Fresh Air - How Stadiums Became The American Public Square

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

As 50,000 people attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, we look at the history of politics, protest and play in American stadiums. "We fight our political battles in stadiums," Columbia historian Frank Andre Guridy says. "They become ideal places to stake your claims on what you want the United States to be." His new book is The Stadium.Also, as part of his series celebrating albums turning 50 this year, Ken Tucker revisits Neil Young's On the Beach.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And right now, tens of thousands of people have converged on the United Center Stadium in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. We hereby call the in-person portion of the 49th Quadrennial Democratic National Convention to order. Like the FISR form in Milwaukee for the RNC a few weeks ago, the United Center Stadium has transformed into the beating heart of the DNC in the presidential race. It's a tradition that has endured for over 150 years. Stadiums are the epicenter of politics, sports, and entertainment.

And as my guest today writes in his new book, there are also venues where people go to wrestle with defining the soul of America. Frank Garrity's new book, The Stadium, An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play, is a deeply researched look at the role of stadiums in the United States. From the 1920s pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden to the 2020 Barclays Center racial justice protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder, stadiums, Garrity writes, are our nation's public squares where we battle over race, class, gender, and sexual inequities. He also delves into how stadiums have become billboards for corporations and their influence on urban development and gentrification, and how it came to be that taxpayers often pay to build and maintain stadiums with little economic benefit for communities.

Garrity spent 15 years conducting research for his book. His previous book, The Sports Revolution, How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics, is about the sports revolution of the 60s and 70s, when civil rights and feminist movements were reshaping the nation. He's a professor of history and African-American studies at Columbia University. And Frank Garritti, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

What a timely discussion because your book actually starts off by taking us to the Democratic National Convention 100 years ago. It was June 28th, 1924, 17,000 people crammed into Madison Square Garden. And as you write, division was high. The country was in the throes of discontent over a changing America. This sounds very familiar. And there was a defining consequential issue that turned the garden for two weeks into the center of political theater. Tell us about it.

Yes, the resonances between 1920s America and 2020s America are really hard to avoid in the historian's mind. So at that time, you know, the U.S. is wrestling with all sorts of questions, and one of them being the question of immigration, right? This is a moment when millions of people and tens of thousands of people have migrated to the United States from Europe and other parts of the world as well. And it's a moment where we're seeing resurgent nativism, strong movements in the Democratic Party, actually, not the Republicans, in that sense, it's different, you know, against immigration. And one of those forces catalyzing that nativist movement was the advent of the Ku Klux Klan,

its second iteration when it emerged in the 1920s. And the Democratic Party is wrestling with this because the Democrats were dominated in part by Southerners, right, who presided over Jim Crow segregation in the South. And so one of the issues at that convention was, you know, should the party pass a resolution condemning the Klan? And it becomes this major, major point of contestation. And they are literally fisticuffs at the Garden, you know, for two weeks to try to figure out that and to figure out who the nominee was going to be. And at a certain point, Andrew Irwin, who was from Georgia, the son of a confederate, gets up there and turns the garden upside down and says that the Klan is the most destructive force in America. And people are stunned that this Georgian saying this, and it just turns

the convention on its head. And so, in the end, the resolution doesn't pass by one vote. They wind up landing on a compromised candidate, John Davis, who eventually loses easily to Calvin Coolidge, a Republican nominee that year. And so, you know, that was the longest political convention in American political history. And it happened 100 years ago in Madison Square Garden. You started there because it really is such a powerful illustration of how stadiums had at that point become like the public square for public discourse and a show of what was happening culturally and socially within our country. That's exactly right, because we tend to think of stadiums as places to see things that we saw at the Olympics, right? Extraordinary athletic performances. Or we see our favorite concert performers, Beyonce or Taylor Swift. But what I'm trying to show in this book is that stadiums have had a much larger role in American history. You know, they are by definition

political because they're contingent on political processes to make them possible in their management is that stadiums have had a much larger role in American history. You know, they are by definition political because they're contingent on political processes to make them possible in their management and in their construction. But also they've become political because, you know, we fight our political battles in stadiums. And that 24 conventions is one of many examples of the ways in which we see, you know, all sorts of contending forces for the status quo,

for the perpetuation of a Jim Crow segregation or corporate domination, to the social movements who contest those hierarchies that pervaded American history. And so many of those battles happen in stadiums because they're places where people congregate, because they're large, because they can accommodate all sorts of people, and they become ideal places to stake your claims on what you want from the United States to be. We're going to get into some of those social and political movements that really shape the stadium experience. But before we get to that, I want to talk to you about why taxpayers fund them. So in the book, you go way back to the 1800s and you write about

how it would have been inconceivable that taxpayers would be on the hook for construction and upkeep. Back then, private entities actually paid for arenas and stadiums. So how did it come to be that taxpayers now essentially pick up the tab? When stadiums are emerging, as I see them, as circus tents and wooden constructed ballparks, they're built by entrepreneurs who are kind of carrying the kind of 19th century amusement culture in what becomes eventually what we know as the entertainment industry.

And that's an industry that's an embryonic state in the late 19th century, early 20th century. And it really isn't until, you know, two things happen. Number one, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal helps begin the process by which public funds are building stadiums. Part of his public works project was building stadiums across the country, right, in small towns. And even in a place like Miami, where the Orange Bowl, which had existed for a long time, was a New Deal stadium construction. But it isn't until after World War II when we see the exploding growth of both the sport and the entertainment industry, when the United States really becomes a nationally sports-crazed

nation, where sports franchises start to make the case to politicians that, you know what, if you want to have a team in your city, you need to build a stadium for us. And politicians discover that they can gain a lot of political capital by bringing a major league team to their city. And that accounts for the exploding growth of publicly financed stadiums in the 1960s and 70s, and really until this day. And the argument for that oftentimes is that, oh, you know, a new stadium will bring jobs. They'll bring people into a city, for instance, and then those people will spend money. And so those are the short-run impacts that can be significant. But what are some of the realities of the financial benefits for cities to then have taxpayers fit the bill for construction and upkeep?

The economic argument for stadiums is fairly novel. It's only the last 30 years where we see this argument that essentially stadiums, Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, these were seen as memorials as much as they were sports or cultural facilities. That civic identity has faded as stadiums have been turned into, you know, essentially corporatized structures that are now have the names of corporations on them now. And they've been dressed up as sort of, you know, I would argue temples of worship to the corporate gods of the 21st century. You know, their monuments to State Farm Insurance or Toyota or American Airlines. Crypto Arena. Crypto Arena.

And the names change constantly, right? And so this notion that stadiums are places that help generate economic development is a fairly recent argument. argument, and it's one that's been debunked over and over and over again by economists who've shown because of the enormous amount of costs that is incurred when you build them and maintaining them, that in fact, whatever revenues they generate, right, are outweighed by the cost of construction and maintenance. And so, and that's an argument that has been, you know, argued about over and over again over the last 30, 40 years. And sometimes municipalities see the value in not building a stadium, but more often than not, they actually capitulate to these arguments and they wind up building stadiums more and more. And we've seen sort of an upsurge of stadium construction, you know,

over the last several decades. And what that does, I mean, I'm going back to that thing you said about stadiums being a marker for civic identity. So before there were all of those ads everywhere and corporations then took over the names of them, there was, I mean, I grew up in Detroit and I remember Cobo Hall at Cobo Arena, and there were, you write about this in your book, but I remember it, that it was a place that felt so Detroit. When you went inside, there were markers. The people who worked inside and outside of it were characters. Now, I guess they feel like cookie cutter or corporations in many ways. You know, it's funny because when Camden Yards in Baltimore is built in 1991, it really transforms the meaning of stadiums and even their location.

You know, it's built in downtown Baltimore, and it is this kind of manufactured homage to the city's industrial past. And it's hailed by ballpark enthusiasts all over the country. And it helps unleash this phenomenon of kind of the retro ballpark construction that takes off in cities all over the country. Everybody wants to build a stadium, you know, modeled on Camden Yards in Baltimore. But then that becomes a generic formula, right? Where they have very similar architectural styles, they have brick constructions

and cast iron and all sorts of things and glass, where now they all look the same. And then when you add the corporate name to them, then, you know, like right now I would argue that most of these facilities feel like no place, right? Because they all have the same sort of arrangements of ads and same types of scoreboards, same sorts of, you know, sort of rituals that we see in the contemporary stadium and arena. And

then I would also argue, you know, minimal or less civic usage than they used to be in previous decades. Ironically, I think the contemporary stadium more often than not obliterates a sense of space rather than actually creating a sense of a local identity. Frank, let's talk about America's favorite pastime and how it has essentially shaped the stadium experience that we know today. So baseball stadiums used to be, as you mentioned earlier, these wooden structures before they turned into these architectural landmarks that we know of them. And they used to be in neighborhoods. And I want to play a clip of the 1952 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The series

was played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Let's listen. The final game of the 1952 World Series. And I know that you're anxious to know the official identities of the starting pitchers. And so quickly, we go right down to the playing field and show you, as you would expect, right-hander Joe Black of the Brooklyn Dodgers, as previously announced by Chuck Dressen, making his third appearance in this series as a starting pitcher.

That was a clip from the 1952 World Series between the Yankees and the Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York. And I'm talking to author Frank Garritti about the social and political history of stadiums in our country. And Frank, you heard the announcer mention Joe Black, and Jackie Robinson also played in that World Series. And as we know, he broke the major league color line in 1947. Robinson brought Black fans into the stadium in record numbers. What was that integration experience like? The story of racial integration and the impact of Jackie Robinson on that process has been told over and over again, and with good reason, right? I think there's a way in which American post-World War II identity is very much tied to the way we imagined that we overcame

Jim Crow segregation and the role of Jackie Robinson and sports in general in that process. And that ballparks like Ebbets Field become places of this enormous cultural and social and political transformation. Now, it's not just because Jackie Robinson shows up in a Brooklyn Dodger uniform, it's because people have been agitating for the desegregation and the elimination of Jim Crow for decades. In New York City City for sure. And that's part of the backdrop that compels Branch Rickey to sign Jackie Robinson. Not the only factor, but it's a major one. And we see this all across the country, particularly in the South when the stadium, and in that case, it's not just a baseball stadium, but the college football stadium becomes this kind

of shrine, this temple that is designed in part to not just stage football games, but to actually exemplify and celebrate the Jim Crow South and its imagined legacy in the Confederacy, right, and slavery. And so, you know, stadiums up until the mid-20th century, particularly in the South, were all white affairs, right, or certainly designed to sort of exclude people of African descent and non-white peoples. But because of the impact of the freedom movements across the South and in other parts of the country, we see this major shift playing out in public at stadiums across the country. And so Americans are able to experience that live at your local facility. You write about how stadiums in the 30s also became like these places to cultivate mass loyalty.

For example, singing the Star Spangled Banner and raising the flag, which are synonymous with sports events. It almost like without even thinking about it, that's just what you do. I can't imagine a world where a game would start and we wouldn't start that way. What were the first instances of that ritual? Yeah, it starts in the early 20th century where we start to see performances of Francis Scott Key's anthem in public places, right? But it isn't until 1931 when it becomes the national anthem. And it really isn't until like even like the 1940s where we start to see the kind of regular performance of the National, of the Star Star Spangled Banner before sporting events.

You know, that's not that long ago, if you think about it. Again, as you suggest, I mean, it's this thing that we just do. It's standard procedure, not just before sporting events, but before concerts sometimes, too, right? And in other countries, that's actually not the case. The U.S. is kind of unique in that way. You know, not coincidentally, in the aftermath of wars, in the aftermath of World War.S. is kind of unique in that way. Not coincidentally, in the aftermath of wars, and the aftermath of World War I, in the aftermath of World War II, and then as I talk about later on, we start to see the proliferation of anthems like America,

the Beautiful, and others performed after 9-11, right? In moments, not coincidentally, where the United States is at war, when the U.S. government really has to make the case of national loyalty to its citizens. And the ballpark and the stadium and the arena becomes one of those places where that loyalty is cultivated. You write about this, but I had never thought about it in this context. When Whitney Houston sang the Star-Spangled Banner at the 91 Super Bowl and everyone in the stands at the Tampa Stadium, they waved these signature, you know, these little small miniature flags.

That was actually a moment tied to the Gulf War as a way to engage patriotism. Yes, the very famous, memorable performance of Whitney Houston, which, you know, inaugurates a pattern that we've seen to the present where women of color and black women performers often fulfill that function of stirring the nation at the sporting event. I mean, we saw that at Beyonce at the 2015 Super Bowl, right? I mean, and so it's an interesting, you know, kind of foreground, you know, the person from the marginalized community to bring the nation together. And again, as you say, that happens in the midst of the Gulf War, right? If you look at patriotic performances in the 70s and 80s, they're very different, right? I mean, like the Bicentennial, you know, it's kind of a,

you know, that you have the color guard out there, but you don't see this hyper-militarized, hyper-patriotic performance at ballparks, right? In the 1983 NBA All-Star Game is remembered for Marvin Gaye's extraordinarily sultry performance in the National Anthem, right? You know, very different vibe in those years after the Vietnam War. But basically from the Gulf War forward and after 9-11,

patriotic culture at ballparks and stadiums becomes much more patriotic and the kind of expression of American patriotism, I argue, becomes narrowed in a lot of ways, right? And we see this if you just track the performances at halftimes or pregame shows, as I did. And you see that transformation very clearly. You call this militarized nationalism. And it got me thinking so much about the debate around Colin Kaepernick taking the knee in 2016, because the discourse during that time was sporting events are no place for protest. But what he did wasn't inherently unusual.

Athletes have used their platforms to protest for years. But the blowback was much stronger in 2016 than what we had seen in the past. What was different about that particular moment? By the time Kaepernick takes his knee at Qualcomm Stadium in August 2016, now eight years ago, you at that point had 15 years of jet flyovers, 15 years of honoring the military and law enforcement. And that's the thing that's interesting after 9-11, the ways in which these celebrations of the military become celebrations of law enforcement, which almost immediately, you know, partly because of those who died among the first responders at the Twin Towers. But it's more than that.

It becomes a policy of pushing pro-police politics, I would argue, across the country. And so now that by the time Kaepernick does what he does, it's now 15 years of that in which patriotic expression is narrowed and dissent is less tolerated in public. Certainly, athletes have been persecuted before Colin Kaepernick, most famously Tommy Smith and John Carlos, when they make their Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. But, you know, having lived long enough and having studied this myself, you do see the absolute intolerance and the vilification of Colin Kaepernick, which I would argue was unprecedented, right? And I think it's because we have converted the stadium into a pep rally

for the military and for law enforcement. So any sort of questioning, just the questioning of any sort of police action becomes intolerable, especially when the black athlete does it. So I think that's what accounts for the absolute virulent response to Kaepernick and other athletes as well. I mean, he's the most famous case, but there were others. I think that's what I would argue. I think that that's why the stadium becomes this interesting theater to look at the way in which we make sense of our world and of American politics. And I definitely think that there's a much more repressive political culture that ensues after 9-11 than what existed before. Let's take a short break. Our guest today is author Frank Garritti. He's written a new book, The Stadium, An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Hey there, this is Felix Contreras, one of the co-hosts of Alt Latino, the podcast from NPR Music where we discuss Latinx culture, music, and heritage with the artists that create it. Listen now to the Alt Latino podcast from NPR. NPR brings you the updates you need on the day's biggest headlines. The Senate narrowly passed the debt ceiling bill that will prevent the country from defaulting on its loans. Stories from across

the world. Knowing how to forage and to live with the land is integral to Amis culture. And down your block. From CPR News, this is Colorado Matters. And you can find all of that and more in your pocket. Download the NPR app today. Truth, independence, fairness, transparency, respect, to Los Angeles, to Wattstacks. What was Wattstacks? Wattstacks was a concert, political rally, celebration of the Black community all in one. It was organized by Black cultural activists in Los Angeles who had already organized the Watts Summer Festival, which was organized in the aftermath of the very famous Watts uprising of

August 1965, in which the black community rose up against police violence and economic deterioration and political repression. And black Angelenos decided right after that, that nobody would ever forget Watts. And so what we see is an interesting moment across the country, but in LA in particular, of a kind of explosion of black cultural activism and black activism in general. And African-Americans are making inroads into local politics, most famously through the election of Tom Bradley, the first black mayor who gets elected in 1973. So you see this influx of African-American political and cultural power, after Watts, actually. And so those organizers come together with Stax Records, a very famous record company based in Memphis,

Tennessee, that had recorded some of the leading soul acts of the day, most famously Isaac Hayes, Staple Singers, among others. And they, motivated by a sense of corporate responsibility, come together with these organizers and staged this event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which featured all of their artists. You know, it was essentially a benefit concert to raise money for Black Angeleno institutions, right? It's this convergence of the record company, the organizers, and it was documented for posterity

in the very famous Watt Stacks documentary. So it becomes a celebration of Black power politics, financed in part by corporate money, but also made possible because the L.A. Coliseum was a public institution where events like this had happened over and over again, right? And so that's why the Watts Act concert becomes really significant culturally and politically. Right. It's a memorial, a concert, and a political rally all in one. And I want to play a clip from the opening ceremony. In this, we hear a young Jesse Jackson.

He steps onto the Coliseum stage. At the time, he's the founder of Operation Push, which is the people united to save humanity. And when he looked out onto the crowd, he saw this large mass of Black people. It was the largest, as you write, since the March on Washington nine years before. So here is Jesse Jackson engaging the audience to repeat a chant. I am somebody. I am somebody. I may be poor, but I am somebody. I may be a welfare, but I am somebody.

I may be unskilled, but I am somebody. I am black, beautiful, proud. I must be respected. I must be protected. That was civil rights leader Jesse Jackson giving the opening ceremony of the Watts Dax concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1972 to mark what was the seventh anniversary of the 1965 Watts Riot. And Frank, the event was intended to be the celebration of Black culture and this demonstration of community resilience and pride. It also showed the shift in the community's relationship with the Coliseum. What did it tell us about the political leverage Black activists and public officials actually had at that time at the Coliseum? It shows us how Black Angelenos were having increasing political power, no doubt, right? And so we see Black elected officials

emerging slowly but steadily, again, with Tom Bradley being elected a year later. But on the Coliseum Commission, the commission that actually governed and managed the facility, we have African-Americans on that commission, right? So it's not by accident that Wasatch becomes the venue in part because it's in South Los Angeles, which at that time, right, and still is a predominantly black community. That's the other part of the story. You know, we are seeing the promises, you know, at least at that moment. 1972 is a kind of apogee of black power politics.

The Gary Political Convention, the Black Political Convention happens just a few months earlier. Shirley Chisholm has a historic candidacy for the presidency that year, 1972, right? And so, you know, all of that is coming together at the LA Coliseum on that August afternoon. And I think that you're seeing the kind of ascendance of black political power. I mean, and a lot of the promises were not fulfilled, but nonetheless, you see the kind of optimism and the notion that things are shifting for African-Americans in the country at that time. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is author and scholar Frank Garritti. He's written a new book about stadiums

in the United States called The Stadium, An American History of Politics, Protest and Play. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. Bring all Americans closer together through free and independent journalism, music, politics, culture, and so much more. The NPR Network. What you hear changes everything. Learn more at NPR.org slash network. Frank, it's interesting how you note the stadium, like the school board, like the government, like media, was also a battleground for gay liberation, in part because baseball stadiums were where, as you describe, this segment of anti-gay movements took hold. What did that look like? What were the ways anti-gay sentiment was expressed in stadiums and at games? Well, it's expressed in the fact that I think the dominant culture

at most stadiums was, you know, very hetero-masculinist for sure, right? But it isn't until you start to see the advent of the gay rights movement or in its iteration after the Stonewall uprising in New York in 1969 where you start to see this, you know, this anxiety and this pushback, strong pushback against the presence of gays and lesbians and queer people, you know, throughout American society, but in particular at ballparks, right? And one of the most famous cases or infamous cases of this was the 1979 disco demolition event that happened at Chicago's Comiskey Park, in which a local disc

jockey, Steve Dahl, decided to create the ceremony in the middle of a baseball doubleheader to blow up disco records, right? And this is at a moment when the kind of anti-disco movement was emerging in the United States, and it was very much an anti-gay movement, right? It was very much fueled by homophobia and racism, even though Dahl insisted it didn't. But if you actually look at the evidence, it's very clear. And so, you know, you start to see, you know, that event turns into a riot where literally people charge the field and the games are canceled. The second game of the doubleheaders canceled on that evening in 1979 in Chicago. So the ballpark becomes this battleground and it's because in part gay activists take their struggle to the stadium. And they do that in San Francisco

with the advent of the Gay Games Movement, which is created by Tom Waddle among a host host of other organizers, who decide to create kind of an anti-Olympics Olympic, right? To sort of create their own athletic competition that showcased the athletic talents of gays and lesbians. And that's what they do in San Francisco in the early 1980s. And their first Gay Games happens in Kezar Stadium, another publicly controlled stadium, in the summer of 1982. At the Gay Games opening ceremony, Tina Turner performed. Thousands attended. They played lots of different games. I want to play a clip from a documentary from the BBC. Sarah Waddle Lewenstein was a founding board member of the games and widow of Tom Waddle.

In this clip, she talks about the feeling that everyone felt the first day of the Games. When we marched in and we had all of these people on both sides of the stadium clapping for us, we all cried. We all cried. May I welcome you, athletes and spectators from all over the world, to the first gay games. That was Sarah Waddle-Lewenstein talking about the first gay games in 1982 in San Francisco. You talked about, Frank, how really there was this movement that had already been happening for several years that led up to the formation of the gay games. of gay softball leagues and all sorts of other recreational activities, you know, for gays and lesbians and other folks who identify as queer, we would say now queer, right? And so, yeah, so it's not by accident this is happening in San Francisco. And Waddle himself had been an athlete. He actually performed in the 68 Olympics, right?

He actually was one of the few people who actually stood in solidarity with Tommy Smith and John Carlos, right? And so, you know, what he was trying to do was to showcase to America that gays and lesbians are, you know, can be athletes and can be normal, right? This is something he would say over and over again, actually, right? And so, and many other folks are like, well, no, we don't necessarily have to show how normal we are, but we could show the extraordinary cultures that we have, that we've been developing in our communities. You know, in the bars, but what Waddle's movement and that movement does, it allows it to bring it out to the public, right? And it's not by accident, they bring it out to the local stadium. Kezar Stadium was a local institution, right?

It had been the place that the San Francisco 49ers, NFL franchise had played for 25 years. And so here we see in the 80s, you know, Kezar becomes this space where the anti-war movement in the 70s and now the gay movement in the 80s is showcasing itself in all of its glory, right? And that's what we see happening there. And so it has an enormous impact, you know, politically. And it also showed that, of course, at that time, this is the moment when gays and lesbians were having political influence, right? Obviously, in the 70s is when we have Harvey Milk get elected to the local board of supervisors.

He's assassinated by Dan White, of course, most famously. But so we've got kind of the gay-lesbian movement really emerging, and it shows itself very clearly at the local stadium. And it stands in other parts of the country as well. Right. I mean, it also sounds like this is the beginning of a movement for gay and lesbians' place in sports more generally, which is something that we still have conversation and discourse about. Like it is still, in many instances, a contentious topic. No doubt. And it was then because one of the things that happens, part of the story I didn't get to, is that the International Olympic Committee actually goes out of its way to make sure that this movement can't use the Olympic word at all. It was actually originally called the... So that's why it's just gay games. That's exactly right. They actually, not only follow a lawsuit, but they, I mean, they go out of their

way to harass and make life miserable for that organizing committee, right? And so, you know, they're combating homophobia in sports, absolutely. And this was something near and dear to that, to Waddle and his colleagues and to those athletes, right? And I think that, I mean, as I read the accounts and your audio brings us through over and over again, the enormous impact that it had to see athletes in all shapes and sizes from all over the world, not just from the United States, you know, showcasing themselves publicly and unapologetically and then performing their own, you know, their own dances, you know, doing disco dances during the ceremonies as well, after years after disco

supposedly had died, right? And so this was about showcasing the gay, lesbian, queer community in all of its fullness. What did you find out about safety challenges? I'm thinking about the 2021 Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas. And just to remind people, 10 people died and there were hundreds of people that were injured. The crowd surged onto the stage while rapper Travis Scott was performing. Was that an outlier or a signal of bigger issues around safety? That's a great question. You know, stadiums, you know, show us at our best and can show us at our worst, right? I mean, if you're a follower of soccer in Europe, you know, there's long-standing traditions of hooliganism, and stadiums are designed to actually keep fan bases apart because of the kind of tribalistic affiliation

that people have to their local soccer clubs, right? So safety, of course, anytime you're going to bring tens of thousands of people together, safety is going to be a question, right? No doubt. Absolutely, right? And that becomes a major issue after 9-11 when we see the larger securitization

of American society. I mean, we're seeing that even on college campuses where I work where, you know, now you need to have ID swipes. I mean, securitization is a fact of life, right? Unfortunately, I would say, because it really curtails our ability to engage, I think. So certainly, yes, I mean, that's an issue at stadiums, no doubt. You know, but if you actually look at the function of security guards at stadiums, they're usually there to keep the crowd segregated. You know, that's the thing that I've noticed.

What do you mean by that? What I mean by that. So I remember going to Bruce Springsteen's last concert at the old L.A. Sports Arena. And, you know, it was one of his favorite arenas, a very small, intimate setting. He'd perform it. And I watched what the security guards were doing. And what they were doing,

they were making sure that the VIP crowd can go into these sections and that the general public can go in these sections. That's actually what most often private security guards do, if you actually look at what they do, right? And so even the question of safety and security has this interesting other element that is often not thought about. You know, early on, you talk about how in the early 1900s and before, stadiums were places for the elite. And I'm thinking about today with VIPs. I mean, you can spend a lot of money to have a VIP experience to go to a sporting event or a concert and have like the top of the line. I mean, you can really take it up there, you know, with what you get in a private box and everything. Like, do those experiences mirror each other? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think this is part of the larger phenomenon of capitalizing on aspirations of the VIP life, which we see in the airline, in the airplane, and we see at the local stadium. Absolutely. Right. And so, you know, you're paying more for a VIP experience. And so because the VIP sections take up much bigger amounts of real estate than seats for the average fan. And the average fan is not a working class person. The average fan is somebody who is upper middle class or somehow gets a ticket. Also, seating capacity is much smaller now. So you have large parts of the stadium real estate devoted to the VIP crowd, to the corporate crowd, right?

And you have less space devoted to the average sports fan, right? And this is something that sports fans lament over and over again. And you could say, well, people could just watch sports or watch whatever they want to watch on their device, right? But what we discovered in 2020 is that the fan really matters, right? That playing sports in front of empty seats, you know, there were people actually writing articles before 2020, like, you know, do we really need fans in stadiums anymore? And the 2020 show is actually, we do need them there, right?

And that the athletes want them there, and that the public wants to be there, because it is a place to be. I mean, again, think of stadiums as institutions. Think of them as places where people want to go and congregate with good reason. And I think that that's the stadium at its best when we actually use it for that purpose. So why not open it up to a wider swath of people? Frank Garritti, thank you so much for this book and this conversation.

A real pleasure to be here. Thank you. Author Frank Garritti, his new book is called The Stadium, An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play. Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Neil Young's 1974 album On the Beach on its 50th anniversary. This is Fresh Air. Our rock critic Ken Tucker continues his summer series about great albums celebrating their 50th anniversary. And what could be more appropriate for a summer series than the Neil Young album called On the Beach? It's not all sunny, though. Young has referred to his 1974 album as one of the most depressing records he's ever made. Ken explains the context behind that remark and why he thinks Young's downbeat music is

actually thrilling, even inspirational. I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day. Though my problems are meaningless I don't make them go away I need a crowd of people. I can't face them day to day. On the title song of On the Beach, Neil Young sings, I need a crowd of people, but I can't face them day to day. Two years before the release of this album in 1974,

Young had put out Harvest, a huge hit that attracted that crowd of people. It remains his best-selling album. But that success freaked him out. He started to write songs that were more downbeat, more guarded and prickly. His marriage to actress Carrie Snodgrass was collapsing. When his guitarist Danny Witten and one of his roadies Bruce Barry passed within months of each other in drug-related deaths,

he told Rolling Stone that he held himself partly responsible. Young went into the studio and started talking about feeling like a blood-sucking vampire. I'm a vampire, babe Sucking blood from the earth I'm a vampire, babe Sucking blood from the earth Well, I'm a vampire, baby Sell you 20 barrels of

I'm a black bad baby The recording sessions for On the Beach were gloomy affairs fueled by a lugubrious drug mixture the musicians called Honey Slides. In this context, Revolution Blues, Young's rumination on psycho killer Charles Manson, fit right into the overall mood. Young enlisted Levon Helm and Rick Danko, the rhythm section of the band, to power up his memories of once trading guitar licks with Manson. The song ventures to get inside Manson's warped head

with shocking, vivid details. It's one of the best songs Young has ever written and performed. I'm a barrel of laughs with my carbine on I keep on hoppin' till my ammunition's gone But I'm still not happy I feel like there's something wrong I got the revolution blues I see bloody fountains And ten million dune buggies Coming down the mountains

Well I hear that Laurel Canyon Is full of famous stars But I hate them worse than lepers And I'll kill them in the car. Is it any wonder Neil Young was Johnny Rotten's favorite hippie? The bleak but beautiful music Young was making during this period mixed folk and country with rough production and pinched, piercing vocals. It was Young's early homegrown version of punk rock. on the shore Singing songs for Vince with

Taylor Who charged ten dollars at the door You can really learn a lot that way It will change you in the middle of the day. Though your confidence may be shattered,

it doesn't matter. One thing On the Beach demonstrates is that artists can make good art no matter how hemmed in, churlish, or depressed they may be. What might emerge from such low moods can prove revelatory and relatable in the way that the best songs about feeling bad can feel so good to a listener. With typical willfulness, the summarizing message of On the Beach can actually be found in its very first song, Walk On. Quote, sooner or later, it all gets real. People been talking me down Bring up my name Pass it around

They don't mention the happy times They do their thing I do mine Oh baby, that's hard to change. I can't tell them how to feel. Some get strong. Some get strange. Sooner or later, it all gets real.

Oh, God. The album cover depicts Neil Young alone, or later, it all gets real. Come on. The album cover depicts Neil Young alone, barefoot in the Santa Monica sand, his back to us, all but shouting, get off my beach. His songs are stormy warnings. Beware, I'm no role model. But its music also says, we're all in this together. A bummer and a downer, On the Beach takes us not to the edge of the ocean, but to the abyss. Rock critic Ken Tucker reviewed Neil Young's 1974 album, On the Beach.

On tomorrow's show, how one investigative reporter says Donald Trump has changed federal law enforcement. David Rhoad argues that since 2016, Trump has used conspiracy theories, co-option, and threats to bend Justice Department and FBI officials to his will. Rhoad's new book is Where Tyranny Begins. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our senior producer today is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seward. Roberta Shurock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley. Who's claiming power this election? What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the Electoral College? All this month, the ThruLine podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer them.

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