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Look Back: The Arena
Date: 2/27/2011 Album ID: 1178370
Photos by From the files of the Post-Dispatch
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Before its fantastic destruction by implosion on Feb. 27, 1999, The Arena, at 5700 Oakland Avenue, had been home for almost 70 years to dairy shows, airplane exhibitions, rodeos, hockey games and concerts. Nicknamed "the old barn," The Arena seated 14,500 -- 21,000 if the vast floor was filled with chairs.
Steel being raised for the roof of the Arena on March 15, 1929. The building, at 5700 Oakland Avenue, was completed that September and had its first event -- the National Dairy Show -- on Oct. 12-20, 1929. Ben. G. Brinkman, a promoter who owned the Forest Park Highlands amusement park just east of the Arena site, developed the new building because the National Dairy Association was looking for a home. His development company included partners such as August A. Busch Jr. and local steelmaker Harry Scullin. It cost about $1.5 million to build. (Missouri History Museum)
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The Arena and its support buildings shortly before opening in 1929. At right is Forest Park, with the city greenhouses at bottom center. Clayton Road and Oakland Avenue intersect diagonally to the right of the Arena. (Post-Dispatch)
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Steel being raised for the roof of the Arena on March 15, 1929. The building, at 5700 Oakland Avenue, was completed that September and had its first event -- the National Dairy Show -- on Oct. 12-20, 1929. Ben. G. Brinkman, a promoter who owned the Forest Park Highlands amusement park just east of the Arena site, developed the new building because the National Dairy Association was looking for a home. His development company included partners such as August A. Busch Jr. and local steelmaker Harry Scullin. It cost about $1.5 million to build. (Missouri History Museum)
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The Arena and its support buildings shortly before opening in 1929. At right is Forest Park, with the city greenhouses at bottom center. Clayton Road and Oakland Avenue intersect diagonally to the right of the Arena. (Post-Dispatch)
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The dinner and dedication of the Arena on Sept. 23, 1929. About 3,000 attended. (A.W. Sanders/Post-Dispatch)
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The front of the Arena on Sept. 24, 1929. The building was 476 feet long, 276 feet wide and 135 feet from exhibition floor to ceiling. (Post-Dispatch)
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The night view on Sept. 24, 1929. The Arena was built to be the home of livestock shows, but it also booked sporting events and and was the site of the National Air Show the following year. (Post-Dispatch)
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The interior of the Arena when it opened. The ceiling design allowed for construction with only a few vertical supports that marred the view from the top rows. (A.W. Sanders/Post-Dispatch)
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The Arena and its support buildings shortly before opening in 1929. At right is Forest Park, with the city greenhouses at bottom center. Clayton Road and Oakland Avenue intersect diagonally to the right of the Arena. (Post-Dispatch)
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A National Dairy Show event in October 1929. (Missouri History Museum)
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Tractors, graders, concrete mixers, dump wagons and other up-to-date road-construction equipment fill the Arena floor for the American Road Builders Convention, meeting in the Arena in January 1931. The builders were pushing for more federal spending to pave roads during the Depression, saying they were against mud and unemployement. More than 15,000 delegates attended. Jan. 12, 1931, was open-house for the public. People browsed through the 400 exhibits. (Post-Dispatch)
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Workers weld some of the 15 miles of pipe being installed in November 1938 to build a new ice-making floor at the Arena. The pipes were run atop a six-inch layer of cork, then buried in concrete. A pumped brine solution system made the floor cold enough to freeze water for the St. Louis Flyers, a minor-league hockey team that played here for most of the years from 1928 to 1953, and for numerous skating shows. (Post-Dispatch)
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A fight on the ice during a St. Louis Flyers game in 1948. Instead of Plexiglas, seats along the boards were protected by chicken wire. (Post-Dispatch)
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A deadly tornado roared through St. Louis shortly after 2 a.m. on Feb. 10, 1959, killing 21 people and injuring 345. It toppled the 575-foot-tall tower of KTVI-TV, Channel 2, then at Clayton Road and Oakland Avenue, onto one of the apartment buildings on Oak View Place. It also ripped away part of the Arena's roof and knocked over one of the decorative towers at the main entrance. (Reynolds Ferguson/Post-Dispatch)
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Workers remove the cupola from the west decorative tower on Jan. 31, 1967, to make way for removing the tower itself. The cupola then was mounted onto the brick structure to match the stubby eastern tower, which was rebuilt that way after the 1959 tornado. (Floyd Bowser/Post-Dispatch)
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Hockey fans enjoy a Blues game in December 1970. Team owner Sidney Salomon Jr. added more than 4,000 seats to the Arena to accommodate the franchise's popularity. He had bought the Arena in 1966 and put the Blues on the ice for the 1967-68 National Hockey League season. The Arena had seats for 17,776 fans in 1970. (Scott C. Dine/Post-Dispatch)
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UCLA's Bill Walton, grabbing a rebound, scored 44 points to lead the Bruins over the Memphis State Tigers in the NCAA basketball championship game, played on March 26, 1973, at the Arena. (Wayne Crosslin/Post-Dispatch)
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Soaked fans wait in the early hours of Nov. 28, 1973, for tickets to a concert that night by The Who. More than 15,000 attended. (Scott C. Dine/Post-Dispatch)
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IArnold Spirtas, chairman of Spirtas Wrecking Co., supervising preparations for the demolition of the Arena in February 1999. His crew cleared away part of the wall all the way around and set 133 pounds of TNT at 70 strategic weak spots. (Teak Phillips/Post-Dispatch)
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Victoria Emory of Affton, frames her family with the Arena in the background a few days before demolition. Posing are her husband, Mark, and their children, Christy 11, and David, 5. Hundreds of nostalgia buffs took pictures of the old barn while they could. (Karen Elshout/Post-Dispatch)
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