The Chicago Sun-Times’ Rick Morrissey submits Wrigley Field as “a dump…the figment of somebody’s marvelous imagination, as a subtle marketing campaign that snowballed into something spectacular.”
It’s groupthink, a pleasant groupthink, but groupthink nonetheless. If you want to believe that you’re getting the best baseball experience for your buck, good for you. But you’ve been sold some propaganda, comrade.
In terms of marketing, Wrigley Field is bottled water. Can you imagine how hard our ancestors must be laughing at our rush to pay for water in plastic containers?
Ryan, aka “Hot Shit Fill-In-The-Blank” replies,
As much as I dislike the Cubs, their fans, and waxing poetic about baseball, Wrigley and Wrigleyville keeps most of that isolated in one place. Chicago’s recent renovation and beautification projects like Soldier Field and Millenium Park’s video art are scars on the city, and I fear what’s in store for what’s essentially a nice, if inconvenient and smelly spot for a baseball game.
Some people may not like Millennium Park, but if they consider the complete eyesore that was there before it’s construction (the South Shore Line rail yard), they really don’t have any standing to complain about the replacement. Unless they also think Freshkills Landfill is an artistic statement.
Eh, someone could have done better than the tv screens that spit on people. It could have been turned into a park (softball fields, dogs, no AT&T logo) instead of replacing an eyesore with an expensive eyesore. Or someone could have recognized the lack of aesthetic value in Millenium Park before Daley signed off on it. It’s more ‘city of the future (if it were 1962)’ than a proper companion to the Picasso, and the other various eye candies around. Plensa uses the same unnatural facial expressions in some of his other stuff too. Bullshit. I never liked the Cloud Gate or Gehry’s pavillion. Nothing’s better than feeling like you’re in a cage during a concert… outdoors. The whole place is way too Jetsons. It’s a tourist trap, and it’s sad that visitors go to Millenium Park instead of something actually worth seeing.
So yes, bring back the rail yard.
Admittedly, the sponsors came in after Daley’s minions had made it into a white elephant (cost overruns, of course) – but the public loves it, and since I’m a native and rarely visit, the public will always be served over aesthetic purposes.