Dreaming of Dodger Stadium


May 26, 1958

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

1958_0526_dodgers
The next time you go to Dodger Stadium, imagine arriving on express buses that stop right in front of the ballpark. When the game is over, the buses will be waiting to take you home. But don’t forget to pick up your kids. The youngest will be in the nursery for preschoolers and the older ones will be playing in the 40-acre recreational area built adjacent to the ballpark.

These were a couple of features announced to the public by Joe E. Brown, a Hollywood personality who was chairman of the Taxpayers Committee for Yes on Baseball.

It’s not uncommon for ballparks to have plans that don’t make it into reality. But you have to appreciate the timing of making this early vision public with the June 3 election in Los Angeles looming. At stake, after all, was the construction of the Chavez Ravine stadium.

Brown said the instructions by Dodger owner Walter O’Malley to his architects were to "make this the baseball showplace of the world and preliminary plans indicate it will be just that."

He might as well have added, don’t forget to vote.

keith.thursby@latimes.com

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About lmharnisch

I am retired from the Los Angeles Times
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