The end may be near for the storied old Memorial Stadium on the Seattle Center campus. Plans are to tear the old place down, replacing it with underground parking and an open-space lid on top. Every mayor since the Fair closed in 1962 has tried to pry the old stadium away from the Seattle Public Schools athletic department. It looks like Mayor Nickels, in the waning days of his administration, has got a deal. Thanks for the memories, I say.
Site to countless high school football and soccer games and, in recent years, several memorable concerts and one of the largest anti-WTO rallies, the facility also played host to Tommy Bartlett'ês Ski and Sky waterskiing show during the 1962 World'ês Fair. With its prominent location at Seattle Center and pivotal role in so many events over the years, the stadium has also served as a highly visible not-tucked-away-in-a-cemetery tribute to Seattle students who died in World War II.
That Memorial Stadium is in the news — particularly TV news — on November 25 is a tad ironic, as it was this day exactly 61 years ago that the facility played host to Seattle'ês first-ever regular TV broadcast. KRSC (later to become KING) inaugurated local commercial television from Memorial Stadium with a Thanksgiving Day football game that featured Wenatchee and West Seattle playing to a 6-6 tie.
