ACROSS THE COUNTRY
Houston’s Astrodome Was a Vision of the Future. It’s Past Its Prime.
Once a wonder of the world, the storied but moldering stadium has long been part of life in Houston. Is it worth saving?
WHY WE’RE HERE
We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. The Astrodome has characterized Houston’s landscape for decades. Now that the hulking structure has fallen out of use, the community must decide what comes next.
Reporting from inside and outside the Astrodome in Houston
There are not many iconic structures in Houston, a city more famous for how it spreads out than what it builds up. The Astrodome is the exception.
Never mind that no baseball or football has been played there in a quarter-century, or that music hasn’t echoed through its cavernous circumference since George Strait’s voice twanged through the upper decks in 2002.
It opened as the nation’s first domed stadium in 1965 with a constellation of astronauts hurling a meteor shower of ceremonial pitches. The landmark still exerts a hold over Houston’s collective memory — a bygone vision of a space-age future in a city not inclined toward nostalgia.
But what to do with the hulking structure has raised uncomfortable questions that many American cities have confronted: What is a place without its best-known building and what is it worth to save?
Other cities have wrestled with what to do with the cherished but fading emblems of earlier eras, like a 1964 World’s Fair pavilion in Queens, New York, an Olympic Stadium in Montreal or the Marine Stadium in Miami.
Proposals to destroy them bring emotional responses. But the idea of pouring public money into saving such structures — especially if they are controlled by local governments, like the Astrodome is — also draws howls.