Temple Stadium was a stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1928 and hosted the Temple University Owls football team until they moved to Veterans Stadium in 1978.
It was located on a 32-acre (130,000 m2) area in the West Oak Lane neighborhood of the city bounded by Cheltenham Avenue, Vernon Road, Michener Avenue, and Mt. Pleasant Avenue. The football stadium stood on one end of the site; the baseball and softball diamonds stood on the other. The football stadium had seating for approximately 20,000 people; mobile seating raised capacity to 34,200. Temple Stadium was horseshoe-shaped, with the open end facing west-northwest, and built into a natural bowl. It was also known as Owl Stadium and Beury Stadium, named for the school president responsible for its construction. Prior to the building of the stadium, Vernon Park, the park where the stadium was built, was the Owls' home for several years.
The grounds of the old stadium were maintained for several years after Temple's move to the Vet. The stadium was razed in 1996 and 1997 at a cost of $334,000, leaving only the natural bowl where the soccer teams played and football team practiced. On December 31, 2001, the site was sold to Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church for $4.5 million. The area which was formerly used as a parking lot and intramural field, north of the former stadium, is now home to the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church's "East" church, completed in 2006. (This is the church's second link to Temple athletics: prior to the building of this church, the church held several larger services in the Liacouras Center.)
Read more about Temple Stadium: Temple Owls Football, Professional Football, Soccer, Other Events
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