Plans for the enlargement of the Stadium to accommodate 80,000 persons received a definite stay yesterday when it was announced that the Harvard Corporation had voted down constructive suggestions of the Board of Overseers.
The recommendations of the Board of Overseers embodied, it is believed, a proposal to remedy the present limited seating capacity of the Stadium by the use of portable steel stands, which would fill in the space at the end of the Stadium which was formerly occupied by the wooden stands. These stands might be employed also at the Yale baseball game.
The plan substituted by the Corporation for this rejected solution is a consideration of the possibility of replacing the wooden stands at the end of the Stadium by permanent concrete seats. C. A. Coolidge '81, Boston architect, will present sketches for plans for accomplishing this.
Vote of Corporation
The verbatim report of the vote of the Corporation passed in its meeting Monday, follows: "Voted, the Corporation being informed that the suggestion of the Overseers for movable steel stands is impracticable, that the President and Mr. Bingham, the Director of Athletic be authorized to obtain sketches from Mr. Charles A. Coolidge for plans for replacing the wooden stands at the end of the end of the Stadium by reinforced concrete seats."
If the suggestion of the Corporation should be adopted, the seating capacity of the Stadium would be increased to about 55,000. With the old wooden stands the Stadium held just 54,000 persons.
Permanent concrete stands erected across the open end of the Stadium would, in all probability, either complete the circle of the present stands, in harmony with the present architecture, or take the form of the wooden stands leaving openings on each side, one of which would permit the passage of the 220-yard straightaway track. If the Stadium circle should be complete, the chances are that a runway would be left for the track.
Stadium Changes Scored
The plan offered by the Corporation was one of several proposed as solutions to the crowded conditions which the foot ball seasons of the past few years have brought to the attention of the authorities. A suggestion made by W. J. Bingham '16, Director of Athletics, called for radical changes in the architecture of the present Stadium, including the removal of the colonnade and the elevation of the Stadium itself in the form of a crescent. This plan met with numerous objections, one of the foremost of which was the status of the Stadium as a gift of alumni, to which the first contribution was made by the Class of 1879.
Rumors current in Cambridge during the past few days to the effect that an entirely new set of stands would be built probably beyond the Business School near Western Avenue, were unfounded.
Boston city officials notified the H. A. A. a year ago that permission to erect the temporary wooden stands would not be granted another season, due to the danger of fire, unless the University was able to advance a plan providing for a permanent remedy of the seating problem in the Stadum. There has been an understanding that if such a plan were presented, with the assurance that construction would be complete by the fall of 1929, permission to rebuild the temporary stands would be given for this fall. Home games with the Army, Dartmouth, Pennsylvania and Holy Cross will tax the seating capacity of the Stadium during October and November of this year.
No estimate of the cost either of the portable steel stands or of the permanent concrete seats is available. Mr. Bingham was out of town last night and could not be reached for a statement on the matter.
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