Monday, I spent quite a bit of my morning and afternoon at Wrigley Field watching them take down the famous marquee as they do structural work on the park, and will do some renovation of the sign itself. You can see video of the top section coming down here.
I also promised you that I'd have a complete photoset of the work from BCB's David Sameshima today, and here it is. The work actually began about 9:30 a.m. with workers carefully placing ropes and attaching the top of the marquee to a crane. I had gone by the ballpark around that time and the workers told me it would probably be closer to noon when the actual work began. So I got in touch with David and met him at the corner of Clark & Addison at noon. Sure enough, they were getting much closer to the actual removal.
After I shot the video of the top section coming off, I went home to upload that video and post it so you could see it right away. David stuck around the park for the rest of the afternoon to document the rest of the removal of the sign, which drew quite a crowd at times. To me, the most interesting photos (beyond the obvious, the removal) are the ones of the flatbed truck driving the sign away, to points unknown (at least to the general public), where some restoration work will be done on the sign before it's returned to its original position before Opening Day 2016.
The wall that's behind the marquee location, now visible from the street, seems relatively new. It looks like a cinderblock wall that appears to be of fairly recent vintage. I'm not exactly sure what's behind that wall -- possibly the concession stand that's at the back of the terrace-reserved seating behind home plate.
I'm also most interested in the removal of almost all the seats down the third-base line. I presume this is for concrete replacement, after which the seats will be put back. This work will eventually replace all the concrete in the lower and upper bowl, done in stages over the next four offseasons.
We'll continue to document this project as it continues this winter. The weather was perfect Monday afternoon, temperatures in the low 70s and unlimited sunshine, perfect baseball weather. Here's hoping the work crews don't have to deal with the extreme cold they did at times last winter.