The Grateful Dead, JFK Stadium and the long, winding road that kept the Sixers in South Philly

A routine inspection 90 minutes before the gates opened at JFK Stadium in July of 1989 revealed a slew of fire-code violations and safety hazards, confirming a report that warned the city a year prior about the condition of the 63-year-old stadium in South Philadelphia.

But there already were 20,000 Grateful Dead fans waiting outside. So officials — fearful of sparking a riot like the one they faced a few years earlier during a Rolling Stones concert — let the show go on.

The Dead jammed for three hours, played 19 songs, and the gates to JFK Stadium never opened again. Mayor Wilson Goode closed the stadium six days later, eventually announcing that it would be razed as repairs were too costly.

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The goliath, horseshoe stadium could hold more than 100,000 fans and had hosted everything from Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney’s 1926 heavyweight title fight to 1985’s Live Aid. And soon it would meet a wrecking ball.

It didn’t take long to determine what could be built on the 55-acre site as Flyers owner Ed Snider was already in the early stages of planning a new home for his team to share with the 76ers. More than seven years passed between Jerry Garcia walking off the stage and the opening of the CoreStates Center — first called Spectrum II and now known as the Wells Fargo Center — on the site of JFK Stadium.

The planning, negotiations, and building moved with the pace of a Grateful Dead concert as the process never seemed to end. There were disagreements between the Flyers and Sixers, an attempt by New Jersey to build an arena and lure the teams from South Philly, and years of stop-and-go planning. In August 1996, it finally opened.

And the road to that night started with a Grateful Dead concert in a historic stadium that was falling apart. It’s a path worth revisiting as the Sixers announced plans earlier this month to leave that arena in 2031 for a new home on Market Street.

The Sesquicentennial — America’s 150th birthday — largely is remembered as a flop as the celebration lost millions of dollars because of a low turnout for the World’s Fair-like exposition in South Philly

But the event did give birth to JFK Stadium — initially called Sesquicentennial Stadium — and the largest-attended sporting event in city history when 120,000 people watched Tunney top Dempsey in September 1926 for the heavyweight title.

The stadium resembled the L.A. Coliseum and was designed by the same architect behind the Strawbridge’s building on Eighth and Market streets. JFK hosted the Army-Navy games for decades, the Eagles for a few seasons, and mega-rock concerts every summer.

JFK Stadium was a key piece of the city but eventually started to fall apart because of a lack of upkeep. A report commissioned by the city in 1988 said repairs would cost $4.5 million. But none of them were completed when the Grateful Dead came to town.

“It was terrible. It was tough to manage that place,” said Jay Snider, whose company Spectaguard provided security for JFK concerts in the 1980s. “We had wars in that place. I remember with the Rolling Stones, it was sold out, and tickets just kept getting sold. There were like thousands of people outside trying to get in and luckily we had good relationships with the Philadelphia mounted police and they were doing their best and what they could.

“But they were rushing those gates, and the old gates were these iron bars that went up. They were throwing bottles at them and they exploded. We had a guy who lost his sight from glass in his eye. It was bad. They’d rush the gates and break them down, and we’d try to get them closed again. That place was ready to come down. It had not been renovated.”

The Spectrum opened in 1967, and “America’s Showplace” started to show its age in the late 1980s. New buildings in Detroit and Orlando redefined what arenas could be and the rising costs of player salaries created a need for more revenue streams such as luxury boxes.

So Snider — even before the city locked up JFK Stadium — knew he needed a new building.

“Like the Spectrum, a lot of buildings were built as the NBA and NHL expanded in the 1960s and early 1970s,” said Snider’s son, Jay, who then was the Flyers president. “But 25, 30 years later, everything changed dramatically. The revenue, the corporate boxes, the food service, all the upgraded amenities you could offer fans. Just to keep up financially, it became a necessity not a luxury.”

The Flyers wanted to keep the Sixers as tenants in the new arena, but owner Harold Katz — who said he had “the worst lease in the NBA” — had already been talking to New Jersey about building an arena on the Camden waterfront. And soon, Jersey started talking with the Flyers, too. Perhaps the two teams would move together from South Philly to South Jersey.

Jersey’s offer was great — much better financially than building in South Philly, Jay Snider said — but ultimately, the Flyers decided to stay home. They appealed to Katz, knowing that they needed the 76ers as tenants and did not want to compete with a rival building.

“It’s not maybe better, they were better,” Jay Snider said. “The arena was built virtually 100 percent with private money. As I recall, there was $12-15 million by the state in infrastructure and maybe one small low-interest loan. But basically, we didn’t hold the city or state up for anything.

“It was a really sweet deal, but Dad was loyal. Even though we had a lot of Flyers fans and Spectrum fans who came to all the other events from New Jersey and in Delaware, he was just loyal to Philadelphia about being the home of the Flyers.”

The plans were announced at a City Hall news conference in June 1991 for a 21,000-seat arena to open in the fall of 1994. The new arena, they said, would also include a parking garage and shopping mall that would link the Spectrum to its new neighbor. Those plans ultimately were scrapped, but Jay Snider and other executives traveled to Disney World and Disneyland, searching for inspiration as they wanted to build more than just an arena.

“We had a lot of ideas,” Snider said. “We had all that space. Thought about a major entertainment center, a la Universal Studios.”

JFK Stadium was razed in February 1992 with groundbreaking scheduled for May. But that day passed without a shovel touching the dirt. The deal that was announced at City Hall had fallen through in October 1993. Katz wanted out as he believed he was being shortened and started talking again to New Jersey.

With the plans paused, Ed Rendell — who became mayor in 1992 — told Eagles owner Norman Braman that he could build a football-only stadium on the site of JFK if Snider was unable to build his new arena. The Eagles launched a feasibility study in December 1993, and Braman said he wanted to build a stadium like the one used by the Buffalo Bills.

The pressure was on for the Flyers and Sixers to come together as their tract of land in South Philly seemed to be slipping away.

Snider and Katz, four months after their deal fell apart, came to an agreement in February 1994. A month earlier, the Sixers’ move to Camden was squashed by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who wasn’t convinced the stadium could lure enough non-basketball events from Philadelphia and even consulted with Jon Bon Jovi. For the Sixers, it was back to Philly.

The building — which originally was supposed to open in eight months — would open three years later. By then, Katz no longer owned the Sixers as he sold the team to Comcast just before the team left the Spectrum with Snider being the managing partner.

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The arena has not hosted a heavyweight title fight like JFK Stadium did, but it has hosted two political conventions, WrestleMania, and the NBA and NHL championships. Comcast, which still owns the building, is nearing the completion of a years-long renovation it says will make the arena “essentially a new facility.” The company referred to the 26-year arena this week as “the new Wells Fargo Center.”

But those renovations don’t sound to be enough to keep the Sixers, who plan to head north to Market Street instead of east to Camden. To do so, they’ll have to knock down some of the old Gallery Mall, a slightly less historic place than JFK Stadium. The new arena is still nine years away, and if their last new arena is an example, getting there could be a long, strange trip.