It Is Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds!

JEHOVAH’S witnesses are arranging to use Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds in New York city in which to hold their international convention July 27 to August 3, 1958. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York has contracted with the baseball management of the Yankees and the New York Giants to use these facilities simultaneously.

In the summers of 1950 and 1953 Jehovah’s witnesses held international assemblies at Yankee Stadium, packing out its facilities. Ever since they learned that another international convention would be held in New York city the question has been, What place is big enough?

It is with deep gratitude that we are able to tell all of you now that the excellent facilities of both Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, situated just four city blocks apart, are now available, and will give the attenders at the assembly a comfortable place to sit, see and hear the happenings at a convention of the size expected. Many of our readers will recall that in 1953 there were 165,829 who attended the assembly on the last day. Of course, not all of those got into Yankee Stadium, but it was packed to the roof inside with 91,562. The rest of the mammoth crowd, numbering 25,240, had to occupy tents and parking lots nearby around the stadium; 49,027 more listened at the trailer camp in New Jersey, forty miles away.

This time it is hoped that in 1958 the greater portion of the crowd can get inside to see and hear what is going on. Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds will seat approximately 120,000 persons, and more seats can be installed.

The Society is arranging a program so that the same speakers in the early part of the afternoon sessions in Yankee Stadium will speak later in the Polo Grounds the same afternoon, and vice versa. The same will be true with the evening program.

There will be certain programs, such as the graduation of the Gilead School student body, that will have to be held in just one place, because we cannot have a duplicate graduation program. The same will be true of the public meeting on the last Sunday, but in those instances everything that is said in Yankee Stadium will be carried by direct wire to the Polo Grounds, so that those who cannot get into Yankee Stadium on these occasions will be able to hear everything at the Polo Grounds.

By Jehovah’s undeserved kindness we are looking forward with keen anticipation to using the two finest stadiums in New York city in the summer of 1958 for our international gathering. From any part of the world, all are welcome to attend; and we already know that thousands are coming from the ends of the earth.

Also, facilities are being arranged for the operation of a small trailer camp somewhere in New Jersey. However, it is hoped that the majority of the delegates will plan to come to New York city itself and will arrange through the rooming committee for their accommodations in hotels or in homes of the New Yorkers that the rooming committee will have listed for accommodating them during their eight or ten days in the city. This may probably be the largest convention ever arranged for by the Watch Tower Society before Armageddon. All of Jehovah’s witnesses who can order their affairs to do so keenly look forward to the time when they will be able to gather together again in such a grand assembly, all to the honor and glory of Jehovah’s name. Certainly in our prayers we will all be mindful of the need of his blessing upon all the arrangements for the coming international assembly of his witnesses on earth. From time to time additional information in detail will be published in these columns for all our readers.