The next stage of RFK Stadium demolition will proceed after the National Park Service, which owns the site, approved plans from Events DC to tear down what’s left of the former home of the Washington Senators, Nationals and Redskins.
The RFK Stadium demolition began in 2022 with the removal of the original 1961 wooden stadium seats in RFK Stadium, sold to accommodate fans who want to obtain a piece of this famous venue. In 2023 Smoot Construction Company embarked on asbestos abatement work, universal waste removal and disposal of non-hazardous materials throughout RFK Stadium.
Since then we’ve seen non-structural demolition of restroom fixtures, kitchen equipment, casework, lighting and windows, among other stadium components. The next stages of demolition should take 18 to 22 months, according to Events DC CEO Angie Gates, and will proceed in an orderly fashion–no synchronized explosives to take down the walls or no Magnetos to levitate the facility, as shown below. Now, with NPS approval and the decision to pass along the property to the District of Columbia, we could see a return of NFL football and the Washington Commanders to the site.
D.C. Stadium opened on October 1, 1961, with the Washington Redskins hosting the New York Giants in a game attracting 37,767 fans to the new facility. While that number may seem small today, it was a huge improvement to how the Redskins drew at their previous home, Griffith Stadium. In terms of fan amenities, it was a huge step up from the seemingly ancient home of the Washington Senators. This was a new era in Washington, and a thoroughly modern stadium was part of that new era.
How modern? When D.C. Stadium opened (it would be renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, or RFK Stadium, in 1969), it was the first multiuse, reconfigurable stadium built explicitly for pro baseball and pro football. Though NFL teams had played out of stadiums owned by pro baseball teams–Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, Tiger Stadium, Forbes Field, the Polo Grounds–the design in these ballparks was always baseball first, with football a secondary concern, and pro football even less of a consideration. Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium was built for pro baseball and secondarily for football, but wasn’t a great facility for either.
The solution from George A. Dahl and Osborn Engineering was simple: a circular design allowed for the movement of seating areas depending on the event, a move copied by designers of other cookie-cutter stadiums in New York City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Oakland, Philadelphia and Atlanta. In the case of RFK Stadium, the left-field bleachers were moved on tracks, and those bleachers became the equivalent of a stadium bouncy house. Get enough fans jumping around, and the whole stadium shook.
While cookie-cutters ended up dying out, the design actually worked at RFK Stadium. The stadium wasn’t quite a perfect circle, and the curvilinear cantilevered roof softened the views from the stands. As noted, it was the first home of the modern Senators (1962-1971) and the temporary home of the Washington Nationals (2005–2007) after the team was relocated from Montreal. In its last act it served as home of MLS’s D.C. United until 2017. By the end it was a shadow of its former self, with plenty of visible rust, skeevy concrete and limited concessions.
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