ESPN – December 27, 2013
by Chris Jones, ESPN Senior Writer
NOTHING DEPRECIATES LIKE a marvel. When the Houston Astrodome opened in 1965, it was heralded as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the first indoor multipurpose stadium, a gleaming coliseum fit for the space age and its capital city. The Astrodome’s soaring roof, rising 208 feet above the playing surface, was a miracle of structural engineering, a modern monument to possibility. Fans who had watched the expansion Colt .45s through three brutally muggy outdoor seasons now cheered the Astros in air-conditioned comfort. The baseball was still terrible, but at least the mosquitoes had a harder time interrupting it.
Today, only 48 years later, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has placed the Astrodome on its short list of the most endangered places in America. In November a $217 million bond measure that would have allowed Harris County, the stadium’s owner, to renovate narrowly failed. Several thousand of the Astrodome’s orange seats have since been sold, and in mid-December, three of its circular access towers were spectacularly blown up. In the meantime, the rest of the stadium continues to crumble — its field a rippled, tattered carpet, the dust settling like defeat.
“The conversation has been getting dangerously close to demolition,” says Beth Wiedower, the National Trust’s senior field officer in Houston.