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Wrigley Field Renovations Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to start slide show:
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- Wrigley Field facade from the 1930s
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- The great Ernie Banks said he wanted his ashes “spread over Wrigley Field with the wind blowing out!”
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- Kids climbing trees outside Wrigley Field to get a look at the game, probably from the 1930s
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- Nice aerial view of Wrigley Field
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- Here’s a Cub Opening Day from years gone by, probably from the 1930s
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- Nice comte mporary view of Wrigley
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- The art deco marquee sign being reinstalled
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- The marquee being manoeuvered into place for installation
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- The green back side of the marquee which is visible from inside the park
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- Aerial view of Wrigley
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- The McDonalds sign being removed.
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- The scoreboard received a paint face-lift also
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- The Ron Santo statue being returned to its place
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- The marquee being riveted into place
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- The wonderful Ernie Banks statue being returned to it’s place.
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- The marquee back in place
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- “Making the Friendly Confines Friendlier”
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- Beautiful aerial view of Wrigley and the north side of Chicago
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- The scoreboard as it looked in the 1930’s before the “modern” one was installed
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- Another aerial view of Wrigley Field
“Making the Friendly Confines Friendlier!”
Wrigley Field Renovations
With the Cubs Opening Day, 2016 at Wrigley Field scheduled for tonight, the rush has been on to complete many of the Wrigley Field renovations. Nothing was more important than returning the historic marquee on the facade at the corner of Clark and Addison to its proper place before the game.
Of course, for us fans of baseball history, even this marquee replacement assumes great importance! Especially when we learn that it was originally installed back in 1934. So we can’t let this occasion pass without notice, can we? In the beautiful photo below, we see the marquee as it looked after its installation. The marquee says “National League Champions.” As we know, the words “Cubs” and “Champions” aren’t used in the same sentence very often, so this is either 1935, 1938 or 1945. Maybe someone can look at the car in the photo and give us the exact year.Actually, I’m thinking now it’s Opening Day, 1946.
It wouldn’t be right to post photos of the modern-day image of Wrigley Field here on the Old-Time Baseball Photos Facebook page, but you can click on the link below to go to our “Baseball History Comes Alive!” blog. There you’ll see some interesting photos of the marquee being reinstalled along with some photos of the renovations and some beautiful aerial photos of Wrigley and the north side of Chicago. And there’ll be also a few surprises thrown in too!
Here’s a few words about the marquees from today’s Chicago Tribune online edition:
“The McDonald’s at Clark and Addison is gone, but another landmark at that intersection has returned. The Cubs have put the historic marquee to its rightful place on the Wrigley Field facade. Crews began hanging the lower portions Tuesday afternoon and added the main sections of the sign later in the day. The art deco marquee, which was first installed in 1934, was taken down after the 2015 season as the Wrigley Field renovation work continued. The side of the sign that faces the street is red, its color since 1965. But for the first time the back of the sign, which will face Wrigley’s new Marquee Grill on the terrace level, is green, the marquee’s original color.
Two notable exceptions were when the Cubs painted the marquee purple in 2010 when Wrigley hosted the Northwestern-Illinois football game, and in 2014 when the Cubs painted it green to mark the ballpark’s 100th anniversary.) On Monday, the statues of Harry Caray, Ron Santo and Billy Williams were returned to their homes; Santo and Williams outside Gate D at Sheffield and Addison, with Caray outside the Budweiser Bleacher Gate entrance, at Waveland and Sheffield. On Friday, the Ernie Banks statue is expected to return once the Gate F is cleared following the marquee’s installation.
-Gary Livacari
Photos and information from Chicago Tribune On-line, April 11, 2016; others from public domain
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