From 1937 to 2008, Miami, Florida’s Orange Bowl served as an outdoor athletic arena and was located west of downtown Miami, in the Little Havana area of the city.
The City of Miami Public Works Department created the Miami Orange Bowl. When work on the stadium’s lighting system finally wrapped up in 1937, it had been under construction since 1936.
Does The Orange Bowl Have A Roof
No, the Orange Bowl did not have a roof, it was an oval shaped stadium with a huge open air curved stand on either of the longest sides and smaller stands at each goal end with a football pitch in the middle.
The stadium’s new lighting system failed during the inaugural game, leaving the midfield pitch pitch black with five minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Football games between the Miami Hurricanes and the New York Giants were the first to be played in the new stadium on that date in 1937. Until the Orange Bowl was built, the University of Miami played its home games in a stadium near Tamiami Park and at Moore Park.
One of Miami’s pioneers, Roddy Burdine, was the founder and proprietor of the Burdines department store business. The Orange Bowl was originally named Burdine Stadium.
How Many People Did The Orange Bowl Seat
There were 23,739 seats on the sidelines, which closely corresponded to lower levels of the sideline seats in its final configuration.
The inaugural Orange Bowl was attended by just over 19,000 people in 1938, but by the next year, the crowd had grown to more than 32,000. The end zones were expanded in the 1940s, and the sidelines were double-decked by the end of the 1950s.
The American Football League (AFL) expanded in 1966. Sept. 2 was the date of the Dolphins’ first regular season game at the stadium. It was only in the 1960s that the stadium reached its maximum capacity of 80,010 when the west end zone upper deck was erected.
When the Orange Bowl was broadcast in prime time on January 1, 1965, it was the first college bowl game to be done so.
During the 1966-68 and 1970-71 seasons, a live dolphin was kept at the open (east) end of the Orange Bowl in a tank of water. To celebrate scores and field goals, he would leap into the tank.
A college football bowl game was held in the stadium every year from 1938 through 1996 and it was renamed Burdine Stadium in 1959 in honour of that event. On December 31, 1996, the event was relocated to Pro Player Stadium (now known as Hard Rock Stadium).
Due to a conflicting schedule, it had to return to the Orange Bowl in January 1999 for one final time. From 1956 to 1960, the minor league Miami Marlins baseball team participated in the Orange Bowl.
The east end zone seats were removed in 1977, and the stadium’s capacity and design were finalised with subsequent upgrades.. East of the open end, a metropolitan skyline could be seen over a modern scoreboard and a few palm trees.
Except for a period of six seasons in the 1970s, the playing surface was made of natural grass. For the 1970 football season, Poly-Surface, a synthetic turf comparable to AstroTurf, was constructed. Prescription Athletic Turf” was installed in its place after Super Bowl X, which took place in January of that year.
During the Mariel Boatlift in 1980, the stadium served as a detention centre for Cuban exiles arriving in South Florida.
There was a lot of pride in this iconic stadium, which was home to the Miami Hurricanes collegiate football team and the Dolphins’ first 21 seasons until Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) built in nearby Miami Gardens in 1987.
During the 2007 season, the stadium served as the temporary home of the FIU Golden Panthers while the university’s Riccardo Silva Stadium was being expanded.
Northwest 3rd Street (south), Northwest 16th Avenue (west), Northwest 6th Street (north), and Northwest 14th Avenue (east) were the four major streets that surrounded the stadium (east, the open end of the stadium).
In addition to football, the stadium also hosted concerts and other public events. The stadium had a regular capacity of 74,476 orange seats, and could seat up to 82,000 for concerts and other events where additional seating would have been placed on the playing field.
The last professional football game to be played in the Orange Bowl took place on April 29, 2000, and matched the Miami Tropics against the San Antonio Matadors of the short-lived Spring Football League. The Matadors won 16–13.
After demolition began on March 3, 2008, the Miami Orange Bowl was fully demolished on May 14, 2008.
There is now a LoanDepot Park in its place after the Orange Bowl’s demolition in May 2008. However, the historic stadium had been designated for demolition when the University of Miami announced that they would be moving from the Orange Bowl to Sun Life Stadium in 2008 in a 25-year lease.
The last time the Orange Bowl was open to the public was during an auction of stadium artefacts and memorabilia that took place February 8–10, 2008. Mounted Memories, a corporation that removes and sells stadium memorabilia, was responsible for the stadium’s deconstruction. The Orange Bowl was demolished between March 3 and May 14 of that year.
Why Did Miami Tear Down The Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl was torn down to make way for a brand new stadium and beginning in July 2009, LoanDepot Park’s development began and the Florida Marlins’ new 37,000-seat retractable-roof baseball stadium, built on the site of the Orange Bowl, opened to the public on March 5, 2012.
Miami Orange Bowl Public Marker
Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places commissioned Daniel Arsham/Snarkitecture to create a public artwork honouring the Miami Orange Bowl as part of the construction of the new Marlins Park.
As visitors travel around the 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) orange concrete letters reconfigured throughout the east plaza of the new ballpark, they create new phrases that are formed by the movement of the guests.