Fenway 1912 (7 page)

Other conditions were more germane to McLaughlin's task. The park had to fit within the confines of the eight-plus-acre plot of land acquired by the Taylors. For continuity purposes, the playing field had to retain a similar orientation to the sun as the Huntington Avenue Grounds. Had that not been the case, it would have been possible to place home plate either in what is now the right-field corner or, less likely, the left-field corner. In either case right field, not left field, would have been Fenway's short porch (see illustration 1).

For insurance, safety, and economic reasons, the main grandstand had to be fireproof, made out of concrete and steel. Even though concrete construction, loosely defined, had been in use since the Roman Empire, steel-reinforced concrete construction, which allowed concrete to be used on structures much larger than before, had only been in use since the 1850s. Only in the last decade had the technology been developed that was eventually used in Fenway Park, which used reinforced concrete to create columns and girders that supported concrete floor slabs, resulting in a fireproof superstructure that was strong but also much lighter and cheaper than all-steel construction.

None of these issues gave McLaughlin any cause for concern. His work for the city of Boston had utilized modern concrete-and-steel, fireproof building techniques, including the use of reinforcing steel and concrete forms. And there was more than enough room on Taylor's parcel to site a ball field, including seating areas and office space for the club. The outfield dimensions were of absolutely no concern whatsoever. Had there been any thought that the field was too confining—particularly in left field—the field's orientation could have been slightly reconfigured to satisfy those fears, or a larger lot could have been obtained. But it was plenty deep for the era—the accepted world record for hitting a baseball had been set a few years before in Cincinnati by Reds outfielder Mike Mitchell, who, using a fungo bat, managed to drive a ball 413 feet, 8½ inches in the air. But in reality, under game conditions in the Dead Ball Era, any drive much more than 300 feet in the air was considered extraordinary, and few outfielders played more than 250 feet from home plate. In Cincinnati's new park, Redland Field, the fence nearest to home plate was still 360 feet away, a distance so great, according to one paper that "it is doubtful a ball will ever be hit over the fence."

Under these conditions the size of the lot selected by the Taylors was more than sufficient to hold a ballpark. The shape of the plot of land and the resulting ballpark was not, as John Updike once famously, but incorrectly, described it, "a compromise between Man's Euclidian determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities," for at the time Fenway was built, apart from a few buildings on Lansdowne Street, no other buildings bordered the parcel. Fenway Park's footprint was created by a surveyor's transit, not by livestock wandering the streets. The Fenway Park site was surrounded on three sides by raw land and empty, undeveloped lots. In the end the new park was built from the borders of the property inward simply to use all available space, not because concerns about the dimensions of the field required that it be so spacious. Had there been any desire to make Fenway Park symmetrical, it could have easily been done. The notion that Fenway is misshapen owing to the restriction of surrounding streets is a perception that developed long after the park was built, when the "lively ball" came into play, the game expanded, and the city grew to surround the park, making Fenway appear today as if it is crammed into too small a space.

Yet over the course of McLaughlin's discussions with Taylor about the new park, the club owner, who in turn was discussing the project with Ban Johnson and others, kept vacillating over one significant issue. Both during the original construction and during the Fenway Park reconstruction of 1933–34, the press reported that the original foundations for the park were built to support a second deck, yet as originally designed and built the park featured a grandstand with only a single tier. Taylor probably went back and forth on the issue, weighing the cost of a second deck against its economic benefit, before reaching a compromise with his architect. Although McLaughlin's final design would include only a single tier of stands, the foundations put in place would be sufficient to support a second deck in the event that the club ever decided to add one in the future. That single decision, more than any other, has allowed Fenway Park to remain viable to this day, for it has allowed the park to evolve in ways that would have otherwise been impossible.

In Boston's Back Bay and the Fenway, building foundations were not insignificant, and indeed, their design and construction remain challenging even today. The amount of filled land and the height of the water table make building there complicated. Inadequate or ill-designed foundations can sink and settle in the water-laden earth, causing entire structures to become unstable. To counteract the effect, many buildings built before the turn of the century, like the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library, were supported, not on stone or concrete, but on wooden pilings set below the water table to prevent dry rot. Other buildings essentially float on a sealed foundation bathtub or were built on caissons, a sealed watertight structure that allows excavation to take place until a stable surface is reached. Fortunately, Fenway Park was not built on filled land. Still, an abnormally high water table due to the proximity of the Charles River made the park's foundations an early concern. Like those of most other structures in the area, Fenway's foundations were probably overengineered to compensate for the ground conditions.

Taylor also pared his ballpark back in other areas. In a sense McLaughlin was directed to design only half a park. Taylor's main concern was with the park's best, most lucrative seats, those that could be built around the infield. He did not think it was worthwhile to build a similarly grand structure for the cheaper seats that looked out over the outfield. And given that he was in the process of selling the team, it would not have been particularly cost-effective either. He was in no rush to spend any money that would not pay off for him. As a result his investment in the park was designed to produce the greatest number of high-paying seats with the least expenditure possible. For that reason, as originally designed by McLaughlin, the grandstand abruptly stopped only halfway to the outfield fence in left field, at the end of what is today section 27. There was room, if needed, for additional stands to be built farther down the baseline at some later date, a possibility that the grandstand design already accounted for. Down the right-field line the grandstand also came to an abrupt stop at the end of what is now section 14. But since the dimensions of the property were more spacious on that side, a second set of covered stands featuring a concrete-and-steel roofed pavilion above wooden bleacher-type seats was built down the baseline, angled ever so slightly toward the infield and meeting the outfield fence just inside fair territory in right field. This "pavilion," as it was known, featured seats that were cheaper than those in the grandstand and set at a steeper pitch. It was also separated from the main grandstand by an alleyway—not unlike a moat—both to prevent lower-paying fans in the pavilion from reaching the higher-paying seats in the grandstand that were closer to the action and, in the event of a fire, to isolate that structure from the main grandstand.

Under these restrictions, McLaughlin did what he could to create a handsome structure. He clearly studied other ballparks and stadiums built during the era, for Fenway Park echoes ballpark construction elements and design features then in use elsewhere. The structural design of the grandstand was inspired by the reinforced-concrete grandstands of new football stadiums at Syracuse University and Harvard University, while for visual inspiration he turned to the ballparks in the two major league baseball cities closest to Boston—New York and Philadelphia—and Cincinnati's Redland Field, which was being built at the same time as Fenway. The New York Giants' Polo Grounds featured the largest concrete grandstand in baseball, while the Yankees' Hilltop Park (officially known as "American League Ballpark"), although built of wood, featured separate, uncovered pavilions, in concept very similar to what McLaughlin eventually built. Also influential was Shibe Park, the home of the Philadelphia Athletics, built in 1909 and touted as "the largest and best appointed baseball park in the world." The exterior of that park looked, not like a ballpark, but like some grand building: it featured a French Renaissance facade consisting of brick and arches and a Beaux Arts–inspired tower at the park's main entrance, which sat on a street corner directly in line with the pitcher's mound and home plate. Extensive wings that stretched down both streets, parallel to the baseline, contained the grandstand, and the building and the grandstand shared the same roof.

Unfortunately, such a grand structure was not practical in Boston. The construction time frame was too narrow to allow the erection of such a large building, and the shape of the lot, the orientation of the field, and the fact that the parcel did not sit on a square corner made the construction of a building like the one in Philadelphia impossible. Yet McLaughlin still managed to make part of the ballpark look like a building.

His solution was to create an illusion. Only a portion of the structure, a triangular-shaped wing that housed the team offices, would look like a building when viewed from the street. The remainder would look, well, like the grandstand of a ballpark, albeit one faced with brick and featuring open arches behind the upper stands. The wing containing the offices would also be off-center to the larger structure, not evenly balanced behind home plate but down the third-base line, essentially parallel to that side of the infield. The ballpark's front door, in effect, would actually be a side entrance.

It was not a particularly elegant solution, but then again, given Taylor's requirements, there was very little room for elegance. Still McLaughlin tried to come up with an aesthetic response. The only other area where McLaughlin could express any real creativity was on the facade of the office wing that faced Jersey Street.

Beginning in 1901, the influential furniture maker Gustav Stickley, a proponent of the Arts and Crafts style, began designing homes. The designs of the Wisconsin-born child of German immigrants, who probably never attended a professional baseball game in his life, would nonetheless prove to be an inspiration for Fenway Park.

Stickley featured his designs in his magazine,
The Craftsman,
and these homes soon became known by an architectural style of their own—Craftsman. Craftsman-style homes were usually built with materials native to the region, and their decorative details often depended on the exposure of structural elements. The variety of these structural elements, combined with the various building materials, created textures that were revealed under changing light conditions, creating interest in surfaces that might otherwise appear bland.

Over the course of McLaughlin's early career the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement became more and more pronounced, for even as he built structures that can correctly be identified as Georgian Revival and, later, as in the Commonwealth Armory, Gothic Revival, his materials and ornamental use of texture on the Jersey Street facade echo the Arts and Crafts and Craftsman aesthetics.

For the veneer of the office facade McLaughlin chose Tapestry Brick, a patented, rough-faced red brick design made by Fiske and Company of New York, and a Stickley favorite, but one rarely used on the exteriors of his homes. Not only did the dark red brick provide a nice contrast with lighter-colored building materials, but the rough face was inviting, changed under differing light conditions, and could be treated like a mosaic and arranged in design patterns, either alone or in combination with concrete.

When the park was first built, it is important to recall, there were no buildings across the street or trees to block the sun. The building faced southward and thus was exposed to an ever-changing display of light as the sun crossed the sky every day. The face of the building was designed to take advantage of these changing conditions.

Although it would be incorrect to say that Fenway Park is a Craftsman building—its architecture is far too eclectic and utilitarian to fall easily within a single definition—it nevertheless exhibits elements and echoes of the Arts and Crafts and Craftsman movements. McLaughlin might also have been inspired by the nearby Fenway Studio Building, artists' studios and residences built in 1905 at 30 Ipswich Street, an influential building whose ornamentation architectural historians have determined is derived from the Arts and Crafts movement.

It was a fortunate choice. The facade, while handsome, does not call attention to itself, yet by incorporating such forward-looking design elements, it has aged without becoming dated. In contrast, Shibe Park's French Renaissance facade, even when new, looked like a product of the previous century. Fenway, even today, seems merely quaint.

McLaughlin used one more sleight of hand in regard to the scale of the park that has helped preserve the charm of Fenway Park over time. When Jersey Street was first laid out, the roadbed was raised to keep it from flooding, leaving land on both sides of the street—including the plot upon which Fenway Park sits today—approximately ten feet lower than the street. Rather than see the difference in elevation as an obstacle, McLaughlin used it. The Jersey Street office facade rises only thirty feet above street level, capped with a three-foot-high false wall that increases in height to nearly nine feet at the top of Fenway Park's "nameplate" on a cement panel above the park's main entrance.

Yet inside the park the roof of the original grandstand was
forty
feet above field level—one enters the park and travels ten feet down to the field. It seems impossible from outside, but the office floors on the second floor of the team offices are at the same exact level as the wide promenade at the top of the grandstand. The effect helped maintain an exterior scale that appears in tune with nearby neighborhoods, evoking a nearly residential feel, and is much smaller than the scale of the grandstand itself. Moreover, moving from the street through the gate and into the park feels like entering a completely new space, one far different in scale and dimension than that of the surrounding streets outside (see illustration 1).