HOK+CTM Architects

I was at AT&T Park for a Giants game the other night, enjoying the action and the atmosphere. But as I was taking in the experience, it became clear what the ballpark was missing: A web of freeway overpasses just beyond the right field wall. Or maybe we should have no contact with sunlight at all — watching baseball inside a built-for-football dome that looks like a bundt cake? Those are just two of several stadium and arena concepts that were proposed, failed, and will live again in this week’s Let’s Go to the Morgue!

Please enjoy these failed San Francisco stadium and arena concepts from the 1940s to 1980s. (Note there’s nothing modern. Thinking about the current 49ers stadium situation is just too depressing.) If there’s a good response, I’ll do the same thing in a week or two with East Bay stadiums that were never built.

-Peter Hartlaub





Bill young/Chronicle 1948

Golden Gate Gardens: This million dollar sports arena was first announced in a 1946 article, conceived “in a bid to give San Francisco an establishment rivaling New York’s Madison Square Garden.” The stadium at Market and Duboce streets would have been used for “boxing matches, the Ice Follies, hockey, rodeos and ‘name’ bands.” (Once thing I’m learning from these archive dives: the Ice Follies were big in the 1940s.) This concept model was photographed on March 4, 1948. Less than a year later, the project was abandoned and Owl-Rexall built a supermarket/drug store in the spot.

Sports dream for SF?: This image, which I lifted from a Sept. 8, 1955 edition of the Chronicle, appears to be more of a pipe dream than reality. It wasn’t uncommon for a hopeful artist or architect to “design” a stadium for the newspaper without any real chance of it getting done. Baseball fans will note that this ballpark has a lot of similarities to the one that the Arizona Diamondbacks have been playing in for more than a decade.

Yerba Buena Sports Arena: It’s hard to imagine a 16,000-seat arena in Yerba Buena Gardens, but it came pretty close to happening. Think about it: Right about now, we would have a 35-year-old decaying sports complex where there are now lawns, trees, fountains and an art museum. This article appeared in the Examiner on Dec. 17, 1975. Whenever I read these old stories quoting developers touting their optimistic plans, I can’t help but sing The Monorail Song. UPDATED: Here’s a clearer rendering of the plans, sent to me by Eric Fischer.

Downtown stadium, freeway edition: Giants fans have to look at this ballpark at 7th and Townsend and curl in a fetal position. Something tells me Barry Bonds wouldn’t have signed a long-term contract to hit balls into the dirt parking lot of a warehouse. And what about that overpass? People in the Bay Area slow down to a crawl to look at a pumpkin patch. Can you imagine the carnage that would be going on along that overpass during a night game?

AT&T Dome: The overwhelming feeling I get when I see this 1983 photo is relief. The 49ers probably would have liked this huge hubcap of a stadium where AT&T Park is now, but I think we can all agree now that the less-is-more approach to the waterfront has been good for the city. Dianne Feinstein wasn’t the only one pushing this behemoth, which appears to be accompanied by a condo complex that looks just like the MGM Grand casino in Vegas.

AT&T Dome, Part II: In the defense of the developers, this 1982 image appears to be a mock-up created in the Chronicle art department, not anything released by an architect. (It looks like someone lifted an image of the then-new Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit, and pasted it on China Basin.) In any case, it’s an ugly-ass atrocity. About the only good thing I can say is that it makes the since-demolished Embarcadero Freeway look understated by comparison.

Seals stadium reborn: Architect John Pflueger was pushing for a baseball-only stadium since 1980. He didn’t design AT&T Park, but basically everything he was saying in this 1982 article came true. (I love the line about Fenway and Wrigley — how many times have we heard the Giants’ ballpark compared to those historic sites?) Pflueger is still working. If I hit the lottery, I plan to hire him to design my mansion, just on principle.

Giants playing in Oakland?: I don’t enjoy throwing a former colleague under the bus. We all write things we regret later. (Here’s my movie review for “Hannibal Rising.”) But this 1984 assertion that “San Francisco is the worst place in the Bay Area for a new stadium” is one of several columns I found that doesn’t stand the test of time. The piece rightly criticizes the concept of a domed stadium in San Francisco, but also asserts that the best long-range home for the Giants is the Oakland Coliseum.

HOK+CTM architects

China Basin baseball park: I’ll still take our current ballpark, but this version of the baseball-only stadium definitely doesn’t suck. It’s sort of like AT&T Park’s slightly less hot older sister. (The Kourtney Kardashian of ballparks?) I don’t like the lack of bleachers, but the views are still great, and they seem to have planned for parking!

Thanks for checking these out. Like I said, if the response is good, I’ll follow up with an East Bay version. And remember, you can purchase most Let’s Go to the Morgue! images at the Chronicle Photo Store.

If you have a request for a future archive search, please send it to me on a postcard at:

Let’s Go to the Morgue!

C/O Peter Hartlaub

San Francisco Chronicle

901 Mission St.

San Francisco, CA 94103.

Include your city of residence, plus your first name and last initial — or full name if you’re comfortable with that. Make sure my name is on the postcard, otherwise it will never get to me.