Washington Board of Trade: Document View

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Title: The Auditorium and Stadium Committee of the Washington Board of Trade
Author: The Greater Washington Board of Trade
Date: 00/00/1956

Document Information

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Bibliographic Metadata

Author: The Greater Washington Board of Trade
Title: The Auditorium and Stadium Committee of the Washington Board of Trade
Date: 00/00/1956
Archive: Special Collections, Gelman Library, George Washington University
Collection name: The Greater Washington Board of Trade
Document location: Box 82, Folder 34 "Auditorium & Stadium Committee"
Publication location: Washington, D.C.
Publisher:

Descriptive Metadata

Editorial notes:
Description: The Greater Washington Board of Trade has followed generally the same footprint from 1889 through the present day with the formation of committees and task forces to drive issues. Of the biggest issues that the Board has advocated from the very beginning is the construction and maintenance of auditoriums, civic centers, cultural venues, and stadiums for the purposes of hosting events from the opera to professional football and baseball.

The Board of Trade invested much time and energy into two proposals that were never realized: the Eisenhower Civic Center and a National Memorial Stadium slated to hold 65,000 configured for both baseball and football to host both the Washington Redskins and the Washington Senators.

The first document shows the formation of a stadium subcommittee in February of 1956 under the umbrella of the Auditorium and Stadium Committee. Their mission was to advocate the passage of the needed Congressional approval to make the National Memorial Stadium a reality. The subcommittee include notable members such as Sherry Robertson, a member of the Washington Senators front office; Floyd Akers, an major auto dealer in D.C.; Arthur "Dutch" Bergman, former head coach of the Washington Redskins; Earl Gammons, director of the CBS News Washington D.C. office; Democratic party official Melvin D. Hildreth; commerical real estate developer Garfield Kass; former Washington professional basketball player Al Lujack; among many others including retired military officers and a federal judge.

The next document briefly describes a presentation made by the auditorium subcommittee that provided a report on the plans for a national civic and cultural center, later entitled the Eisenhower Memorial Civic Center. It is was never built as every plan submitted to Congress failed to win approval, but the essence of the Eisenhower Civic Center were later realized in 1983 with the present day Washington Convention Center.

The subsequent pages detail the flurry of legislative to secure either the National Memorial Stadium or the Civic Center.
Subjects: the Greater Washington Board of Trade;; 20th Century Washington, D.C.;; the Eisenhower Civic Center;; D.C. Stadium;; Washington, D.C. Baseball;; Washington D.C. Football

Technical Metadata

Date scanned: 03/06/2006
Person scanning: Craig Clarke
Date converted: 03/06/2006
Person converting: Craig Clarke
Scanner used: Fujitsu FI-4220C
OCR program: PixEdit 7 Rev. 7.3.6
Technical notes: