Overview
The stadium offers an extremely fast 400-meter Mondo Super X Performance running track, flanked by covered spectator seating for 5,000 and features modern locker rooms, showers as well as fitness, exercise and meeting rooms. In addition, a premier FIFA certified soccer field to the north of the Stadium has been built with an artificial surface, fencing, lighting and bleachers. Icahn Stadium opened on April 23, 2005 and is named after American businessman Carl Icahn for donating $10 million of the $45 million construction costs.
Icahn Stadium sits on the site of the former Downing Stadium, opened in 1936 as part of a larger New York City Parks project which included the construction of the Triborough Bridge. The opening of Downing Stadium made history as the facility hosted the U.S. Olympic Trials, at which Jesse Owens qualified for two events in the upcoming Berlin Olympics. The site went on to be home to the New York Cosmos soccer team, various sporting events and summer concerts. The stadium lights, which were taken from Ebbets Field after it was torn down, were left in place to light the new field.
The stadium seats are partially sheltered by a cantilevered roof supported by cables anchored in the ground and running over the tops of the two lighting towers. This design allows for unobstructed views from any seat in the stadium because columns are unnecessary except at the back wall. The lighting towers are reminiscent of a pair of rocket ships and help give the stadium its unusual look. Icahn Stadium was designed by Zurita Architects of New York City and engineered by Geiger Engineers of Suffern, New York.
After two years of operation, Icahn Stadium hosted more than 200,000 high school, college and professional athletes and spectators during the track season. Each year, the number of meets and events that are scheduled has grown, bringing larger numbers of people to the facility.
Run by the Randall’s Island Park Alliance (RIPA), Icahn Stadium serves the residents of New York City and beyond. RIPA was founded in 1992 as a public-private partnership to work on behalf of Randall’s Island Park. The Alliance, in conjunction with City leadership and the local community, works to realize the Island’s unique potential by developing sports and recreational facilities, restoring its vast natural environment, reclaiming and maintaining parkland, and sponsoring community-linked programs for the children of New York City runs free youth sports programs that bring over 14,000 under-resourced public school children from Harlem and the South Bronx to the island annually.
Icahn Stadium was incorporated as a training center into the New York City bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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