Documenting The West End Stadium

*FC Cincinnati’s West End Stadium on May 3, 2021.*

Growing up, my Dad had these great books on our family room shelves that were all about professional sports stadiums. The publications hailed from an era when many American stadia were circular, concrete “cookie cutters” that hosted multiple teams from multiple leagues. Occasionally, there’d be pages showcasing the arenas or ballparks still in use (think Fenway) followed by a few odes to their counterparts that had met the wrecking ball (think Crosley). At the time, I was far more interested in these physical structures, their history, and their surroundings than any tenant. The books were older and many of their “present-tense” subjects would eventually be replaced as I grew up. Cincinnati itself saw the construction of Great American Ballpark and Paul Brown Stadium at the turn of the century, while the city’s previous venue was imploded on the riverfront.

I adore GABP alongside the memories I’ve made there and I think PBS is a beautiful piece of architecture (even if the interior is drab and if I couldn’t care less about the team who calls it home). Over in Northern Kentucky, the BB&T Arena is where I graduated from, but back in Ohio—I have far less love for the Heritage Bank Center (buy me a beer and I’ll gladly go on a rant/tell you some stories). I still hold a place in my heart for the historic, departed Cincinnati Gardens, but the local sports venue I’ve spent the most time at in recent years is Nippert Stadium. I don’t think I’ve seen an actual University of Cincinnati event there since I was a teenager, but I’ve only missed a handful of FC Cincinnati matches since 2016. As the local professional soccer team sought to join Major League Soccer, it became clear that the league viewed Nippert only as a temporary home. What transpired in the following years was the club’s quest to build a soccer-specific stadium and on May 16, 2021: The West End Stadium (technically known as TQL Stadium) will open for its first MLS match.

When I was younger and I’d page through those stadium books, there was never a lot of info about the circumstances surrounding how these stadiums came to be. America’s interest in professional sports is often crossed with cultural, political, and economic ramifications—a recurring tale that became much more apparent as I aged. The West End Stadium was no different and the context of the venue’s development, as well as the subsequent conversations surrounding subjects such as displacement and gentrification, have been well documented by local news outlets such as Cincinnati Public Radio/91.7 WVXU (here and here) and City Beat.

The new home of FC Cincinnati will soon debut and as it changes with time, so too will the city surrounding it. I wanted to document the structure as it appeared before its full opening, from wide vistas down to aesthetic details—a record of how things looked before seasons of crowds, matches, and events. The photographic collections of Bob Busser (particularly his 1980s shots of Cincinnati’s Heritage Bank Center) served as inspiration for this documentation.

After volunteering with the FC Cincinnati Foundation to photograph the games of their West End Pride youth soccer teams, I made the following photographs alongside Phil Armstrong.

Note: at the time that these photographs were made, the grounds were set up for two side-by-side youth soccer fields as opposed to the standard pitch.

If you stumble upon these images years down the road, this is how The West End Stadium appeared on May 3, 2021—two weeks shy of its grand opening: