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
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: |