Yankee Stadium 1921 - 1937

January 1915 Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Colonel Tillinghast Huston purchased the Yankees from Frank J. Farrell and William S. Devery for $460,000. But it wasn’t until the arrival of Babe Ruth in 1920 and Ed Barrow as the General Manager in 1921 from the Boston Red Sox that their fortunes turned.

In May 1920 with the impact of Ruth already evident, the New York Giants announced that the Yankees would not be allowed to play in the Polo Grounds in 1921. Shortly after this announcement a deal was worked out allowing the Yankees to continue playing in the Polo Grounds through the 1922 season. In January 1921 Osborn Engineering Company completed building plans for a new ballpark. On February 6, 1921, the Yankees announced the purchase of a ten-acre lot in the west Bronx from the estate of William Waldorf Astor. This was a location that the Yankees had looked at a few years earlier for a ballpark and rejected due to lack of transportation. The site, which was less than a mile from the Polo Grounds, now benefited from superior subway facilities. The original plans included a triple-decked grandstand circling the field but because this seemed too dark and overbearing, the original plans were scaled back so the grandstand would end at the foul poles. Because of its size it became the first ballpark to be called a stadium. The White Construction Company began work on May 5, 1922. Within two weeks Ruppert would buy out his partner Huston for $1.5 million. Completed in 284 days at a cost of 2.5 million, Yankee Stadium was ready for its inaugural game, April 18, 1923.

It wasn’t until 1928 that work would begin on extending the triple-deck grandstand from the foul pole in left field to its current termination point. The final construction work on the stadium didn’t start until 1936, with replacing the wooden bleaches with concrete and steel and the extension of the right field grandstand from the foul pole completed in late August 1937. Except for the addition of lights in 1946 and painting the building and the façade white in 1966-67 Yankee Stadium remained virtually unchanged until its final game before closing on September 30, 1973 for a two-year renovation.

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