In a comment to David Wharton's post regarding John Hammer's recent Rhino Times I-told-you-so-editorial on the future of War Memorial Stadium (WMS), commenter and former Greensboro resident Michael Petipas ended his well-considered recommendations for the stadium's future with this: "...Is there really demand for an additional baseball stadium with this capacity?"
The answer to his question is, of course, 'no'.
Back during the long debate and subsequent referendum over whether or not a new minor league stadium could be be located in Greensboro's central business district to replace WMS, proponents of renovating the old stadium made that very point many times. WMS renovation proponents would say, "When a new stadium is built, the old one will become superfluous because Greensboro has no need for two 7000+ baseball venues and, in time, it will be demolished." "That's just silly", retorted new stadium backers, "you are just a naysayer... no one's talking about tearing the place down."
Whatever...
I agree with the Rhino's John Hammer on this , the 'city' is looking to tear down much of War Memorial Stadium. Although Wharton takes semantic issue with what the terms "city" and "tear it down" might mean, his parsing of Hammer's words sounds to me like an attempt to soften-up the public to WMS's probable fate in the very near future.
Large parts of War Memorial Stadium will likely be demolished(def.)... as in 'torn down' if the 'city' doesn't rally to oppose the move. How much demolition can we expect? Councilman Robbie Perkins, (part of the 'city' I would say), suggested recently that his vision of WMS is for a 500 seat facility, where 7000 used to sit. Under such leadership, the 'city' has let the place go to hell in a handcart, so now some want to tear big chunks of the deteriorated Memorial down to cover their tracks.
Spare me the details of what parts of the 1926 era National Registry property might be demolished to transform it into 'North Carolina's premier amatuer baseball venue' as Action Greensboro used to espouse to get votes. To me, demolishing any part of the structure will be a breach of trust and an afront to those who first built the stadium, as well as to those for whom it was built.
I have been named to the same committee that my true friend David Wharton will be sitting upon. I imagine we will be on opposite sides of some very spirited discussions in the upcoming months about how much of WMS's structure should or can be preserved for future generations, and which parts should be re-constructed if demolition is deemed necessary because of neglect on part of the 'city'.
The definition of what constitutes War Memorial's 'facade'(def.) will be first on my list of discussions since some seem to think that is the only element of the structure that is deserving of the 'city's' brand of preservation.
When it comes to the question of whether or not to demolish defining elements of such an important structure, I proudly accept the naysayer label.
9:40:40 PM 
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