The St. Louis Arena hosted its’ final feature on this day in 1999: Her own destruction. A series of rapid explosions, and the edifice collapsed. Afterwards, a dejected crowd who came to watch the dynamited demolition dispersed as though they had just witnessed the home team’s heartbreaking defeat. Only quieter.
For several days afterwards, a funeral procession of cars and pedestrians passed by the wreckage on Oakland Avenue to gaze morosely at the mountain of snarled steel girders, splintered timbers and powdered masonry that was once hearth of cherished memories.
More than memories, The Arena possessed character, its design conceived by renowned architect, Gustel R. Kiewitt. His drawings took life in a balanced, elongated circular configuration built to human scale, fronted by thirteen stone archways and ornamental twin towers. The auditorium’s lamella roof consisted of Douglas Firs beams arranged diagonally in a lattice network braced by 20 cantilever steel trusses.
Dedicated on September 24, 1929, the new auditorium opened for its first event, a National Dairy Show. Hence, the edifice’s affectionate moniker: The Old Barn.
The Depression soon followed; the investment group filed for bankruptcy. But the edifice continued on for 65 years to host a wealth of events ranging from auto shows, circuses, boxing, concerts and religious revivals. The 1973 NCAA basketball championship—with UCLA’s crowning led by Bill Walton’s historic performance—played out there in a time that predated Final Four contests booked in Titanic domed stadiums to generate bigger bucks. But the St. Louis Blues proved to be the venue’s endearing and enduring legacy.
The Blues were an expansion team in 1967 when Sidney Salomon acquired the club, contingent on his purchase of The Arena mandated by Chicago Blackhawks owner William Wirtz. Salomon divvied up, and refurbished the deteriorating structure, pouring millions for painting and relighting the interior, updating the bathrooms and replacing the seating. He hired astute professionals to manage the team. His seeds reaped a bumper crop of hockey fans.
The original Blues consisted of a cast of too old or too marginal to play for the established elites of original six NHL clubs. But Lynn Patrick drafted men with character; then unknown Coach Scotty Bowman molded them into a cohesive troop.
Backstopped by grizzled goaltenders and future famers Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante, captained by future Stanley Cup Coach Al Arbour, and propelled by the fluid skating and scoring of Red Berenson—a player deemed too soft because he went to college and wore a helmet—this squad of castoffs took on a David persona in battles against the Goliaths of the NHL bluebloods.
While doubtful that Mr. Kiewitt envisioned ice hockey when designing his showground, The Arena proved an intimate forum consisting of eight rows of blue-cushioned box seats; 25 rows of cushioned yellow seats; and a final tier of hard blue seats. The seats were narrow by today’s standards, the pitch steeper on the single-tiered auditorium, but spectators viewed the game in closer proximity and far better sight lines than today’s venues.
The ice palace electrified fans who in turn energized the players in a visceral circuitry that reverberated off the wooden lamella roof to ice level and back again. The Blues’ home earned the reputation as the most raucous in the league. When a dramatic goal was scored to knock off the evening’s Goliath, organist Norm Kramer would lead the crowd who sang When the Blues Come Marching In. Barclay Plager remarked that “it made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
Blues’ tickets became the hottest in town. When the gates opened, standing room ticket holders sprinted up the stairs to vie for viewing spots behind the last row of the hard blue seats. Two new sections were shoe-horned in the end zones highest reaches for the daring to ascend the steep ladder-like climb to the vertigo-challenging perch. Fanatics defied the fire-code when over 20,000 supporters packed the place. Backed by the organ that played an up tempo version of the St. Louis Blues, the fans jump-started their team with a standing ovation as the players entered the ice at the start of each game.
The Blues franchise matured; their games no longer took on biblical proportions. But hardcores who took root during the original club’s Camelot Days remained. The Old Barn remained a beer-swilling place that hosted commoners ready to square dance together at half the price in today’s dollars. No smorgasbord buffets; no segregated luxury corporate boxes; no expansive pro shops hawking wares.
Dan Kelly’s lilting play-by-play transmitted from his perch above Section 217 to our homes, climaxed by his “He shoots, he scores” melded with the crowd’s crescendo that shook the building. The Plager Brothers and the Red Baron; Sutter and Federko; Liut and Cujo; Hull & Oates all performed there. The players and their fans willed the Monday Night Miracle when the Blues scored four times in the third period and another in overtime to avoid elimination in the conference finals in 1986.
The Arena endured bankrupt investors; the depression; a tornado that ripped a hole in its roof and toppled one of its towers; and years of neglect before the Blues arrived in town. But it could not survive the lust for more revenue than the Old Barn could provide as economic factors conspired to bring it down. The last hockey game was played there in 1994.
Contemporary sport franchises—with current revenue streams that dwarf what franchises earned 30 years ago—require corporate luxury boxes, expanded concession stands, pro shops and Jumbotrons to deliver paid commercial advertisements. Despite all the new revenue streams, modern venues now sport ads on the dasher boards, within the ice itself, and even illuminated billboards behind the goals.
A certain intangible, a je ne sais quoi, was lost when the game was transferred from the Old Barn to the cleaner, corporate named Enterprise Center. An office complex and non-descript apartments buildings now occupy the space on Oakland Avenue where The Arena once resided. Back in the day, its lamella supported roof loomed in the distance seemingly like a zeppelin that we could board for a ride to the stratosphere.
2/27/22
{for great shots of the inside & outside of The Arena: https://ballparks.smugmug.com/St-Louis-Arena-Pt1-demolished-St-Louis-Missouri/i-W32kN38/A
4 replies on “The St. Louis Arena”
Certainly for me Paul, one of your most nostalgic pieces. I visited the “Old Barn” for many events, but mostly Blues games. In my first few years as a Blues diehard, we would be in line with standing room tickets by 6:15. They opened the turnstiles at 6:30 for an 8:00 pm face off. There was a mad dash to the top of the arena for the choice standing room spaces. The uninitiated standees might think they had a great view, but once the seats in front of them were occupied, they were more likely to get a view of the back of a head rather than the action on the ice. For some reason, the seats at the top of the stairs stopped one row lower. It was the perfect place to stand, even if it impeded access to the stairs., A few years, the area was restricted, probably at the Fire Marshall’s insistence.
My first visit to The Arena was to attend the Firemen’s Rodeo when I was about five or six years old. I got sick to my stomach on Cracker Jack. I have never enjoyed that delicacy ever since, regardless of whatever prize might be inside the box.
Thanks for stirring many warm memories.
True that. But I was always lucky enough to poach a seat from my parents when they could not attend. On the center ice red line, Section 217, Row C, right above the exit so an unencumbered view of the ice with no one sitting in front to impede one’s view.
I always kicked myself for not attending the last and final Arena event, a concert by Christian star Carmen, but I was starting a new job and couldn’t take a night off. I always heard for years how mysterious the basement was, kind of like the Winchester Widow’s odd mansion, with tunnels and stairways to nowhere and shipping crates left unopened for 30 years because no one thought to look at that odd nook and cranny. I visited the Ol’ Barn every day of its last two weeks standing, and wept like a baby its last night, as KTVI aired a fond remembrance. Then, when it all came tumbling down the next day, I noted it was time to leave St. Louis once and for all….and 4 years later I finally did.
A few days before the demolition, I got entry to the barn and walked up to Section 217 row C. The seats were removed so I squatted down to where the seat would have been and imagined watching the game. What great sight lines with an intimate setting. I have reached the point that I will not attend Blues games now because I can no longer put up with the dumbotron.