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The Astrodome - Once The Eighth Wonder Of The World, Now An Empty Shell · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Alex, you know, we started this podcast talking about interesting dead people, but we've added we've added a a flavor of episode that I think is really fun about things that used to be or used to happen or used to exist but don't anymore.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they're called dead ends.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a good reminisce.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I I also want to talk about what it what a dead end is.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes I think we we blur the lines a little bit of what we're actually talking about as a dead end.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Does a dead end have to be completely gone, or could it be something that just kind of faded away but still exists very niche kind of way?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think when we first started, it had to be completely gone.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when you started with water drinking fountains to make a case that they weren't around anymore, and I literally have one at my office, um I think you then blurred the lines a little.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So now these are things that used to be bigger than they are now.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um that bought stock in drinking fountains 20 years ago, it would be worth very little today.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and and in fairness to the water fountain episode, by which by the way is a great episode if you want to go check it out.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Drinking fountains, I wasn't saying they didn't exist.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was just saying people didn't use them to get drinks anymore.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like when's the last time you stuck your face in one?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Probably a few weeks ago, but you mean when I was eating Pop Rocks?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, to be fair, I did the same thing with synthesizers.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't trying to say that there's no such thing as synthesizers anymore.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was just saying they used to be bigger than they are now.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to talk about something that's actually exactly the same size as it's always been.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's it's not that it doesn't exist, because it does still exist, but it exists in kind of a state of limbo.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: You can't really access it anymore, but you can see it, you know it's there.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um it it's something that is physically not too far away from you.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one thing.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a it's not a CD changer.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: No 15 feet away.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: 15 feet from a CD changer.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: You're probably, I'd say 23 miles from from this thing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's something that's just you know estimating.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: At one point, um, it was considered the eighth wonder of the world.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Astrodome.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk today about the Houston Astrodome.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: They used to say that you could see it from space, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the stupid part of that is it's smaller than like most lows, you know, or whatever.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Oscope.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's obviously you couldn't see it in space from space.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I mean, you actually you can.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look on Google Earth.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you go to Google Earth, you can see see the Astrodome pretty clearly.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have to zoom in pretty good though, from that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean we're talking about pictures of space, pictures of the space.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: An astronaut would not be able to see it from space.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: The astronaut not not seeing the astrodome.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's rich.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think the only man-made thing you can see from space is the Great Wall of China.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll go with that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: But let's talk about the Astrodome.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you know who conceived the original Astrodome?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was it uh Roy Hoffheinz?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, of Hoffhein's Pavilion.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which doesn't exist anymore.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Judge Roy Hoffheinz, and he came up with it to help basically help the heat uh and the mosquitoes and all the things that existed back in the day and still exist today, but yeah, people didn't have a way to get out of them when they were watching things like baseball games.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean now I think back in the day, Houston's sports team, their baseball team was called the Colts, right?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: The Cult 45s.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so the Roy Hoffines came up with this idea.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and from the Astrodome, which was pretty innovative at its time, we got things like, and these didn't really exist before, uh, luxury sky boxes.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: One of the first luxury sky boxes was in the Astrodome, animated scoreboards.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: That was a thing.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But probably the most famous thing that came out of the Astrodome was my graduation party, my high school graduation party in 1987.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Ah no, artificial turf.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Astroturf, yeah.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Ik a astroturf, yes, known as Astroturf.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now that was necessary because they couldn't grow regular grass in it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: They tried.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any idea?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: They did try.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: They did try.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, do you have any idea how tall the Astrodome is?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: In stories.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like in like five stories, 100 stories.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I would guess it's 10 stories tall.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: 18 stories tall.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: 18.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, it hosted and was home to the Houston Astros from 1965 to 1999 and the Houston Oilers from 1968 to 1996.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, a lot of interesting things happened in the Astrodome.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of which actually kind of goes back to something that you and I talked about.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it has to do with John Wooden.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what that is?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The game of the century.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, the game of the century happened uh in in the Astrodomes where in the Houston Cougars uh played what was Wooden's theme's name?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um CLA Bruins.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: UCLA Bruins, and and the Cougars won.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe John Wooden wasn't the greatest coach in history.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I thought you'd have more to say about that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean it's witty, but yeah, I mean yeah.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: So so the Astrodome um opened in uh 1965, was the very first fully enclosed air-conditioned dome stadium in the world, I believe.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was called the Eighth Wonder of the World, and it was the host of not only sports things, but also all kinds of concerts, all kinds of um uh community-focused things.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Rodeo.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: The rodeo, the Houston rodeo, which is huge, was there.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um it had we talked about before, there's lots of tie-ins back to our other episodes, by the way.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: There was one with uh with Coach Wooden.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um the Battle of the Sexes took place there.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Remember that one?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Say that again.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: The battle of the sexes in 1973.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Billy Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: So the Astrodome was um something that they was paid for by the taxpayers.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um they wanted to call it the Harris County Domed Stadium because that was its proper name.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but someone said that the at the time there was this controversy about that.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um the world is gonna remember it as the Astrodome.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it has to be known as the Astrodome.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: At the time, air conditioning was prevalent, but not prevalent enough to do something like that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: So just to air condition that thing was a huge technological um oh yeah, innovation.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: That they they had to consider things like the buildup of carbon dioxide because of people in their breathing.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: They had to consider things like sound absorption because it could be very echoey, and they even had to uh invent what they called astrolytes, and that was the um skylights that were put into the roof to light the place.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think either one of us can imagine how futuristic that must have seemed when that when that place opened up.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen any pictures of the grounds crew back when they first opened?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were because imagine the grounds crew at a baseball stadium are usually people that you know they mow the mow the lawn and they yeah, rake the dirt.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: They had because they didn't have grass, um, they had their grounds crew was dressed like in astronaut uniforms and they had um vacuum cleaners and they would vacuum the extra turf.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: That must have seemed so futuristically cool.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I one I really enjoy 1960s futuristic stuff, like the Disney version of like futuristic stuff and like lost in space and star Star Trek and all that stuff that what they thought the future was gonna look like in 1960s, yeah, and the Astrodome is dead center on that stuff, yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was Space City, it's retro future, it's retro future, yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Retro future.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: I love that stuff at its finest.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one of the things that was really controversial, because this was the first time baseball was being played in an air-conditioned environment, was how it would affect pitchers.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: What should I say?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like the perfect person to test this with that or that it could affect was Satchel Page because of the sort of breaking balls he would throw.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: They were concerned that maybe because there was air conditioning, the air was drier, the air was um moving in different patterns that it might be out in the open, that these pitchers wouldn't be able to throw the same kind of pitches.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh you probably know this, but the Astrodome was actually considered a pitcher's paradise.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: There were very few home runs hit in the Astrodome.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, relate relative to other places, sure.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was a it was a shot out there to get it, yeah.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the very first pitch uh at the very first game happened on April 9th in 1965.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: A crowd of 47,879 people watched the Astros and the New York Yankees play in an exhibition game.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think at the time they were in different leagues.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the very first home run in this exhibition game, you know who hit it?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mickey Mann?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Mickey Mannell, yeah.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Very well done.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh Linda B.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: Johnson was there, and Lady Bert Johnson was there for this very first game.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Lyndon B.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Johnson was very, very complimentary of Roy Hoffein's.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I want to congratulate you.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: It shows so much imagination, and he called it massive, beautiful, and the eighth wonder of the world.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of where they got that phrase from.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there was a guy um who actually stayed on top of the Astrodome for 10 days.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he was called Astro Man, and he was supposed to be the world's biggest Astros fan.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: This was in 1979.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and the radio stations and the TV stations covered this.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: He was a guy named Denver Griffith, and he was actually a salesman at one of the radio stations.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so he lived on top of the Astrodome in a tent for for 10 days, and he was supposed to be, it was sort of like a rally thing for the Astros up there at the Astros.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, I I'm sure he was lifted up by a crane initially, and while he was up there, they would um send his food up in a basket, and so he had to actually, it was like on a pulley system, so he had to up raise and lower a gogglet for his food so that he could get things to eat for 10 days.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: He finally got so desperate for food that his mother had to intervene, and they were um they were interviewing Bum Phillips, and um this guy's mother shows up.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this is all planned and says, We got to get him down and brought him back down.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: So Astraman looped up on top.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: There were there were TV crews with helicopters flying around him.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this was all the kind of stuff they did back then.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: They also had, as you said, the game of the century against the Houston with the Houston Cougars against C UCLA Bruins.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that kind of led to March Madness.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was one of those things that was kind of one of the biggest things that was ever televised.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as I said before, the Battle of the Sexes, the movie about that was filmed in 2017, uh, actually at the Astrodome.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Muhammad Ali fought against Cleveland Williams in the Astrodome in 1966.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: The WWF set a record for attendance of 67,925 people for um WWF WrestleMania X7.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that was a huge thing.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Back in the early days in 1969, Frank Sinatra actually played there as a tribute to the Apollo 11 mission astronom astronauts, and he played Fly Me to the Moon, and all the astronauts were present.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's another tie-in with uh with uh Neil Armstrong uh Neil Armstrong, yep.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh any other thoughts on people who played there?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a whole list here, but I was gonna see if you could guess.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know that I've heard that Elvis at the rodeo played seven nights in a row there.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: He did.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: He played with over it was six shows, and the total attendance was over 200,000, which was huge, huge numbers for those days.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: He set the single attendance or single-day attendance record um that year as well.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're not from Houston, you should know that the Houston Rodeo, uh Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo every night has a concert, and that's usually what attracts people to the show.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they play, you know, maybe a 60 to 90 minute concert um at the end of the rodeo.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's how you get a lot of different performers.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I think the Jackson 5 were there.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so I'm gonna mention my very first concert I ever went to in 1977 at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my parents took my sister and I to see.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: You want to guess?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to hear.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're let me guess Conway Twitty.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Donnie and Marie Osmond.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I think you've said that before, actually.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: In 1977 at the Houston Astrodome, they played uh they played in 77 and 79, full on with the Osman brothers at a little Jimmy, and they actually in 77 they did a concert, and then in 79 they did a concert and they taped their show there.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It couldn't be less punk rock.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: That is less unpunk rock as you get.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll, but not punk rock and roll at all.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: You probably also remember something that happened in the early 80s that was a huge thing while we were in middle school and high school.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the Texas Jam.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't live here.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: You remember the you heard of the Texas Jam?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, three days of rock, um, you know, featuring the Scorpions, featuring um Van Halen.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this was the this was the days of these big Sammy Hagar when he wasn't part of Van Halen.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Did you go to that?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: There was the Texas Jam.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: I did not.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: I did not go to that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was a little young for my musical career.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I would have been about 11 when that started.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was also another big um festival heavy metal show that happened in Houston called Monsters of Rock.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought it had played at the Astrodome, but I upon further investigation I thought it played at Rice.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Rice Stadium.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think it started in Dallas and then moved to Austin.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you're you were right about the at the Jacksons performing their victory tour.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Madonna also played at the Astrodome, Pete Floyd played at the Astrodome, Metallica with Guns and Roses played at the Astrodome, Faith No More was part of that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Genesis played, and then the the one of the largest shows ever done there was Selena.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: She played there right before she was murdered, actually.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um you two played there and and and had a um music video they shot there.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then the Up in Smoke rap show was there that featured uh Snoop Dogg, Dr.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Dre, Ice Cube, MM.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: I made a huge, huge show in 2000.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And the very last uh very last concert ever played in 2002 at the Astrodome.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Want to take a guess on that one?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Was it George Strait?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was George Strait, yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, George Strait played the last concert.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the other thing we haven't even talked about that was big at the Astrodome, and that was motorsport.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: All kinds of monster truck rallies, U.S.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Grand Prix of National Midget Championship, which was a quarter mile dirt oval track.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another tie-in to Dirt Nap City, uh, someone that we talked about in one of our first episodes.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Remember who this was?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Evil Kinevil.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: He jumped 13 cars to over 100,000 spectators over a series of nights.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um and was that like 75?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that was in 1971.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, 75.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he actually had talked about jumping over the actual Astrodome.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that never stories.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, that wouldn't happen.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: That never that never did happen.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: There was a made-for-tv movie called Murder at the World Series.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that had a fictional World Series game between the Astros and the Athletics.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: You've heard of this one?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh heard of it, yes.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I talk about it all the time, actually.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when this was I remember when this was on and I was obsessed with this.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, yeah, it was awesome.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it wasn't a good movie, but I've I've seen it in the last few years, I've seen it on YouTube even.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um there was uh a few TV specials filmed there with like Kenny Rogers.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there was a scene filmed uh in the bad one of the Bad News Bears movies.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was a whole movie.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh Bad News Bears and uh Breaking Training.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Breaking Training, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was uh against a fictional team called the Houston Toros, I think.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um but there is a movie that I had never heard of until I started looking at the Astrodome, and it looks really interesting.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: I actually kind of watch it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Brewster McLeod.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard of it?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, where he flies around in that man-made contraption.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's a weird movie, but it's a good one.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds really weird.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: He lives in a he lives in like a storm shelter under the Astrodome, I think.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep, yeah, it's a good one.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Some kind of thing.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um there there's a scene in 2010, the year we make contact, which was the sequel to 2001 of Space Odyssey, uh, where Walter Turnau, who is played by John Lithgow, is arguing about who has better hot dogs, the Yankees Stadium or the Astrodome.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh Roy Schneider, the guy, uh Haywood Floyd, who was played by Roy Schneider, thinks the Astrodome has better hot dogs.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mentioned a minute ago about the U2 music video.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: You and I talked about this when I was in Ireland that U2 filmed the video there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they also filmed the video stuck in a moment you can't get out of inside the Astrodome.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have to check that out.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Friday Night Lights, of course, was uh featured the Astrodome.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and the baseball game by Electronic Arts, MVP Baseball 2005, had the Astrodome as a playable field until 2005.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: All of this said, in 2013, the National Historic, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed um the Astrodome as one of the most endangered historic places.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the National Registration Register of Historic Places actually added the Astrodome to their list in 2014.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what that means is it's very, very difficult to tear it down because it's uh the Texas Historical Commission also listed it on the state antiquities landmark.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's very difficult to tear it down, but nobody's quite sure what to do with the Astrodome now, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's just sitting there, it's full of asbestos, it it needs, I don't know, several hundred million dollars worth of renovations in order to ever get back up to code.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: As a Houstonite, do you or sorry, as a Houstonian, do you hear any comments or thoughts about what they want to do with it?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think everybody agrees that it's an eyesore and that it should be torn down, but nobody wants it done on their watch.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: No politician wants to be the one that have that happen.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we just name remain in a constant state of, like you said at the beginning, limbo.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um in twenty I believe it was 2013, they had an opportunity where they were gonna open it one last time for the for the to the general public, and they were gonna open it for like I think it was like two or three hours, and you could go and you have one last opportunity to check it out.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as somebody with a son who's a big sports fan who was born in 2004, I never thought he'd have the opportunity to ever see the Astrodome on the inside.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we went and we stood in line.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: For hours, and I have a picture of him inside the Astrodome, and it's one of the most genuine smiles.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was like nine years old.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the most genuine smiles I've ever seen on his face.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because he never thought he'd be able to go in either.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that it was just he was able to do that that one time, like made it all worth it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's time for the old lady to take a bow.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean it's just it's ridiculous that it does nothing there.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um it'd be cool if they like there's been so many plans to retrofit it to be something else from you know, hotels to shopping malls to a parking garage just for the other stadiums.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: But it but instead it's just this, like you said, this asbestos ridden eyesore.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, it's just seen better days, and now it's just kind of sad, actually.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you were there, yeah, we you weren't there recently, but you've seen it right or have you seen it recently, right?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it look it looks the same from the outside, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: It looks the same as it always did, but the compared to the you know sparkling new jewels next to it, it looks pretty old, you know.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and the thing is it was the first of its kind, but now there are lots of stadiums uh that have domes, some with retractable, can you name a few Yeah, sure.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean um the most beautiful stadium I've ever been to was SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, which I still can't I still I was there all night and I still couldn't tell you if it's inside or outside because Well it has it actually has a translucent it has a translucent canopy.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right, and the sides are open, so like as the night goes on you're getting colder, but it's not air conditioning, but you're definitely not outside, but you're definitely not inside either.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a weird experience, but that's the most modern.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the one in Arlington, Texas, that the cowboys play at is you know a a wonder.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's just beautiful and nice and and incredible, and the one in Atlanta, the um Mercedes-Benz Stadium is is unbelievable.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's some really, really nice stadiums out there um right now that are that are being built.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: The one in in uh Minneapolis is gorgeous, and there's some really pretty stadiums out there.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well now, I thought Minneapolis had the Metrodome that got demolished.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Did it did it have another one that took its place?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have a new one called Bank of America.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um there was also, of course, the Superdome in New Orleans, which is US Bank.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Superdome is one that was bigger than the Astrodome, and everybody would say, well, you could fit the Astrodome inside it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it was kind of in that same era and is kind of outdated at this point, isn't it?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and made out of concrete.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that was famously, you know, almost wrecked during Katrina.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: But but then had a miraculous comeback and um, you know, is old but still serviceable.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hope they don't tear it down.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you wonder as these things are being built, you know, and millions or billions of dollars are spent, hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on these things.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: Why why would it only have a 30 or a 40 year life?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Not even.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, most stadiums it seems like the life cycle is about twenty-five to thirty years, and then they start at least they start at least um threatening them and tear them down.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I mean it's it's a very odd thing that in today's world with today's technology we can't uh build these things to be you know there for a hundred years, right?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well at the same time though, it's the tech it's the technology that keeps making us think that we can just, you know, they're so disposable and we can rebuild them, and it's it's really pretty sad, I think.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, it's it's tax dollars that are largely building these, and a lot of times it's taxes from out-of-towners like rental car taxes, you know, and people that don't even live there that are paying for these stadiums.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm generally not okay with that, but there are some beautiful stadiums out there now.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you're in Houston and you're what is it along 45?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it on 59?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Where six if you're on the 610 loop in Houston, and uh you look out, I guess, look north as you're going past it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: If you look south, you see where Astro World used to be.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if you look north, you'll see uh the old the old stadium, the Astrodome.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think there was also an Astro Hall and an Astro Arena at one point too, right?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right, there's still actually um Astro Arena still exists.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's where we have our um graduation every year.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a sad place.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh four went out for the Astrodome, and uh uh let's let's hope that the next one we build will last a little longer.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I park my truck by the fence on a hot Houston afternoon, till get down ball cabal, walking up to that giant room, a road of the old dust on my boots, and a ticket folded in my hand.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: That old I'd still held the whole town like a promise in the sand.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: When the doors rolled wide and the crowd walked in sweat of that big roof, started breathing again You could feel the ears in the concrete bug Everybody knew Where the good times got Under the Dog We were young in the crowd Under the dog lost in the crowd One bright night The devil left home Just the devil's clothes Under the dawn Under the dawn rider lane and the whole place took Cotton candy and a kid's handy on all the program book My mama sang along to a song on the radio My daddy tipped his hat like he already to the show There was boots on the floor tears in the title thousand little stories through the night go bring it to the back door We're gonna die lost in the crowd the devil left home Houston is closed Just under the dawn Under the dawn Now the parking lot's quiet and the field is gone But I still hear that roar When the rain comes on If I close my eyes I can see it clear That great white circle still pulls me Look at the double Wee we're last