Turning the House that Ruth Built into Heritage Field, a New Community Park

LA Fall Lecture Series presents Gary T. Sorge, FASLA, AICP

Wednesday, 12/08 at 4:00 pm,

Cook/Douglas Lecture Hall;

3 College Farm Road

New Brunswick, NJ

Turning the House that Ruth Built into Heritage Field, a New Community Park

Sports enthusiasts and fans greatly anticipated the opening of the new Yankee Stadium in 2008.  The nearby Bronx community greatly anticipates the opening in 2011 of the final piec e of an extensive park redevelopment program.  The new Stadium was constructed on existing parkland, perhaps some of the most intensely used ballfields in the City.  As part of its commitment to the Bronx community, the City of New York needed to construct new park facilities to replace what was displaced by the new stadium and associated parking structures as soon as possible.  Of course to do so, the City and the design team needed to recapture the land beneath the old Stadium for development of a significant portion of the park plan.  A new park on the roof of a parking garage, a waterfront park, two off-site ballfields, a major building renovation, two additional community parks, pedestrian bridges and local roadway improvements are now complete.  The final piece is the construction of Heritage Field and Ruppert Plaza on the grounds of the former Stadium, arguably the most prominent venue in the history of sports.

Our presentation will focus on three major elements in the sites transformation:  dismantling the Stadium; designing, gaining approvals for and constructing the new park as quickly as possible; and appropriately commemorating the events that occurred at the Stadium over its 86-year history.  Each element presented its own unique challenges and our presenter will provide a first-hand account of how a  landscape architecture led design team influenced the results.

 

Gary T. Sorge is Senior Principal at Stantec and alumnus of the Rutgers Landscape Architecture program.

For more information see Stantec.com