You all know the snafus that happened Sunday night regarding bathrooms at Wrigley Field. Before I bring you the report on Wrigley construction activity on Monday from BCB's David Sameshima, here is the complete text of an email season-ticket holders received from Cubs President of Business Operations Crane Kenney late Monday:
Thank you for being a part of our first ever Opening Night at Wrigley Field. With more than 35,000 fans in the ballpark, it was one of our best-attended home openers in relation to available seating.We also need to apologize for the restroom wait times last night. One of the principal goals of the 1060 Project, the restoration and expansion of Wrigley Field, is the improvement of our restroom service throughout the ballpark. Once complete, we will see a 40 percent increase in restroom capacity.Unfortunately, current construction has caused a temporary reduction in left-field concourse services, and on Sunday, we experienced a temporary malfunction of existing restrooms in the upper deck. The combination of events led to unacceptable wait times throughout the ballpark. Available restroom facilities in the right-field concourse were not altered from 2014 levels.Four new restrooms, two women’s and two men’s, in the left-field concourse will be available in late May. Once completed, restroom capacity in the left-field concourse will exceed our 2014 levels.Beginning tomorrow night, we will supplement existing restrooms with portable units in the left-field concourse and outside Gate K. With these facilities in place, we will have approximately the same number of fixtures as we did at the end of the 2014 season. In addition, we are working with our gameday staff to help coordinate concourse traffic by communicating shortest wait times at all concourse facilities.We strive to deliver best-in-class service to our fans and hold ourselves to high standards.We appreciate your patience and for bearing with us as we work to restore Wrigley Field. We are committed to ensuring ongoing construction does not lessen your experience at our ballpark. We will continue to monitor wait times and overall construction activity and will communicate developments as we go.
It was relatively quiet around the ballpark. There was some work taking place in right field. They were installing more of those concrete forms in left field. I didn't see any concrete being poured in the bleachers. There was work taking place in the triangle lot, but it wasn't visible to me.Some car carriers arrived to drop off more player cars. The last of the ESPN-related vehicles were packing up. Many media trucks parked around the ballpark were setting up to do live shots for the evening news. I did see the media gate, situated next to the broadcast cable bridge on Waveland Ave. Gate directional signs are located along strategic locations along the construction fence. I did see that padding has been placed around Gate Q, to fill in the gaps seen on previous photos. I did not get a chance to look at this gate yesterday before the game. Nothing really dramatic to report today, but that's not too surprising. I imagine they didn't want to tackle something too big if they want to have the area ready for another game Tuesday.
I had the opportunity to meet #1 iowan cubs fan Sunday afternoon, to personally thank him for setting up the GoFundMe campaign that is raising money to replace my damaged camera equipment. He was at the game, and I finally made my way over to his seats during the middle innings. I would also like to again thank all of you who have contributed. Also thanks to Al for spreading the word about what happened. I will do my best to continue documenting this project for all of you passionate Cubs fans out there.
A big thank you from me as well to everyone who contributed. I am going to personally replace David's broken monopod -- that breakage happened a week or so before the other incident. Camera equipment, I have learned, is expensive! A new monopod will cost $140, which I'm happy to do for David for all the work he's done for all of us.
Site note: David is working today as a Chicago election judge for the municipal election that's taking place, so he won't be able to visit Wrigley. This series should resume on Thursday.