was also given to building atop railroad tracks on the West Side of Manhattan (an idea revived in 1998) and to Long Island City, in Queens. The area Huston and Ruppert settled on was a lumberyard in the Bronx within walking distance from and in sight of, Coogan's Bluff. The Polo Grounds was located on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River, at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue. Huston and Ruppert purchased the lumberyard from William Waldorf Astor for $600,000, equal to $ today. Construction began May 5, 1922 and Yankee Stadium opened to the public less than a year later. The stadium's walls were built of "an extremely hard and durable concrete that was developed by Thomas Edison", with a total of of concrete used in the original structure. 1923–1973 Yankee Stadium officially opened on Wednesday, April 18, 1923, with the Yankees' first home game, against the Boston Red Sox. According to the New York Evening Telegram, "everything smelled of ... fresh paint, fresh plaster and fresh grass". At 3 pm, the composer-conductor John Philip Sousa led the Seventh ("Silk-Stocking") Regiment Band in playing The Star-Spangled Banner. After a parade of the players and dignitaries, Babe Ruth was presented with a case containing a symbolically big bat. New York Governor Al Smith threw out the first pitch directly into the glove of catcher Wally Schang rather than the customary couple of feet wide. The Yankees went on to defeat Ruth's former team, the Boston Red Sox, by a score of 4–1, with Ruth hitting a three-run home run into the right-field stands. Asked later for his opinion of the stadium, he replied, "Some ball yard." Upon opening, Fred Lieb of the New York Evening Telegram dubbed it "The House That Ruth Built". The Yankees also won their first World Series during the Stadium's inaugural season. Future Yankee manager Casey Stengel hit the first post-season home run in stadium history while playing with the opposing New York Giants. The only other team to do so prior to the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals in (the new) Busch Stadium had been the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the 1909 World Series in Forbes Field's inaugural season; and the Boston Red Sox, who won the 1912 World Series in Fenway Park's first year. The Yankees accomplished this feat yet again in the New Yankee Stadium in the 2009 World Series. The Stadium was the