The Eighth Wonder That Time Passed By | Engel Angle

I have reached that point where I dread going to sleep because I have absolutely no idea how it's going to go
Mac Engle Fort Worth Star Telegram Engle Engle podcast here on the Sunset Lounge. Thank you very much for joining me
I have a subject to talk about here in this episode that is
Significant to America America Sports scene its history and certainly the state of Texas and specifically the gigantic city of Houston
I'm talking about of course one of the most significant
pieces of architecture and buildings in the in America's 20th century
The Astridum
Remember the Astridum the Astridum was the first of its kind and in fact if you look at any major sports facility
That has been erected that was erected after 1970 you can see the Astridum fingerprints all over it
Name the indoor facility name the
um
Major sports facility at all and you will see little echoes of the Astridum
The Astridum was built in Houston in
1964 and was hailed as the eighth wonder of the world
Now you might say what it what what happened to the Astridum? What it was going on? What is I'm not the Astridum
What is what is that thing and they tear that thing down
No
It is really one of the more unique elements to the Astridum existence is that it has not been it has been closed rather
Since 2008 but the city of Houston
Cannot let it go so it sits there on the south end of the city
Opposite the home of the Houston Texans NFL team
In NRG stadium. It's separated by a street set and it's still just sitting there
And it's more or less now a storage shed an attic a basement
And I'll get to that more later
But this is why the Astridum is so important and why knocking it down is not as easy as it sounds
Nor should it be and it illustrates a huge mistake that America made with its history
So the Astridum opened in 1964 and it had things in it that
Would eventually be copied in all over the place first of all start with the playing surface that it used
Astridurf
Point for the Astridum they originally tried to grow grass
Inside the Astridum, but it died quickly they couldn't get enough sunlight in it and the technology didn't exist
To to um to have grass inside stadiums the way they do now in certain places specifically
Arizona Cardinals do that and then places all over Europe. That's really common
The Astridum had the first sweet
For sporting event the first one now they didn't have a lot of them
But they had the first one the one that had a lot of them
West Texas stadium and Texas stadium in Irving which was built about 10 years later
That was the one that really revolutionized sports and entertainment facilities that had the sweet experience
But the Astridum had the first one. I think I think the Astridum even had a bowling alley in it like a bowling lane
Pretty sure that's right. So eventually the Houston
Astridum became the home to the NFL's Houston oilers and major league baseball's
Houston Astros in fact it was the hunger the Astros before the oilers
But anyways, it existed for a long time and it was a way ahead of its time in so many different ways and people who had ever went
Visited the Astridum were just blown away by the idea of seeing a major sporting event or any sporting event indoors
Again, that was played exclusively outdoors now can be played indoors
That hadn't happened before we hadn't seen it now. It's everywhere
We were accustomed to it. We're numb to it. We don't think anything of in fact
What are the point now? Well, we're surprised when we see football games played outside in the elements
We're just totally conditioned to expect a football game to be played indoors
Specifically an NFL game college not so much and baseball games too for that matter
And for a long long time for the better part of 30 years the Astridum was
one of the most significant um
Stadiums in the world and certainly the United States and home to a lot of different major events events like the
1973 Battle of the Sexes tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King
Uh, the 1992 Republican National Convention. Don't think the Democrats were going to go to Houston
Certainly, uh, the UCLA versus Houston men's basketball game
Elvin Hayes and Lou Elcinder went head-to-head. That was Houston's famous stopping of UCLA's
I think it was 88 game
Winning streak back into 70s evil con evil made a big jump there in the early 70s
A lot of great performers played the Astridum as well. Elvis Presley, Serena and
I didn't know about this one Judy Garland but eventually in the mid to late 80s
The Astridum
Became dated in equated a dump
And at that time sports owners started to recognize they could make a lot of money by leading by leaving
All of these different old buildings that teams have been in for decades and going to new buildings that had a lot of suites
tons of them
And Houston Oilers owner but Adams who's no longer with us got into a major fight with the city of Houston about the need for a new stadium
Houston leadership said no, we don't need it. We're not doing it. We're not giving the money to do it
But Adam said fine. I'll leave some of the Oilers which were decades were an enormous part of that city's identity
Left and went to originally Memphis, Tennessee where they became the Tennessee Titans
Now
They only stayed in Memphis. I think for a year or two before they eventually moved to their home their prominent home in Nashville, Tennessee because Nashville
Gate the Oilers and but Adam but Adams a new stadium now here in
2026
The Titans are moving into a new facility in Nashville because these sports facilities in the United States
They only last about 30 years
Which is insanely preposterously stupid when you think about that
Would you build a home
Knowing when you went in thinking yeah, this thing's only going to last about 30 years
Your mortgage is 30 years and then the money on top of that is free
You're free and clear act you've paid off that note if you stay in it that long now
I realize not that many people stay in it that long but the point is you why would you subsidize something that's only gonna last 30 years
And that has become the absolute norm
In America with its sports facilities not every one of them
There are certain cities that are like yeah, no, we're not giving this to you. We're not giving you a dime. Do it on your own
Now that that's rare. That's the exception of the rule because most places are like yeah, we'll give you 30%
We'll give you 45% we'll even cover half if you look at some of these stadium deals that happen between cities and states and sports franchises
They are borderline criminal
But politicians do not want it on their headstone that they were a part of the this the team leaving town
It's a killer from a PR standpoint even if it makes economic sense
It's killer, but they don't want any part of it and that's what happened in Houston
They eventually lost the oilers and they moved
Your last game there was played in in 1995 or apparently they yeah, they left in 1995
From Memphis and the Astros left the Astridone for N line field after 1999 season
And then after that the Astridone remained open
They had Texas high school football games and things of that nature
And since then
The city doesn't really know what to do with it. They've just left it sitting there not to ride
But just sitting there where the maintenance fees are
Minimal and it's just sat there
But eventually the city of Houston because of cold violations
Post the Astridone in 2008 there hasn't been anything held inside there of note since 2008
And after that it has been just I don't want to say
Now it looks pretty bad
If I'm going to be honest having gone to Houston a number of times since then and seeing the Astridone from the outside
It doesn't look good
It needs a fresh coat. It needs something because right now it just looks bad
But now the city leadership and preservationalists are in a fight what to do with it because they don't want to knock it down
But they don't want to do anything with it. They don't put any money to do anything with it
So in 2013 the Astridone was named to America's 11 most endangered historic places list. It was put on that list
The Astridone
One of 11's a one of America's 11 most endangered historic places about that
So let's move on
In 2013 Harris County, which is where Houston is located the Harris County sports and convention authority
proposed
Let's renovate
Ta ta ta ta and month to renovate the Astridone
And turn it into the world's largest multi-purpose event space
And they're going to call it
The new dome experience
All they needed all they needed in 2013 was to pass a
217 million dollar bond
That's it
And what should you look these days isn't that much
Houston voters said, meet my middle finger. No, we're not going to give you $217 million
to do the new dome experience. So it's sat there for a little bit longer. In 2016, a
commissioner's court voted to renovate and redesign the Astridone. And around that same
time, the Texas Historical Commission designated the Astridone to its state antiquities landmark
list. So what that's done is basically add layers of red tape that in order to do anything
against those makes it harder more expensive to potentially knock it down. So in 2018, as
part of a preservation, a preservation friendly initiative, there was a big event called the
dome coming event where about 75,000 people showed up and lying themselves around the
Astridone. The whole idea was to protect it because at the time, the price tag to do anything
with it now had climbed. If they were going to demolish the Astridone, it was going to
cost anywhere between $27 million and $55 million. That's a pretty big discrepancy. We're
not talking about 58 cents. We're talking about tens of millions of dollars. So it's either
$27 million to knock it down and throw it away or $55 million, which one is it? But it's
one of them. Or if they're going to renovate it to renovate the Astridone, this was in 2018.
It was going to cost about $752 million. $552 million. That was in 2018. Now, however, they
are in a place, according to Houston Chronicle and other Houston media outlets where the
Astridone is once again backed on the table as a subject, what are we going to do with it?
And city leadership has come to the point where they're saying, if we're going to do anything
with it, this is going to require real private money. The city can't, the city just can't
be on the hook for something like this. So it's not like if they know what they're doing
with it. It's not like there's a purpose. It's not like there's a goal. It's more like
we can't just sit there and say, we're going to raise all this money for something. We
don't even know what they're going to do with it. Although that certainly has been
done with our government spending before. But this particular case, Houston leadership
is saying, if we want to do anything with it, we really need private investors to have
an idea what we're going to do with it. No one as yet has jumped to the front of the
line to say, yeah, I would love to do something with it. And at this point, as much as I love
old stadiums and as important as our history should be to us and celebrated, but we never
do. I'm of a mind now that the city is used to need to let this one go. And it'll take
while you're in a minute.
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So step inside the green door, have a seat at the bar and get in the groove with those shows
and so very much more. So my first chance to see the astronaut came in the Texas high school
football playoffs. That would have been in December of 1999. Up until that point, like most
people, I had only seen the astrodome on TV. Now, I'd certainly remember the big scoreboard
like during Astro's games, when, or maybe it's maybe it's oilers games, when there was
this cowboy, the six shooters after a home run or touched down or whatever. And the big
video board was so ahead of its time. And I remember seeing those orange cream sickle seats
which we matched the outfit scheme for the Astros for a long time. That was my memory and
familiarity with the astrodome. I thought it was neat. So in 1999, I get to cover a high school
football playoff game. I think it was between Portonages Grove and Stephenville. And I was
very excited about going to see the astrodome because I didn't ever see it. And I remember walking
in and looking around thinking, oh, this is kind of a dump. It was. It was 30 plus years old,
specifically not because it was 30 years old because the city of Houston Harris County
Sports Authority was no longer putting anybody into it. The Astros were gone, the oilers were gone,
and there was no longer, there's no longer a need to spend a dime on it other than the bearing
minimum. And it was. It wasn't charming. It was just older. And it wasn't like it was old in
charming, like something you might see from the 1920s or the 1850s or something like that.
This was something that opened in 1964. So the architecture and the design really wasn't
just it didn't have any of that appeal that really old buildings have, which is ultimately part
of the problem in why as the city contemplates anything to do with it, it probably, let me take
this back. It needs to let it go. And it's counter to what the more popular sports venues in this
country can sell because it's not quite old enough nor is it cool enough. This is one of the
mistakes that America made as we evolved. Now, if you look at any major or even small city in
Europe, you will see tourists flocking there every day of the year to see that breathing history
that Europeans live in because they kept it. They kept all of the old buildings. They weren't in a
hurry to knock it down and build something newer, sleeker, and potentially more cost-efficient
and something that they could charge more money for. They didn't. And in doing so, they created
this identity in a demand for tourism that has almost overwhelmed that continent to a place to a
point now where residents are saying, get out, go away, we're tired of this. Well, America doesn't
have a lot of that. One, we're a much newer country. And two, a lot of those buildings either were
subtle blaze or we knocked them down. And the cities that do have that, Boston, Philadelphia,
New York City, San Francisco, Ish, Chicago, it's not a coincidence that those are the biggest tourist
towns in the United States. And when it comes to sports venues, you will see one recurring theme,
the most popular ones, the ones that everybody wants to make a pilgrimage to are all the oldest
ones. And you're going to see here in a second, they're really not that old, comparatively speaking.
So the oldest sports stadiums, and give you a list here. And you'll notice the most popular
sports stadiums to visit are all the oldest ones, like I said, Fenway Park in Boston built in 1912,
Wrigley Field in Chicago, 14. So 1912 and 1914, and having visited both,
cannot tell you strongly enough how neat it is to see a game there because it is a museum. It's
like going to Venice and it's to see a game there is great. They have the draw. The team can be
terrible, the game can be awful, and it doesn't matter because people are sitting in a museum
watching the sporting event. So after that, in Major League Baseball, the next closest oldest stadium
was built in 1962, Dodger Stadium. That's right, Dodger Stadium was built in 1962, two years before
the Astridome opened. And this is another one. The Astridome, pardon me, Dodger Stadium is great.
You should go, it's amazing. Now one of the reasons it's so great, not because it was just built
in 1962, but because of where it's located and Los Angeles. It was built in a place near Bell
Bell Park that is one of the, it might be the most expensive piece of real estate in that city.
It's just, it's just such a great place to see a game. The weather's spectacular. It's,
it's awesome. And you do feel like you are walking back through history. And some of that's the
game of baseball itself and it's ties to America's past, but it is a fantastic place to see a game.
After that, Angel Stadium and Anaheim was built in 1966. Now that suffered earthquake damage
and its renovations kind of took away some of the character and really the charm of Angel
Stadium is really more of the weather than the stadium itself. Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City
was built in 1973 and it should be noted that the royals, the Kansas City Royals are doing
everything their power to get out of that stadium as quickly as possible. And then the Roger Center,
which was, which was named Skydome in downtown Toronto, opened in 1989.
So really, when we talk about old venues, there's really only three in Major League Baseball,
Fenway Park, Rigley Field, and Dodger Stadium. Everything else really isn't that old. It's just not.
I mean, the fact that Roger Stadium and Toronto is on this list is ridiculous,
but that's what it is. Now in the NFL, soldier field in downtown Chicago is the NFL's old
stadium. That opened in 1924, but anybody who has been to soldier field since it was renovated
20 plus years ago will tell you, yeah, that's not soldier field. That's not. More or less what
they did soldier field having gone there one time back in the 90s. That was a cool place to see a game.
I mean, it was, I'm godly cold. The wind coming off Lake Michigan at that place was just,
which is rip you in half, but it was an amazing experience because you had the columns outside and
you felt, you felt really the Chicago skyline and the architecture. It was so neat. But when they
built the new stadium, partly when they renovated it rather, they basically jammed in a new modern
stadium and shoved it into soldier field. So it's not really soldier field. And now the Chicago
Bears are doing everything in their power to get out of that stadium. And the city of Chicago is
like saying, okay, we're not giving you any money, but go ahead. So that was, that was in 1924.
Again, that's a little false advertising because it's not really what it once was. Now the one
that is closer to what it once was was Lambo field. Lambo field in rebate is totally worth your
time, effort, energy and money to go see a game there. That was built in 1957. And they did a great
job of retaining that old school stadium field, even though they built the suites and all that
other stuff, you do feel like you're watching a game. The way fans would have watched it back in
the 50s or 40s even. That place is amazing. After that, Arrowhead Stadium in 1972.
It's really not that old. I mean, it's old 50 years, but it's not that old. In the Kansas City
chiefs, we recently reached a deal with the city in Kansas, not Missouri, but Kansas to build a new
facility that'll open in a few years. So Arrowhead Stadium is not going to be around that much longer.
After that, High Mark Stadium, that's in Buffalo. That opened in 1973 and it just closed.
Now that was a great place to see a game. I will say that. It was known when I think when I went
there, it was Ralph Wilson Stadium. That place was an awesome. That was a great venue. That was a
great scene, but again, that's gone because the bills of the Buffalo bills are going to move into
a new facility next year. And then the next closest old stadium, the Super Dome in downtown
New Orleans built in 1975. That's been renovated. And the Super Dome is dumb. It's not a good
facility by any stretch of the imagination, but it's New Orleans and New Orleans can get away with
different standards because New Orleans remains the gold standard as Disneyland for drugs. When it
comes to the NBA and NHL, these buildings, I mean, old eater, the oldest building and the NBA is
Madison Square Garden in New York City. That was built in 1967. Now the original MSG was different.
That's been renovated. And since then, it's been renovated again, but the atmosphere at the garden
is great. It's absolutely electric, especially at the nicks or the New York Rangers are good.
The second oldest facility in the NBA, I had to triple check this.
The Target Center in Minneapolis, which opened in 1990.
In the NHL, the Saddle Dome in Calgary, which was used for the 1984 Winter Olympics,
that opened in 1983. And I think the Calgary flames are finally getting out of that.
And that was kind of a cool building. The thing that was so neat about the Calgary Super Dome,
Saddle Dome is that it had a catwalk. And when I covered the NHL's Dallas stars and I went to
Calgary a few times a year, I would take that catwalk. And that was pretty cool. The press box was
basically on an overhang and you would look down on the ice watching the game. That was pretty neat
and something that would never be built today. After that, the second oldest buildings there,
and it supplies the NBA too, the Delta Center, which is in Salt Lake City, that opened in 1991.
None of these buildings are old. All of the cool ones, the ones that you really want to see,
they're all of the old ones. And that's why the Astridome could potentially be something really neat.
Now, in terms of the other old venues here that I jotted down, I'd have been to a few of these.
This is the one you need to go to. I've said this on this podcast before.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which opened in 1909. It's been renovated since then,
but it is a venue unlike any other probably in the world. And if you don't care anything about
auto racing or the Indy 500, that's worth it. That is a fantastic facility. Again, you would never
built it today. It's too big. Scenes of well over 200,000 people. But for a one-day sporting event
experience, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which opened in 1909, is totally worth it.
Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. That opened in 1875. Now, the other ones,
the other ones are more college-related. Ellen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas,
home of the Kansas J-hux, 1955. That's a complete time warp. Cameron Indoor Stadium
opened in 1940. I had a chance to visit that last year for the first time. They were nice
enough to open it up for me, and I just took a walk around. That place is really cool.
That is a time warp, just like Ellen Fieldhouse. The only difference is Cameron feels a little
bit like watching a basketball game at Hogwarts. The other ones that are on the list that I have not
seen, that I'd like to see, Matthew Zerina in Boston. That's the home of the Northeastern University
Huskies. That opened in 1910, and it houses the world's oldest artificial sheet device.
The issue I want to go up there and skate. The other older ones include Rose Hill Gym. That's
at Fordham University in New York. That opened in 1925. They still use it. The Pellestra
home of the Penn Quakers in Philadelphia. It opened in 1927. And of course, one that has very
near and dear to my heart. Kinkle Fieldhouse, home of the Bulldogs in Indianapolis in the end.
That opened in 1928. And you might remember that as the place where the state championship
game was played in the movie Cruisers. So all of these places are so special and so unique and
so cool because they're so old. And at some point or another, everybody involved in these facilities
made the decision. You know what? We're going to reinvest and retaining the charm of this facility
because that will be its draw. It's history. And in doing so, they created a tourist attraction.
Maybe not a big one, like in the case of Northeastern University. Not a lot of people are going
to go there because it's so old, but people who want to will make it a point to go see it because
it's more than a hundred years old. And we do love to see old things. Just to see how it looked,
this, especially if it's still functioning. And if you get an opportunity to walk around and it's
just it's so cool. And that's why we want to go see it. That's where we go to year. That's where
we go to see these places to go see history. And the Astrodome is history. It's a huge part
of Houston's history, of sports history, of America's sports history.
But the Astrodome isn't what it once was. And I know that now because I snuck into it.
About 10 years ago, I was working on a book. The last book that I wrote, titled
let's see if we can do your pig skin rapture, four days in life of Texas football.
This is the last book I wrote. I'm very proud of this one. The forward was provided by Troy
Eggman. Troy was very nice to me that he provided that free of charge. I'm always forever
dead at Troy for doing that. That's a good name drop, isn't it? So anyways, a publisher had the idea
that he wanted you for a while, which was to cover and go to four games in Texas in four days.
But it was anchored around Houston's Texans and the Dallas Cowboys. And he had not been
able to wind up the schedule. So you needed a Thursday game and you needed a Sunday game,
obviously. And then you could do high school and college in between. And it worked out so
incredibly well. Because on Thursday, I could go to Houston and see the Texans play. And then
on Friday, I flew to Midland, Odessa to see Odessa, Permian, home of Friday night lights,
play its big rivalry game. And then on Saturday, I went to the Texas Oklahoma game at the cotton bowl.
And on Sunday, onto the Cowboys game where they had played Tom Brady's human Glenn Patriots.
And in between what I found was football dominates this state in a way that I was a little surprised
by because it was everywhere starting literally Thursday afternoon straight through Friday Sunday night.
I could find football everywhere. And one of the things I did. So when we landed in Houston,
I was looking up my photographer, Mr. Ron Jenkins, great guy. And I had this rough outline of what
I was going to do. One of the things I wanted to do was go visit stadiums and things like that
before the actual Texans played their game on Thursday night. So I went to Rice Stadium. Rice
Stadium opened in 1950. It's one of these big, old giants cement structures that is again,
a product of its time whenever we built the day. And rice was known for it. It actually hosted
Super Bowl 8. And probably even more famously, it was known for the location where President Kennedy
delivered his famous why we go to the moon speech. And it's still there. It's been renovated a few
times. And the time I went, I just walked in. Didn't even stop me. Now Rice University was in session.
So that was probably where I could get in and I just walked in. And I just I looked at the top
and I saw the press box and I thought I wonder if I can get in there. So I've been in a million
stadiums and I kind of know the rhyme and reason. I just kept walking and walking and walking.
And then I kept going up and up and up and up. And Rice on top of its press box has a photo deck
that has no guard rails. It's just a flat piece of cement that's about 10 by 10. And I went
up and I stood on it. And it is an amazing view of the city of Houston. And as I turn and I'm
looking at the skyline and Ron's taking some pictures and I turn and I looked at the south
and there I see the Astridone. Right next to NRG Stadium will will be in a few hours. And I'm like,
oh my god, that looks like crap. It looks so bad. And it did. So I thought, we got to we got to
go down there and see if we can get in. So the Astridone parking lot is empty. And we're walking
around and he's taking some pictures. And I'm thinking, there's got to be a way we can get in.
And we see the garage door open, not open, right? There was closed to the Astridone. I think,
well, let's go see if we can pull on it. Get in. Pull on it. It's locked down. I'm like, I don't
think we can get in because there was a tornado fence around the actual Astridone itself.
The closer you got, you could see the tornado fence. You couldn't you couldn't get in the building
that doors behind the fence were closed. I'm actually couldn't you couldn't get to them.
But you couldn't see this giant hole. Somebody had bore a hole into the garage door and to look in.
And so we peaked in and I'm like, oh, be damned. There's the Astridone. And you could see,
you know, trash like waste container things like that and order parties.
And so Ron took a couple pictures and we kept walking around and I see there's a gap between the
fence and the ramp, the stairs to get up to the doors, the main entrance to the Astridone.
I know where these double doors are and I noticed I could fit between that gap.
I was I was thin enough. I was thin. I could get there. That's a humble brag. That's a very passive
humble brag there. So I squeeze in between. I can't pick up his cameras. Cameras too big.
But I can squeeze in there and I've got to fall. But I'm thinking there's no way these doors
are going to open. So I pull in the door. It opened. Like there's no way that next set of doors.
There's no way that's going to be open. Sure enough, there's signage. There's everything in between
the doors about guidelines and this that and the other. I pull on the doors. I'll be damned. I'm inside
the Astridone. I'm the only one in it. Now I'm very nervous. One, God only knows how much
is best to summon healing. And two, if I get caught, this is probably going to hurt my book project.
I'm probably going to get excited or arrested or something. But I walk around. I remember I was
nervous the whole time and walk around. I was only in there for maybe three to five minutes.
And I walk around and sure enough, there's the Astridone. And it's not the Astridone. I remember
then even when the Astridone. I remember when I visited it the first time. It wasn't the
Astridone that I'd seen on TV. The seats mostly were gone. The bottom of it was just concrete
with a bunch of like I said, it was like a basement or an attic, an industrial basement or attic
with just stuff there. The seats were gone. The scoreboard was gone. All that stuff was gone.
It was just a shell. So I stayed there. I took a few pictures with my phone and we ended up
actually using them for the book. It was kind of added something to it. And I left and that was
last time I was in the Astridone. And the more I thought about it later as it relates to this
podcast and the subject in general is that Houston made a decision in mid 90s before we were
really aware of it. That if they were going to do anything with it, they had to do something about
it then. You had to preserve the history then. Back when basically it made sense to do it.
And you could have done something with it. Because now all it is basically are walls.
Whatever people remember of it and a lot of those people are dying or moving on, unfortunately,
that's not what it is anymore. Rigly field, when they redid and renovated,
weirdly field, they kept wriggly field, wriggly field. They kept Lambo field,
Lambo field. They kept Dodger Stadium, Dodger Stadium. The Astridone as the people who played
in it, remembering it is effectively gone. So to redo it and to make it appealing, you would have
to do one of two things with it. Completely do something completely different than what it once
was or go back and create something for it that it used to be, which is not really feasible.
So that's the sad part about this. And as I understand, anybody would understand letting go
of certain things is so hard because the Astridone is an enormous part of that city's history
and for a long time, its identity as its growth and it evolved and became space city. Thank you,
London Johnson. And throwing that away is really, really hard. But keeping it just there no
longer makes any sense. So as much as Houston and as much as this goes against so much of what I believe
in as a fan of history and sports and all those things, Houston needs to let this one go.
It's not worth a billion dollars and whether the price tag did demolish it is 27 million or
50 million dollars, it's time to throw it away. It's too bad. Astridone had a great run,
but it served its time and while its echoes exist now and forever, it's time to put it to bed.
See you next time.
This is a stolen water media production.