GREAT STADIUM TO BE ERECTED

The class of 1879 has, for some time past, been considering various projects suggested for a suitable gift to the University in 1904--its twenty-fifth anniversary--and has finally voted to construct a stadium on the North Harvard Street side of Soldiers Field, on the present site of the baseball diamond, to take the place of the present football and baseball stands. The plans, as designed by Professor Hollis and Mr. Charles McKim, of McKim, Mead and White, the well-known New York architects, provide for a horse-shoe shaped structure of steel, somewhat like the stadium at Athens, with seats of stone concrete seating about 27,000 persons. Within the stadium will be the football gridiron, surrounded by an oval running track 440 yards in length, as well as a straight-away track the finish of which will be in the bow of the horseshoe. The outer wall of the stadium will be of brick, in which at frequent intervals arches will be cut, rorming entrances to the seating benches. Owing to the fact that the entrances to the seats will be from the back of the stadium it will be possible to bring the front seats about twenty feet nearer to the side lines of the field, the present twenty-foot space in front of the seats being no longer needed as a means of entrance. Another advantage of the plan is that it will afford an easy and inconspicuous means of entrance and exit.

In the space underneath the seats of the stadium will be built lockers and dressing rooms for contestants, and, if this space is found sufficient, it is planned to change the present Locker Building into a swimming tank. There will also be a promenade under the seating benches which will connect the various sections of the stadium by staircases leading to various points in the stands.

The present buildings on Soldiers Field will form a continuation of one side of the horse-shoe, and it is probable that other proposed buildings will, in time, be constructed to continue the other side. The stadium will provide seats for spectators at all the contests now held on Soldiers Field except baseball games. It will therefore be necessary to construct a new baseball diamond and grand-stand. The amount of steel in the existing grand-stands, however, will be sufficient to make a permanent baseball stand and there will therefore be enough permanent stands to seat the spectators at all games. It will be possible, in cases of necessity, to add 13,000 additional seats to the stadium, thus making a total seating capacity of about 40,000.

The cost of constructing the stadium is estimated at $175,000. Of this amount the Athletic Committee, with the unanimous consent of the Corporation, will pay $75,000, or in other words the cost of the foundations and ground work. The dimensions of the stadium will be approximately as follows: Total length, 585 feet; total width, 440 feet; width of inside field, 230 feet; highest point above the ground, 72 feet. There will be 37 rows of seats extending all the way around the horseshoe, with a normal seating capacity of between 26,000 and 27,000. A covered promenade will extend around the top above and behind the rows of seats.

The construction of the stadium may be delayed by the present high cost of steel, but it is hoped that it may be completed by June, 1904, so that it may he dedicated at Commencement of that year.