musical artists.

The middle one was called The Spectrum. It's life was short. It was an indoor arena where the aforementioned teams played. It was the primary place for concerts as well. I personally went to at least ~80 shows there in my life before they knocked it down too by wrecking ball. I saw the first concert I ever saw, which was Roger Waters' Radio KAOS tour on 8/24/87. The stadium held ~18K people, whether it was for sports (about 1000 less for hockey) or concert. It was a warm welcoming place to me and I was sad to see it hit with the wrecking ball too. Teen memories getting knocked down, bricks at a time. I have some remnants of that place too.

Photo credit to rogerwaters.com

The final place in the top of the image is Veteran's Stadium. It was built ~1970 and was a multipurpose baseball and football stadium. The Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles played there, respectively. I saw my fair share of concerts there too though. I can recall seeing Pink Floyd there on May 15th and 16th of their second round of the same Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. This would've been the first concert I saw there. I was there for countless Phillies baseball games and a handful of Eagles game. This is the famed stadium that made Philadelphia famous for having "Eagles Court", where there was a judge and mini police unit right there in the stadium to help speed up the arrest and arraignment process or issuance of a fine. Philadelphia is famous for throwing snowballs at Santa Claus and batteries at Jimmy Johnson, if my memory serves me correctly.

This stadium was actually imploded and of course I have some relics from this venue as well. They were bold enough to sell chairs, section markers and such by that time frame. This would make way for the creation of Lincoln Financial Field for the Eagles and the Citizen's Bank Park for the Phillies. You can see in this implosion image that JFK is gone and what us now the Wells Fargo Center is well established behind the Spectrum.

Photo credit: David Stinson

There are places marked in the parking lot across from the Citizens Bank Park where the Phillies now play showing where 1st, 2nd and 3rd base and home plate were in Veteran's Stadium. For quite awhile, you could see the rubble of "The Vet" from the Lincoln Financial field concourses.

Photo credit: David Stinson
If you ever fly into Philadelphia, you used to see these 3 stadiums on your final approach, about 10 minutes before you land. Now you'll see a different view.

Photo credit: Bill Cobb

The smaller 4th building you see is something that is called Xfinity Live which is a bunch of bars and little kiosk style restaurants. I can probably spend hours writing about each of those venues, both new and old. Tales of my adventures in the newer stadiums deserve a different posting.