Time runs out for Blue Island stadium
By The ASSOCIATED PRESS
BLUE ISLAND – A bit of history soon will be replaced in Blue Island.
The Memorial Park Stadium, built into a hillside by crews employed by the Works Progress Administration in 1935, has become a crumbling, dangerous, potential disaster.
Years of weather have taken their toll on the concrete, which actually has been known to fall off in bits if one brushes up against it, Blue Island Park District board member John Spizzirri said.
Wooden benches that long ago lost their umpteenth coats of paint now sit exposed to the elements.
Beneath the stadium, storage areas have been ruled unsafe for use, so youth sports programs no longer can store gear there. Frankly, it’s a mess.
“It’s a WPA project. The whole park was a WPA project. The stadium, the pool, the fieldhouse. The stadium actually matches the pool,” park district president Fred Bilotto said.
The WPA, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Civil Works Administration all were designed to put people to work during the Great Depression, using federal money for public works projects to help the flailing economy.
But the stadium, despite its ties to history, “has been neglected for 30 years,” Bilotto said.
“We have prices from 1972 for demolition [of the stadium], so it’s been on the agenda for 37 years,” Bilotto said.
The park board recently voted to tear down the stadium and has hired an architect to design a new one that would seat 750 people and have more room for storage beneath, Bilotto said.
At a meeting at the park district building, at 12804 S. Highland Ave., board members explained to residents how the aging stadium will be replaced.
The board hopes the new stadium will be finished by September, in time for the next season for the Blue Island Untouchables, a youth football organization.
There was talk in recent years of renovating the current stadium, park board Commissioner Raeann Zylman said, but that’s been ruled out.
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