The Beatles ended their concert career at Candlestick Park, so it’s appropriate Paul McCartney played the last event in the 54-year-old stadium’s history.
The concert, which drew 49,000 to the former home of the San Francisco Giants, was a rollicking sendoff to From SFGate:
It was rocking inside the soon-to-be-demolished wind tunnel that long was home to the 49ers and before that the Giants. McCartney had 49,000 fans clapping, shimmying and dancing in the aisles to familiar Beatles and Wings tunes and songs form his solo career during the farewell to the Stick….
Candlestick seemed to rival McCartney, one of two surviving Beatles, as the biggest draw, judging by the clothes most people were wearing. Red Jerry Rice and Joe Montana jerseys were everywhere, as were Giants caps and jackets.
Candlestick Park opened on April 12, 1960, as a baseball-only facility for the San Francisco Giants. It was known for the cold winds whipping off the bay, as well as a Giants team featuring the likes of Willie McCovey, Willie Mays and Juan Marichal. We have more on Candlestick Park’s history here.
Now that the final event has been put to bed, the next step: blowing up the place, hauling away what can be reused (since it’s mostly concrete and rebar, we’d assume much of it could be recycled onsite), and then launching the overhaul of the site to a retail destination. That seems to be a pretty mundane use of the site, and we couldn’t help but pass along a conceptual plan to turn Candlestick Park into an urban farm. From Fast Company:
San Francisco-based IwamotoScott Architecture has another interesting, but mostly futile, suggestion: Why not reuse the stadium? In a speculative design they call SF RE:MADE, the architects propose up-cycling Candlestick Park and two other out-of-use waterfront landmarks, the Hunters Point Crane and the Islais Creek Silos, providing alternative uses for aging 20th-century structures whose original purposes have become outdated….
Candlestick Park, the architects propose, could be turned into a hydroponic greenhouse surrounded by a terraced park. Its tiered structure, previously used for seating, could be used to grow sod and a rotating selection of crops. The main field could still host concerts in between harvests. Re-using the stadium, which opened in 1960, would not only save the structure from ending up in the landfill, but would also preserve what Scott calls its “interesting structural expression” in the face of the generic development planned for in its place.
Of course, this won’t happen: Lennar Corp. already has a development plan in place, and most developers don’t really have the imagination for creative re-use. Still, the renderings are pretty.
Should you care for a longer look at Candlestick Park’s history, Jesse Goldberg-Strassler has a nice look at the ballpark’s evolution over the years.
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