BCB's David Sameshima made a late-afternoon visit to Wrigley Field Friday. After taking a break and having some dinner in the area, he noticed the work crews still working with the Wrigley lights turned on. That resulted in some of the cool photos in this set. Here's his report:
I arrived just after 3:00 p.m. It was 45 degress (+40 wind chill). I saw a lot on Friday, and might have wound up leaving something out, that I did want to point out. It might be best to just look at all the photos, as I took quite a few.There was a huge pile of gravel in front of the main bleacher entrance. It was quiet in right field with just a few workers there. In left field, the main effort was on the jumbotron structure. Brackets for the "baskets" were attached in right field, from the foul pole to the "well", and you can see the basket material itself, in a roll, in photo 61. They were using a front loader to transfer concrete to left field. I saw a pink concrete truck. The city finally filled in the open holes along the Sheffield sidewalk that were left behind after utility work. The city also installed a no left turn sign on Waveland Avenue at Sheffield. The area was incredibly loud today. A pile driver was going full tilt in the triangle lot.I took a few more photos of dust covered cars, beacuse I wanted to convey that dust is an issue in the area. One car was parked north of where the players will be parking. Players should be happy that their cars will be under a tent. I also photographed a car parked north on Clifton Avenue. This is across from the Cubs office building, formerly a Cubs warehouse facility. This shows that the Cubs office staff is also affected.I stopped to eat before heading home and then noticed the ballpark lights coming on, so I decided to take another look around before leaving and ended up staying until just before 8:00 p.m. As a result, I was able to take certain photos that aren't possible during the day due to daytime lighting conditions. The workers seemed to start wrapping things up as I was leaving.
Mike Bojanowski emailed me to let me know he happened to be riding by on the L just as they were turning the lights off, at 8:18 p.m. So, at least for work that's visible, they appear to be sticking to the 8 p.m. city cutoff.
As of today we are just 15 days away from the scheduled Opening Night at Wrigley Field. They're sure working quickly!