Chicago Stadium

Chicago Stadium

"The Madhouse on Madison"
Location	1800 West Madison Street Chicago, Illinois 60612
Coordinates	41°52′54″N 87°40′23″W / 41.88167°N 87.67306°W / 41.88167; -87.67306Coordinates: 41°52′54″N 87°40′23″W / 41.88167°N 87.67306°W / 41.88167; -87.67306
Owner	Chicago Stadium Corp.
Operator	Chicago Stadium Corp.
Capacity	18,676 (basketball) 17,317 (ice hockey) 18,472 (ice hockey with standing room)
Construction
Broke ground	July 2, 1928[1]
Opened	March 28, 1929
Closed	September 9, 1994
Demolished	1995
Construction cost	$9.5 million ($130 million in 2015 dollars[2])
Architect	Hall, Lawrence & Ratcliffe, Inc.[3]
Tenants
Chicago Blackhawks (NHL) (1929–1994) Chicago Stags (NBA) (1946–1950) Chicago Majors (ABL) (1961–1963) Chicago Bulls (NBA) (1967–1994) Chicago Sting (NASL indoor and MISL) (1980–1988)

Chicago Stadium was an indoor sports arena and theater in Chicago, Illinois. It opened in 1929, and closed in 1994.

History

The Stadium hosted the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL from 1929–1994 and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA from 1967–1994.

The arena was the site of the first NFL playoff game in 1932; the 1932, 1940, and 1944 Democratic National Conventions; and the 1932 and 1944 Republican National Conventions, as well as numerous concerts, rodeo competitions, boxing matches, political rallies, and plays.

The interior of Chicago Stadium in 1930

The stadium was first proposed by Chicago sports promoter Paddy Harmon. Harmon wanted to bring an NHL team to Chicago, but he lost out to Col. Frederic McLaughlin. This team would soon be known as the Chicago Black Hawks (later 'Blackhawks'). Harmon then went on to at least try to get some control over the team by building a stadium for the Blackhawks to play in. He spent $2.5 million and borrowed more funds from friends, including James E. Norris in order to build the stadium.

Completed on March 28, 1929 at a cost of $9.5 million, Chicago Stadium was the largest indoor arena in the world at the time. Detroit's Olympia stadium, built two years earlier, was a model for the Chicago stadium and had a capacity of over 15,000 people. It was also the first arena with an air conditioning system (though the system was fairly rudimentary by modern standards, and was memorably given to filling the arena with fog during late-season games).

The Stadium sat 17,317 for hockey at the time of closure. Standees were allowed for many years, and often the official attendance figures in the published game summaries were given in round numbers, such as 18,500 or 20,000. The largest recorded crowd for an NHL game at the stadium was 20,069 for a playoff game between the Blackhawks and Minnesota North Stars on April 10, 1982.

Seating capacity

Chicago Stadium at Night, 1950 Curteich Linen Postcard

The seating capacity for basketball went as follows:^[4]

• 17,000 (1929–1958)
• 17,374 (1958–1986)
• 17,458 (1986–1989)
• 17,339, 18,676 with standing room (1989–1994)

The seating capacity for hockey went as follows:^[5]

• 16,000 (1929–1952)
• 16,666 (1952–1984)
• 17,317, 18,472 with standing room (1984–1994)

"The Madhouse on Madison"

Detail of console of the huge Barton pipe organ originally installed in the Chicago Stadium. The massive console boasted six manuals (keyboards) and over 800 stops, with thousands of pipes and percussions installed in the center ceiling high above center court.

In addition to the close-quartered, triple-tiered, boxy layout of the building, much of the loud, ringing noise of the fans could be attributed to the fabled 3,663-pipe Barton organ, boasting the world's largest theater organ console with 6 manuals (keyboards) and over 800 stops, and played by Al Melgard. Melgard played for decades during hockey games there, earning the Stadium the moniker "The Madhouse on Madison". In the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 1971, when the Blackhawks scored a series-clinching empty-net goal in Game 7 against the New York Rangers, CBS announcer Dan Kelly reported, "I can feel our broadcast booth shaking! That's the kind of place Chicago Stadium is right now!" The dressing rooms at the Stadium were placed underneath the seats, and the cramped corridor that led to the ice, with its twenty-two steps, became the stuff of legend. Legend has it a German Shepherd wandered the bowels at night as "the security team".

It also became traditional for Blackhawk fans to cheer loudly throughout the singing of the national anthems, especially when sung by Chicago favorite Wayne Messmer. Denizens of the second balcony often added sparklers and flags to the occasion. Arguably, the most memorable of these was the singing before the 1991 NHL All-Star Game, which took place during the Gulf War. This tradition has continued at the United Center. Long time PA announcer (Harvey Wittenberg) had a unique monotone style: "Blackhawk goal scored by #9, Bobby Hull, unassisted, at 6:13."

In 1992, both the Blackhawks and the Bulls reached the finals in their respective leagues. The Blackhawks were swept in their finals by the Pittsburgh Penguins, losing at Chicago Stadium, while the Bulls won the second of their first of three straight NBA titles on their home floor against the Portland Trail Blazers. The Bulls did not clinch another championship at home until 1996 (when they did so against the Seattle SuperSonics), their second season at the new United Center, and the Blackhawks would not reach the Stanley Cup Finals again until 2010 (in which they defeated the Philadelphia Flyers in six games), their 16th season in the new building, although they won their first championship since 1961 in Philadelphia.

It was also the last NHL arena to retain the use of an analog dial-type large four-sided clock for timekeeping in professional hockey games. Boston Garden and the Detroit Olympia (as well as the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in its pre-NHL days) had identical scoreboards but replaced them with digital timers in the mid-1960s, with Boston having their digital four-sided clock in use for the 1969-70 NHL season. Built by Bulova^[6] and installed in Chicago in 1943, each side of the clock had a large diameter 20-minute face in the center that kept the game time with a set of shorter black-colored minute and longer red-colored sweep-second hands, and a pair of smaller, 5-minute capacity faces for penalty timekeeping, to the left and right of the primary 20-minute face — with each of the 5-minute penalty timers having its own single hand. The "inner" face of each penalty timer had a dial covering the center section of the "outer" penalty timer's face behind it — the set of two concentric faces for each penalty timer dial could handle two penalties for each set, with an illuminated "2" on each penalty timer dial lighting up to display a minor penalty infraction. It was difficult to read how much time was left in a period of play on the main game timer's large face. Each minute of play was marked by a longer line on each third second increment on the central main dial. The difficulty was compounded on the main central dial from the aforementioned minute and sweep-second hands turning during gameplay.

That clock eventually was replaced by a four-sided scoreboard with a digital clock in 1976 by the Day Sign Company of Toronto, much like the one used at the end of the 1960s (and constructed by Day Sign Company) to replace the nearly identical dial-type clock in the Boston Garden, and then in 1984 by another, this one with a color electronic message board. That latter scoreboard was built by White Way Sign, which would build scoreboards for the United Center.

The Stadium was also one of the last three NHL arenas (the others being Boston Garden and the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium) to have a shorter-than-regulation ice surface, as their construction predated the regulation. The distance was taken out of the neutral zone.

Demolition

Commemorative plaque in the pavement on the north side of Madison Street

Chicago Stadium in mid-demolition, March 1995

After the Blackhawks and Bulls moved to the United Center, the Chicago Stadium was demolished in 1995. Its site is now a parking lot for the United Center across the street. CNN televised the demolition, showing devoted Blackhawks and Bulls fans crying as the wrecking ball hit the old building. The console of the Barton organ now resides in the Phil Maloof residence in Las Vegas, Nevada. Also, the center of the Chicago Bulls' floor resides in Michael Jordan's trophy room at his mansion in North Carolina.

• A plaque with the words "Chicago Stadium - 1929–1994 - Remember The Roar" is located behind a statue of the Blackhawks greatest players on the north side of the United Center.
• Two friezes from Chicago Stadium were incorporated into a building at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, 1060 W. Roosevelt Road.

Two of the Stadium's main parking lots, which are still used for United Center parking, retain signs that read "People's Stadium Parking"

Notable events

Bulldogging photo of Cowboy Morgan Evans at the late 1920s Tex Austin Rodeo in Chicago Stadium.

• 1932: Due to a snowstorm followed by frigid temperatures, the Chicago Bears played the 1932 NFL championship game inside the Chicago Stadium against the Portsmouth Spartans (later the Detroit Lions). The Bears won 9–0.
• 1932, 1940 and 1944: Democratic National Conventions, at which Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first, third and fourth nominations from the Democratic Party for President of the United States.
• 1932 and 1944: Republican National Conventions, at which Herbert C. Hoover and Thomas E. Dewey, respectively, would win the Republican Party's nomination for President of the United States. Both lost to Roosevelt.
• 1933: Funeral of Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, the sole fatality in an assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin Roosevelt.
• 1946: While waiting in a backstage area to go onto the arena floor during a rodeo, Roy Rogers proposed to Dale Evans.
• 1961, 1974 and 1991: Chicago was the host city for the NHL All-Star Game.
• 1961: Scenes from the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate depicting the Republican nomination convention, were filmed in the stadium. The scenes are set in New York's Madison Square Garden.
• 1973, 1988: Chicago was the host city for the NBA All-Star Game.
• 1975-1976: December 31-January 1: Frank Sinatra met the new year in Chicago Stadium, performing a concert with 23 songs.
• 1976: May 31-June 2: Paul McCartney's first three concerts in Chicago in 10 years; he performed in his Wings Over America Tour.
• 1977: In the spring of 1977, Led Zeppelin played four shows here during their North American tour (they had previously played three concerts at this venue on their 1975 North American Tour). Two more were scheduled for later in the tour but were cancelled due to the death of Robert Plant's son. Tickets from the cancelled partial show on April 9 were to be honored at the re-scheduled shows, which never materialized. (The band was booked to perform four concerts at the stadium as part of another North American tour in November 1980, but the tour was officially cancelled on September 27, two days after John Bonham's death.)
• 1977: Elvis Presley's last gig in Chicago was in the Stadium on May 1–2, 1977.
• 1984: The NASL held the only All-Star game ever played in its 17 outdoor and 4 indoor seasons. The All Stars defeat the host Chicago Sting 9-8 before 14,328 fans.
• 1992: Great Midwest Conference men's basketball tournament.
• 1992: Chicago Bulls won the second of three straight NBA titles in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. This would be the only time the Bulls clinched the championship while playing on the Stadium's floor, though they did it twice at the new United Center (in 1996 and again in 1997).
• 1994: The final concert was held on March 10, 1994, featuring Pearl Jam, Urge Overkill and The Frogs.
• 1994: The final ice hockey game at Chicago Stadium was played on April 28. The Blackhawks lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs 1–0, eliminating them from the 1994 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The only goal in the game, and last goal ever scored, came from Mike Gartner in the first period.
• 1994: The final event at Chicago Stadium was Scottie Pippen's Ameritech Classic charity basketball game, which was organized through Rev. Jesse Jackson's Push-Excel program and was held on September 9, 1994. Michael Jordan, despite being in retirement at the time, participated and scored 52 points, leading the White team to a 187–150 victory over Pippen's Red team. At the end of the game, Jordan kneeled and kissed the Bulls logo at center court.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chicago Stadium.

• Harvey Wittenberg – Chicago Stadium's public address announcer for the Blackhawks. He now fills in for Gene Honda at the United Center when absent.
• Ray Clay – Former Bulls public address announcer
• Wayne Messmer – Former Blackhawks national anthem singer

References

External links

• Chicago Stadium's Basketball History
• Chicago Stadium's Ice Hockey History
• A web page devoted to the fabled Chicago Stadium Barton organ
• Remembering The Big Barn on W. Madison and its Big Barton Pipe Organ