Fans claim pieces of history from RFK stadium

An earlier version of this article reported that D.C. United brought professional soccer to the nation's capital for the first time. Professional soccer in Washington predated D.C. United. This version has been corrected.

Its beams are rusting. Its concrete slabs are falling. But on this Wednesday in December, the soul of RFK Stadium lived on in pieces of the wreckage.

A ventilator duct.

An elevator panel from 1961.

Seat 18 from the 14th row of Section 206.

One by one, three people arrived to collect these vestiges of the once great sporting arena. The pieces of metal, to them, were a way to remember what made the stadium feel like home — before it turns to rubble.

The duct brought Larry Spalding closer to his father, who had talked of how installing the stadium's ventilation was one of his life's highlights before he died at 48. The elevator panel reminded Elyse Horvath of what it was like to ride up and down with their grandmother, who brought them to the stadium as a kid because she knew those buttons helped ease her grandchild's anxiety. And the orange seat with paint peeling off the bottom made Sebastian Amar feel 13 again, eating chicken fingers with honey mustard and believing that the volume of his screams could change the score of the game.

"I look at this rusted, falling apart, decrepit stadium, and I wish we had stayed because it was our decrepit, rusting, falling apart stadium," Amar said, staring at the tan, tired building.

RFK, located on the Anacostia River two miles east of the U.S. Capitol, was the home of Washington sports teams and their fans for nearly six decades. It hosted the team now known as the Commanders in the 1980s and early 1990s, when the franchise won three Super Bowl championships. It held D.C.'s baseball team through its transition from the Senators to the Nationals. It was home to D.C. United, whose fans used to bounce and cheer with such force that the whole building shook.

The stadium is scheduled to be demolished by the end of next year, after the city decided in 2019 to tear it down. Events D.C., which managed the stadium, is making use of its parts. It offered orange seats from the lower bowl for sale, and plans to do the same with the yellow and burgundy seats from the upper bowl over the next year. The group responded to individual requests, too, for other fragments of the building that carry sentimental value for fans. They gave away some of those pieces free.

Plans for the 190-acre space remain unclear, especially because the federal government, rather than the city, owns the land. But these fans on Wednesday were not focused on the future. They each held their scrap gingerly, its touch transporting them back to the past.

Final seats removed from RFK Stadium's lower bowl as demolition continues

Spalding said he doesn't remember much about his dad — who died of brain cancer when Spalding was 10 years old — except for vivid memories of their time together in the car. John Spalding used to make sure to take a route through the city that included a good view of RFK Stadium, so he could point to the building and say to Larry, "I helped build that."

The older Spalding had returned from his deployment during World War II and got an apprenticeship with a metalworking company, which was hired to install ventilation for the new stadium. Larry recalled how his father told him about riding a motor scooter around the hallways of the stadium to check the duct work. "I’d lose my stomach," John would say, laughing while describing the sensation of racing over bumps in the concrete. Then he would find a speed bump in the road and step on the gas, allowing his son to feel the same lurch in his belly.

"I remember him dying. I remember him working all the time. But that is the only time, him talking about RFK, when I could see a twinkle in his face," Larry Spalding said.

On Wednesday, the now 65-year-old lifted the chunk of metal, mostly burnt orange and bent at the corner. He plans to frame a piece of it alongside an old photograph of his father and a picture of the stadium — "when it was new," he clarified.

Horvath, 26 and autistic, has always found elevator buttons soothing. They remembered particularly enjoying the sensation of the buttons in the RFK elevator, which had ridges around the circles and were often hard to press down. Their grandma, who was a fan of the football team, used to take Horvath to the stadium as a kid — partly because of the games, but mostly because she knew her grandchild loved the architecture and riding in the elevator.

In 2017, Horvath came across a video of the RFK elevator and was shocked to see it had still not been updated since the 1960s.

"It's not easy to find original elevators these days," they recalled thinking, and set their sights on obtaining a panel from the building.

Horvath picked it up on Wednesday, running their fingers over the inspection switch and buttons to the second and third floors. The third-floor button sank into the board.

"I’m going to clean up the back so I can push the buttons without them falling out," they said.

Amar, now 39, thought about stealing Seat 18 when he went to the last D.C. United game at the stadium five years ago. He saw other fans around him trying to yank out the orange chairs but decided at the last minute to play by the rules. He regretted it the second he stepped into the parking lot.

For Amar, those seats and that stadium were synonymous with his childhood. His dad, from Morocco, had grown up with soccer at the center of his life. The moment D.C. had its team, Jacques Amar, Sebastian's father, knew he wanted his kids to have the same experience, Sebastian said. He purchased season tickets that year, making his family part of the Original 96ers — the fans who have been devoted to the team since its first season.

The Amar family spent every home game at RFK, Sebastian Amar said. They tailgated in Lot 8. They devoured carne asada from the food trucks, once those popped up. They walked in together through Gate A, where it felt like they together crossed a threshold from the stresses of normal life into a space where they only talked about the referee and who was playing well that day. They listened to a man who played the drum so loudly that it made the seats vibrate.

"It was a physical feeling," Sebastian Amar said. "You really can and do believe as a fan that you can will your team to success, and part of that is how much do you give from the stands."

The stadium is where young Sebastian Amar saw his first fight ("Listen, that happens sometimes in soccer," his dad told him). It is also where Jacques Amar was honored in 2013, after he died of leukemia. The team held a moment of silence for him that spring, Sebastian Amar said, at a game against the New York Red Bulls.

Sebastian Amar still has season tickets to D.C. United games, though the team now plays at Audi Field.

He put his hand on Seat 18 and looked toward Gate A, which had a faded D.C. United shield above the door.

"It feels like the new stadium is built for the casual fan," he said, referring to Audi Field. "RFK was for the die-hards."