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Paul Goldberger. Photo: Michael Lionstar
TALK & BOOK SIGNING: Author Paul Goldberger with Ken Auletta, on Ballpark: Baseball in the American City
July 5, 2019, 6 pm - 8 pm
Join Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic and author Paul Goldberger and The New Yorker writer and baseball aficionado Ken Auletta as they discuss Goldberger’s new book.
In Ballpark, Baseball in the American City, Goldberger provides a rich account of the history of the American pastime told through the stories and architecture of its vibrant, ever-changing ballparks.
From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was called a “saloon in the open air”), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit’s Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums of today, Goldberger establishes the inextricable bond between the American city and America’s favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society: the earliest ballparks evoked the Victorian age in their accommodations–bleachers for the riffraff, grandstands for the middle-class; the “concrete donuts” of the 1950s and ’60s made plain television’s grip on the public’s attention; and more recent ballparks, like Baltimore’s Camden Yards, signal a new way forward for stadium design and for baseball’s role in urban development. Throughout, Goldberger shows us the way in which baseball’s history is concurrent with our cultural history: the rise of urban parks and public transportation; the development of new building materials and engineering and design skills. And how the site details and the requirements of the game—the diamond, the outfields, the walls, the grandstands—shaped our most beloved ballparks.
Paul Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and writer at Architectural Digest, wrote on the topic of architecture for decades at the New York Times, and from 1997-2011 at The New Yorker. In addition to Ballpark, Goldberger is the author of Beyond the Dunes: A Portrait of the Hamptons, and UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, among others.
Ken Auletta began writing for The New Yorker in 1977 and has been the “Annals of Communication” columnist since 1992. The author of 12 books, including three national bestsellers, Auletta was the chief political correspondent for the New York Post, a staff writer and weekly columnist for the Village Voice, and a contributing editor at New York Magazine. Auletta has played for the writers team in the Hamptons Writers and Artists baseball game since the 1980s.
Friday nights are made possible, in part, by Presenting Sponsor:
Additional support provided by The Corcoran Group and Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder.
TALK & BOOK SIGNING: Author Paul Goldberger with Ken Auletta, on Ballpark: Baseball in the American City
July 5, 2019, 6 pm - 8 pm
Join Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic and author Paul Goldberger and The New Yorker writer and baseball aficionado Ken Auletta as they discuss Goldberger’s new book.
In Ballpark, Baseball in the American City, Goldberger provides a rich account of the history of the American pastime told through the stories and architecture of its vibrant, ever-changing ballparks.
From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was called a “saloon in the open air”), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit’s Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati’s Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums of today, Goldberger establishes the inextricable bond between the American city and America’s favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society: the earliest ballparks evoked the Victorian age in their accommodations–bleachers for the riffraff, grandstands for the middle-class; the “concrete donuts” of the 1950s and ’60s made plain television’s grip on the public’s attention; and more recent ballparks, like Baltimore’s Camden Yards, signal a new way forward for stadium design and for baseball’s role in urban development. Throughout, Goldberger shows us the way in which baseball’s history is concurrent with our cultural history: the rise of urban parks and public transportation; the development of new building materials and engineering and design skills. And how the site details and the requirements of the game—the diamond, the outfields, the walls, the grandstands—shaped our most beloved ballparks.
Paul Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and writer at Architectural Digest, wrote on the topic of architecture for decades at the New York Times, and from 1997-2011 at The New Yorker. In addition to Ballpark, Goldberger is the author of Beyond the Dunes: A Portrait of the Hamptons, and UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, among others.
Ken Auletta began writing for The New Yorker in 1977 and has been the “Annals of Communication” columnist since 1992. The author of 12 books, including three national bestsellers, Auletta was the chief political correspondent for the New York Post, a staff writer and weekly columnist for the Village Voice, and a contributing editor at New York Magazine. Auletta has played for the writers team in the Hamptons Writers and Artists baseball game since the 1980s.
