The Chris Moeller Archives

The city of Houston also isn't holding any parties to celebrate the new honor bestowed upon one of its local icons. Most city officials, and those of Harris County, Texas, would welcome the opportunity, in fact, to tear it down. Preservationists are the mortal enemy of the modern American city-statesman. The last public event held beneath Houston's most famous roof was a rodeo in 2003, although in 2005, it was used by New Orleans residents displaced by the federal flood of Hurricane Katrina. At that time, former First Lady (and Houstonian) Barbara Bush was still obviously a fan of the Astrodome. She told reporters that the refugees "were underprivileged anyway so this is working very well for them." In 2009, the building was declared off-limits to visitors due to disrepair, although the stadium is still considered structurally-sound by engineers.

Its new historic designation likely won't save the Astrodome, which has hosted Elvis Presley concerts, an Evel Knievel motorcycle stunt, the Ali-Cleveland Williams fight, the Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, and a Selena y Los Dinos concert in 1995 that drew more than 67,000 fans. No public or private proposals to renovate the stadium have been introduced, and a bond issue was defeated at the ballot by county voters.

Most major cities have an Astrodome-type situation on their hands, or have had their Astrodome moment, even if their Astrodome is not as internationally significant. St. Louis' day has come, and will come again. Busch Stadium I was a neighborhood baseball park that came down and was replaced, at the corner of Dodier and Grand in Mid City, by a Boys & Girls Club. Busch II was my baby, a downtown Colossus that stood for 39 years and met the wrecking ball in the fall of 2005. There's a Busch III now standing partially atop its footprint-- not bigger and not better. There's also a dome in St. Louis, built for the NFL's Rams, and sitting a dozen blocks or so to the north of Busch the Youngest. The facility is less than twenty years old and has hosted both a Men's College Basketball Final Four (in 2005) and the great Pope John Paul II/Mark McGwire summit of 1999. Yet in 2012, it was ranked the 7th worst sporting venue in the United States by Time Magazine, and recently, the majority owner of the Rams purchased a 60-acre plot of land near Hollywood Park in Los Angeles, less than 10 miles from the location Walter O'Malley picked out for the Dodgers in 1957.

I'm not the kind of fan that revels in the new coliseums. (But the average fan clearly does. When Busch III opened to the public, there was a rush on ticket-buying there that was greater than even the ones sparked by the team's World Series victories.) If given the choice between attending either the first game at the new Busch or the last game at the old one, you would have seen me arriving at the will call window of the old girl decked in red and packing an iPod that held several different downloaded versions of Auld Lang Syne. I'm sentimental that way. The way that historic preservationists tend to be. We may not love the longest, or even the hardest. Indeed, we are notoriously the last to love the newborns. But we'll be the ones still loving at the end. And even after the end.