Yankee Stadium As a Cultural Landscape

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Ben Fontana – SUID: 527956481 GEO 272 – World Cultures Recitation Section M003 Essay #2 Yankee Stadium as an Example of a Landscape When a person thinks of a ‘landscape,’ they usually think of a physical structure. However, a landscape can be so much more. It can be anything between “a scene mediated by culture…a text…part of our cultural signifying systems,” and “as a socially transformed portion of the earth’s surface” (Mitchell, 2000, 100). In the case of Yankee Stadium, it is a sports venue that transcends the dynamics of sports itself. The history and nostalgia of the Stadium as well as the passion of the fans brings culture to the landscape. When fans enter the Stadium, they enter a new culture that brings out the deepest emotions in them. In a way, Yankee Stadium is an active agent that constructs identity with everyone associated with the venue. In this essay, I am going to examine the impact of the stadium and New York City during the wake of the September 11th attacks in 2001 and what the construction of the new Yankee Stadium means to the landscape. First of all, sports are a part of culture just as much as anything else. It is part of human difference and expressive activity as well as an anthropological definition of culture (Cullen, 2011). And of course sports means different things in different places. We can even trace struggles over culture through sports. This is where the example of September 11th comes in. On that date in 2001, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig ordered all baseball games postponed for a week because of the terror attacks on New York and Washington. The games were postponed not only out of respect and mourning for the victims, but also out of concern for the safety and security of fans and players (MLB.com, 2001). Not only at Yankee Stadium, but also at all venues across Major League Baseball, you could fans
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