other small improvements, on August 21, 1923, Griffith announced plans to greatly expand and refurbish the ballpark. Following the trend of ballparks being named for their teams' owners, that August announcement included renaming the venue Griffith Stadium. The stadium, built in 1911, had been hastily constructed and provided minimal seating and other features when compared with other ballparks. The planned expansion was reported to cost $100,000, and expanded the seating capacity to "about 35,000", a number that wound up being 32,000. The new seating came from the complete rebuilding of the left-field grandstand into a double-decked tier. The new upper section was wider than the old, resulting in a roofline that was considerably higher than the roof of the main grandstand, leaving a visible gap between the two. At that point the wooden left-field bleachers were also replaced, by a large concrete deck that ran from the foul pole across left field and into center field. The first-base pavilion remained single-decked. The first attempt at a high wall was constructed across right field. By the time of the 1925 World Series the right field pavilion had also been double-decked, and the angling right field wall and its scoreboard were reconstructed to align with the low right field wall, about inside of it. This also resulted in the unique inward-pointing 90° angle in center field. Both versions of the tall fence had the effect of keeping the neighbors in the adjacent row houses from watching the games for free. Lights were installed for the 1941 season. The Senators played their first home night game on May 28. The right-field fence was originally covered in various billboard advertisements, but in later years was painted a solid dark green. A bullpen area was built in right center field behind a short fence, providing a new target for left-handed batters. In the mid-1950s, an inner fence was erected across left and center field, to reduce the home run distances by . This inner fence stayed in place through the ballpark's final season, 1961. By 1961, the left-field bleachers had been removed. A presidential destination Every president of the United States from William Howard Taft to John F. Kennedy threw a ceremonial first pitch at least once at Griffith. The Senators even constructed a special presidential box near the first-base dugout for the annual ritual. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a good friend of Clark Griffith,