Location Taken: Chicago, Illinois
Date Taken: April 2008
The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming!
Ok, it’s just Wrigley Field all lit up for a night game of baseball. But my goodness, do they have to turn up the lights THAT much?
I was living in the Uptown neighborhood at the time, all the way at the top of a 17-story apartment building, and was really confused when I saw really bright light streaming in through my closed blinds. I couldn’t think of anything within a mile that would be that bright, or anywhere near my window, after all.
Wrigley Field was 1.5 miles away.
It actually took me a little to figure out just what I was looking at. I hadn’t realized that Wrigley Field was technically right down the road from me – the road being Sheridan Rd, a six-mile long road heading from about two miles north of where I was straight south nearly all the way to downtown. Although, it does change its name to Sheffield halfway through, about a block or two north of Wrigley Field, which is part of why I hadn’t realized it was down the road. I’d been to Wrigley Field before as part of a field trip once, well, at least I’ve been to the street outside it (urban geography classes have interesting field trips). And I’d been through the train station right by the ballpark, too, but the train station by where I lived was three blocks west of me, Wrigley field is another block or two west of the local station, and I largely think of the Red Line as straight north. (If you look at the official map you can see why, and also spot the jog between the Sheridan and Addison stops that throws that off.) With my map sense, I usually catch such things, so the concept of Wrigley Field being due south just threw me for a loop. So I took some photos.
By the way, I did mention two days ago about how stupid the corporate-sponsor-named M&T Bank Stadium was? Well, Wrigley Field also shares a name with a company: the Wrigley that makes chewing gum. It’s not a direct sponsorship by the company. It’s just a matter of the same guy owning both the company and the Chicago Cubs, and they named the stadium after the owner. Still, it does give some tips for corporate namers in the future. One, don’t make it obvious that it’s a company name (the whole “Bank” thing ruins it for the Ravens stadium), two, give it a decent sounding name that flows well off the tongue (last names are good for this, and keep the syllable count down), and three, give it 50-100 years to settle in with the locals. Wrigley Field has all three, M&T Bank is lacking all of them.
Both stadiums probably waste as much electricity lighting up the field for night games, though. Really, does it have to be THAT bright?
