BCB's David Sameshima visited Wrigley Field on Saturday and found all kinds of things going on:
So many small things were taking place at Wrigley; I hope I didn't leave anything out. They were painting street markings, lane markings and crosswalks. In some instances the line would just come to an end, because the pavement would end, and there was only gravel.Metal detectors being installed at Gate F, the main gate. The equipment is awfully close to the curb on Addison. It will be even more congested on game days around there. The ticket windows were open. The Addison Street sidewalk is open. The brick pavers around the former Captain Morgan Club are still there. This area was blocked off, but untouched during the construction.They appear to be moving back the concrete barricades along Clark Street. They have doing the finishing touches on the protective pedestrian canopy alongside the plaza building, so there should be some type of pedestrian sidewalk on the east side of Clark Street.The "curtain" is back on Waveland Avenue. They have strung up wires across Waveland Avenue. It must be for the players to cross Waveland Avenue to get to their cars, like last year. The player parking tent is located further north, so there is also a tent tunnel extended along the Blue Lot, or whatever it's called now.Clark Street Sports has now set up their stand behind the former "Budweiser" building at Kenmore and Waveland.The metal detectors were being installed at the bleacher gate. Again, they are located awfully close to the curbs. It should be even more congested that it has been in the past around the bleacher gate.I happened to be there when the ballpark employees were undergoing training for the metal detectors. Cubs employees were going through the metal detectors, as Monterey Security was handling the screening. A Monterey employee was even yelling out "please take your keys, phones and cameras out of your pockets and place them in the tray". He was calling out at full volume for around 20 minutes. The Cubs employees must have gotten sick of hearing this. I was.Again, I need to emphasize what a mess it is outside the ballpark. Everything's still covered in dirt from the construction. They did a good job last year of cleaning things up before the season started. I hope things get cleaned up before tomorrow.
Apologies for the absence of captions. David didn't have time to get them to me and I wanted to get these photos posted before the game preview today. Most of the photos are pretty self-explanatory or are explained in David's comments above.
Sounds like they're doing the best they can to be ready for Opening Night tomorrow... but it's still going to be pretty crazy around Wrigley Field. A reminder that gates will open 30 minutes earlier than usual for a night game, 4:35 p.m. That's only for Monday's game. The Cubs are urging people to arrive as early as possible.