John F. Kennedy Stadium, formerly Philadelphia Municipal Stadium and Sesquicentennial Stadium, was an open-air stadium in Philadelphia that stood from 1926 to 1992. The South Philadelphia stadium was on the east side of the far southern end of Broad Street at a location now part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. Designed by the architectural firm of Simon & Simon in a classic 1920s style with a horseshoe seating design that surrounded a track and football field, at its peak the facility seated in excess of 102,000 people. Bleachers were later added at the open (North) end. The shape of the stadium resembles the horseshoe configuration of Harvard Stadium built in 1903. Each section of the main portion of the stadium contained its own entrance, which displayed the letters of each section above the entrance, in a nod to ancient Roman stadia. Section designators were divided at the south end of the stadium (the bottom of the "U" shape) between West and East, starting with Sections WA and EA and proceeding north. The north bleachers started with Section NA. It was built of concrete, stone, and brick on a tract. Opening and names Leaders of Philadelphia's sports organizations gathered at the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce in March 1920 and announced their intention to build a 200,000 seat sports stadium to attract national and international sporting events. The city immediately submitted its candidacy to host the 1924 Summer Olympics. At the time, the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field was the city's largest ballpark with a capacity of 30,000 seats; the Philadelphia Athletics' Shibe Park sat 23,000, and the Phillies' National League Park sat 18,000. The initial meeting in 1920 favored building the stadium as a memorial to the nation's war dead and placing it in Fairmount Park at its entrance to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The stadium was built as part of the 1926 Sesquicentennial International Exposition. Originally known as Sesquicentennial Stadium when it opened April 15, 1926, the structure was renamed Philadelphia Municipal Stadium after the Exposition's closing ceremonies. In 1964, it was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium in memory of the 35th President of the United States who had been assassinated the year before. Football The stadium's first tenants (in 1926) were the Philadelphia Quakers of the first American Football League, whose Saturday afternoon home games were a popular mainstay of the Exposition. The Quakers won the league championship