Construction Facts

An overhead view of Dodger Stadium and its newly-formed parking lots, which were functionally built to enable fans to enter the stadium on the same level on which they parked. This would minimize the need for vertical transportation and escalators, although those were added later.

Los Angeles Times Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections

Constructed at a cost of $23 million, Walter O’Malley’s dream stadium was the first privately-built Major League Baseball stadium since Yankee Stadium opened in 1923.
Seating capacity: 56,000
An overhead view of the newly-painted Dodger Stadium parking lot, which accommodates 16,000 cars and buses. Each of the numbered lots was designed to be on an elevation close to the nearby stadium entrances.

Parking for 16,000 cars.
Dodger Stadium engineered by Capt. Emil Praeger of Praeger, Kavanagh and Waterbury, New York and constructed by Vinnell Constructors of Alhambra, CA, headed by Vice President and on-site supervisor  Jack Yount
Opening Day on April 10, 1962 (Cincinnati Reds defeated the Dodgers, 6-3)
An aerial view of the Dodger Stadium construction site is shown, where some 300 acres of land were graded, leveled and pushed up to form a bowl.

Los Angeles Times Collection, UCLA Library Special Collections

8,000,000 cubic yards of earth were moved to level, grade hills, cuts and fills up to 150 feet of soil
80,000 tons of asphalt and paving for parking lots and roads
To visualize the vastness of the project, one might take a building whose outer walls encompass a city block of 200 x 400 feet. If a building of these dimensions is half-mile high or 260 stories (New York’s Empire State Building is 80 stories high) and could be erected and filled to the top, it would then hold the rock and earth which had to be moved to create this 300-acre site
The construction of Dodger Stadium expands along the Reserved Level in left field.

Courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections

23,000 precast concrete frames and planks (largest of the frames, 78 in total, weighed 38 tons each)
40,000 cubic yards of concrete
13,000,000 pounds of reinforcing steel
546 tons of cast iron
375,000 board feet of lumber (Northern elm wood)
3 tons of aluminum nuts and bolts
342 workers on the job at its peak
Hundreds of onlookers watch bulldozers charging down the hills to begin the massive leveling and grading process for Dodger Stadium. In all, eight million cubic yards of earth were moved to prepare the rugged land for the building of Dodger Stadium.

Courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections

19 euclids (giant earth-movers) were on the job (each euclid carried 24 cubic yards of dirt per load and 100,000 cubic yards of dirt was moved per week)
48 lounge rooms (24 for ladies and 24 for gentlemen), most-ever for a stadium at the time
If Dodger Stadium seats were arranged in one long row, they would stretch 33.7 miles
Dodger Stadium originally consisted of five colorful seating levels, plus the Dugout Box seats behind the home plate area, which were sunken into the field. The other levels shown are the Field, Loge, Club, Reserved and Top Deck. Of the total of 56,000 seats, 50,000 are in these areas, while each outfield Pavilion accommodates 3,000 fans.

50,000 chairs would comprise 40 railroad carloads
Cast grey iron in chairs weighs 550 tons
Stadium arranged by colorful levels: All Field Level seats were yellow; Loge Level seats were orange; Stadium Club and Dugout Box levels were red, yellow and blue; Reserved Level were turquoise; and Top Deck were sky blue
Average width of Dodger Stadium seats are 20 inches
Unobstructed vision from every seat because of cantilever theory, in which there are no pillars or posts between a single fan and the game
Fans are afforded opportunity to watch games from seven different front row elevations and no grandstand is deeper than 20-odd rows
There are more vertical aisles in Dodger Stadium than in any baseball park ever built before, allowing for a capacity crowd to exit the stands in only five minutes at the conclusion of a game
Seating for 3,000 in each of two outfield Pavilions
70 percent of seats within the infield area
Terraced parking eliminates vertical climbing
27 lanes of traffic off 6 major access roads
Symmetrical playing field: 330 feet down the right and left field foul lines, 380 feet to both left and right center and 410 feet to dead center field
Nearly 60 x 90 feet of front office space in left field corner
2 major elevators, one for fans to access some box seats and other for press and Dodger personnel
Initial “Club Level” concept with seating, nearby parking and Stadium Club dining for members at the “Diamond Room” restaurant and the “Abner Doubleday Lounge”
Largest message board (248 characters) in baseball (left field) and 75 x 34 feet scoreboard (right field)
The four scoreboards (two in outfield and two auxiliary positions) use 400,000 feet of wire, 17,000 lamps and enough electricity for 200 homes. The auxiliary scoreboards (55 feet long by 4 1/2 feet high) on balcony railings allow fans to keep up the game’s basic information
A staging area is fenced off in the Dodger Stadium parking lot during the construction process, showing several of the large light towers lying flat.

8 banks of “reflectorized” lights would have, at the time, produced enough illumination to light up the city of Seattle — in excess of four million watts
More than 10 miles of steel and aluminum conduit and 50 miles of insulated copper wires
Open-weave 120 x 30 foot nylon screen, dark green in color, for batter’s eye background
Where the playing field lies was a 590-foot dirt hill which had been excavated from the Hollywood (101) Freeway