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Wrigley Field Renovations Photo Gallery
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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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