Wrigley Field construction update: March 26

Construction began on the Wrigley Field sports book just a few weeks ago, but quite a bit of progress has been made. As you will see in the photos below, there’s already a fairly large hole in the ground and some of the supports for the structure have been laid into the sandy soil that’s a feature of the land near Wrigley.

Which brings me to a point about that sandy soil. Mike Bojanowski took the photos in the gallery below, and sent me these notes about the ground they’re digging into:

The yellow soil that gets turned up, not only here, but at all construction sites along Clark Street, always fascinates. Clark Street is a natural ridge that once was the Lake Michigan shoreline about 8,000 years ago. This is known geographically as the Graceland Spit. Its heavily sandy content made it an ideal soil for burials, and when Chicago decommissioned all its cemeteries in 1860, Clark Street (then Green Bay Road), became prime location for new burial grounds, then outside the Chicago limits. Hebrew (1851), Wunder’s (1859), Graceland (1860), St. Boniface (1863), Rosehill (1859), and Calvary (1859), are all set upon that ridge, and the founding dates are no coincidence.

We’ll have periodic updates on the sports book construction as the 2022 baseball season progresses. Here are the photos Mike took on Saturday.

Grid View

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