My biggest complaint about the Phillies' new ballpark was that the Phillies left the massive Veteran's Stadium sign out at the corner of 10th Street and Packer Avenue. Standing tall and ugly, the sign was the one thing obstructing the view of the Center City skyline. And now, it will be gone. Well, mostly.
Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweeted the beautiful news that the sign as we know it would be coming down.
I was excited on Friday night when I observed a giant crane on the top of the sign, and remarked to our own Greg Vince, "Hey – maybe that sign will come down!" But, then I thought (as you see in my picture with some smoke from Friday's awful South Philly fire in the background) that they were just adding an American flag to it.
Gelb followed that tweet up with a post that shares the plans:
The tower will remain in a different form, a team spokesperson said. It will be lowered in height — from 157 feet tall to 115 feet — and become a two-sided message board. Construction began this week.
Hopefully those two dimensions will be visible only to Packer Avenue, thereby allowing fans to enjoy the beautiful Center City skyline.
Phillies President David Montgomery remarked in the past that the cost of removing the structure was extensive ($150,000 sticks in my head but please don't quote me) so they were letting alone for the time being.
I actually took the picture with the intention to write a post about how much I hate it. Looks like I finally get my wish.
h/t to Kyle Scott of Crossing Broad for bringing this to my attention.
