44 Years Ago Today... | Page 2 | The Boneyard

44 Years Ago Today...

Who Ha said:
10,500 for hockey. Hoops a little more
Expand ...

Yeah, it was the rebuild after the collapse that increased capacity it seems.
 
Baltic said:
Sitting in Section 103 to watch Al Lewis have his career game against UMASS. Next morning viewed the destruction driving from West Hartford to PWA. Definitely memorable.
Expand ...
Sat in either 103 or 104 at the time. If my wife and I weren't the last paying customers to leave the concourse we were among the last 5. Will never forget waking up the next morning and hearing the news.
 
I wasn’t at that game, but I was at the Knicks-Celtics game a few days earlier. The only reason I got tickets was that it was snowing hard and my brother-in-law didn’t want to go out in the storm, so he let me have them. And those were some sweet tickets— three rows back behind the Knicks bench. I’m still amazed seeing the size of Patrick Ewing’s sneakers up close…
 
Wasn’t there, had listened to the game. But I was working in those days in the Gold Building. The next day bunch of us went up to the top floor where we had a clear view and I remember seeing part of the roof frame sticking up like a mangled erector set. So lucky nobody was in that place when the roof fell.
 
I wasn’t there but I was supposed to go, played in a game in a rec league instead. What I remember though was reading Jeanne Dixon’s predictions for the new year in the NH register a couple of weeks before around New Years and she predicted that the HARTFORD Civic center roof would collapse!
 
.-.
My mom's ceiling collapsed today in her living room. Luckily she wasn't in there.
 
I was there with my business partner. Mid court, 4 rows up - no chance.
He still has the ticket stubs.
 
I was sitting in the sun as a Grad student at ASU at a bar on University Ave and saw a newspaper with the headline.... Blew my mind!
 
.-.
BuffaloHusky said:
As a kid, I got to see the Corny & Company play a bunch at the NH Coliseum after the collapse but where did the Whalers play? I just Googled it and nothing was coming up.
Expand ...
Springfield, I remember my dad driving us up there to the games.

I remember studying the collapse at UConn years later. If I were to call correctly it was largely due to the fact that they used center drains for the water and a freeze thaw cycle cause the drains to be covered in. Wet snow became too big a load for the roof to bear. Hindsight being what it is, it seems like a pretty glaring error.
 
Jim said:
I wasn’t at that game, but I was at the Knicks-Celtics game a few days earlier. The only reason I got tickets was that it was snowing hard and my brother-in-law didn’t want to go out in the storm, so he let me have them. And those were some sweet tickets— three rows back behind the Knicks bench. I’m still amazed seeing the size of Patrick Ewing’s sneakers up close…
Expand ...
Pretty sure Ewing was still in high school back then.
 
So few people attended, you could sit where you wanted. I chose right next to one of the tunnels out. No premonition regarding the storm, the scoreboard was so huge and hanging from the center of the ceiling, and the whole roof didn't look supported for it, so I never trusted it. I still think the scoreboard took it down with help from the snow, rather than the storm being the key cause. When you entered a tightly packed bar I would take note of the exits without really thinking there would be a fire. This was sort of the same thing. Kudos to you guys remembering the game itself. I've got nothing in that regard
 
wheelerdog said:
The Civic Center roof collapsed. Any Yarders at the UMass game 6 hours earlier?
Expand ...
Yep. I worked at Travelers then and went to the top of a nearby hotel the next day to see the damage looking at where I had sat the night before,
 
Dr Ij was drafted to the ABA in 1972 and was on the 76ers the night the roof caved in. I had tix by didnt go due to weather
 
.-.
It looked like a massive fist came from the sky and punched the roof.
 
Chin Diesel said:
Nah, the big one for New England was a few weeks later.

HCC roof collapsed after catching tail end of blizzard through Ohio and PA.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
Expand ...
I left work at 1:00PM in New Haven and was the last to leave who made it home. By the time I neared my home nearly 3 hours later, usually a 20 min ride, it was total whiteout conditions. I went past a telephone pole that looked familiar made a guess as to where my street was and thru some luck managed to get home.
 
CL82 said:
Springfield, I remember my dad driving us up there to the games.

I remember studying the collapse at UConn years later. If I were to call correctly it was largely due to the fact that they used center drains for the water and a freeze thaw cycle cause the drains to be covered in. Wet snow became too big a load for the roof to bear. Hindsight being what it is, it seems like a pretty glaring error.
Expand ...
I think it was called the I-91 club

The Hartford Whalers: Connecticut’s Last Major League Sports Franchise - Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

Major league hockey debuted in Hartford in 1975 and the Hartford Whalers remained a staple of the Connecticut landscape for twenty-three years.
connecticuthistory.org connecticuthistory.org
 
.-.
CL82 said:
Springfield, I remember my dad driving us up there to the games.

I remember studying the collapse at UConn years later. If I were to call correctly it was largely due to the fact that they used center drains for the water and a freeze thaw cycle cause the drains to be covered in. Wet snow became too big a load for the roof to bear. Hindsight being what it is, it seems like a pretty glaring error.
Expand ...

ASCE Failure Case Studies - William States Lee College of Engineering

Introduction to Case Studies Many of the key technical principles that civil engineering students should learn can be illustrated through case studies. For example, professors have discussed the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure, and other well-known cases with...
eng-resources.uncc.edu eng-resources.uncc.edu
 
Who Ha said:
I think it was called the I-91 club

The Hartford Whalers: Connecticut’s Last Major League Sports Franchise - Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

Major league hockey debuted in Hartford in 1975 and the Hartford Whalers remained a staple of the Connecticut landscape for twenty-three years.
connecticuthistory.org connecticuthistory.org
Expand ...
I remember one time in particular coming home in a snowstorm that was pretty hairy. And I looked over my dad and he seemed perfectly calm negotiating an unplowed 91 and the back roads to get home in a snowstorm. I’ve done the same thing myself, including most recently the last Syracuse game at MSG and I realized that calm exterior is a dad thing.
 
John said:

ASCE Failure Case Studies - William States Lee College of Engineering

Introduction to Case Studies Many of the key technical principles that civil engineering students should learn can be illustrated through case studies. For example, professors have discussed the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure, and other well-known cases with...
eng-resources.uncc.edu eng-resources.uncc.edu
Expand ...
You know I think I’ve read this before, but, wow, what a cacophony of errors from bad design, to poor project management, to the ignoring of fairly obvious warning signs. It seems that the live load was the straw that broke the camels back, but, that failure was inevitable.
 
I was there -- and returned home to Stratford where I was staying on winter break. My father woke me up at 5 AM (he always went to work ridiculously early) and told me. I remember it took a couple minutes to fully wrap my head around it.

I've always felt the fates gave me a "stay alive one more day" chip. Events like 9/11 and the Miami condo collapse always bring those feelings back.
 
QuickDraw said:
Now that was a blizzard. I remember it well
Expand ...
No! It was rain after a snow fall. I remember my wife was up doing a late night feeding of our one month old daughter and wife woke me to tell me. WTIC radio back then went off the air at 1:00 AM. They stayed on that night for a few hours longer. It was the now defunct Connecticut Mutual Classic. I worked for a. Another insurance company in Hartford back then in Claims and we spent the morning talking to contacts in underwriting to find out what percentage of the Reinsurance coverage we had. Aetna was primary as I recall and The Travelers had a piece as did we. With big time coverages like civic centers no one insurance company takes on the entire risk. The risk has to be spread out among insurance companies via Reinsurance agreements. Even a large P and C conpamy could get severally damaged financially with sole coverage.

We could actually see the roof from 5 floors up from the floor that I worked on. We ended up having to travel to Springfield to watch the Whalers for a couple 2 years or so.

Us insurance companies were lucky that we did not have BI claims since no one was hurt in the empty arena. Hell the property loss was bad enough.
 
Last edited:
jdb50 said:
The Whalers played at the Springfield CC and the games began there within a couple weeks. The fans called themselves the 91 Club I believe. Very lucky to have an arena so nearby that was willing to help out.
Expand ...
Yes, the big insurance company that I worked for ran buses up to Springfield ( mens club sponsored) for a while to help the Whalers out. Price was cheap and included box lunches.
 
.-.
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
168,289
Messages
4,561,592
Members
10,455
Latest member
UConnGabby


Top Bottom