Ethos

Wrigley Field: The Ballpark and the Streets Around It

Chicago, Illinois

Wrigley Field stands at 1060 West Addison Street, in the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago's Lake View community area, on the North Side. It opened on April 23, 1914 as Weeghman Park, built for the Chicago Whales of the Federal League; the Cubs moved in from the West Side Grounds before the 1916 season and play their home games there. Wrigleyville's borders run from Grace Street to Cornelia Avenue north to south, and from Wilton Avenue to Racine Avenue east to west, and the blocks inside them are low-rise brick buildings and houses, some with rooftop bleachers colloquially called Wrigley Rooftops where people can purchase seats.

This guide takes the ballpark first, then the bars, restaurants and shops on the streets around it — North Clark Street, West Addison Street and North Sheffield Avenue — and then a cinema and a grocery on North Southport Avenue and two sites north of Grace Street. Research for it was carried out with web search unavailable, from named sources fetched directly: English Wikipedia, the businesses' own sites, and the City of Chicago's business-licence register. Where a claim rests on a business's own account of itself, this guide says so. Where the research could not establish something — a founding year, a menu, whether a business is trading now — this guide leaves it out and names the gap.

  1. 1060 West Addison Street: the Cubs' home ballpark, opened April 23, 1914 as Weeghman Park, designed by Zachary Taylor Davis. Capacity 41,649. A Chicago Landmark since 2004 and a National Historic Landmark since 2020.

  2. 1059-1065 West Addison Street: named by Wikipedia's Lake View article among the establishments at the Clark and Addison intersection that host the Cubs crowds. The bar's own site refused every fetch, so its founding, menu, programming and hours are unrecorded here.

  3. 3516 North Clark Street, ZIP 60657: named by the same Lake View sentence, in an article that carries no date for it. Licensed by the City for Public Place of Amusement, Retail Food Establishment and Consumption on Premises; nothing further was reachable.

  4. 3540 North Clark Street, ZIP 60657: wings, burgers, pizza, salads and appetizers with a full bar, and a second level of batting cages, electronic basketball, skee-ball, air hockey and arcade games. Over 40 TVs, six of them 10-foot screens.

  5. 3630 North Clark Street, just across Clark Street from the ballpark, constructed along the west side of the street as part of the Wrigley Field renovation project. It was open for business in time for the Cubs' first home game on April 9, 2018.

  6. 3632 North Clark Street: an American bistro across from the ballpark, serving classic dishes and wine. The licensee of record is registered as Mordecai Brown, also the name of a Cubs pitcher; no source states the bar is named after him.

  7. 3636 North Clark Street: the second of the barbecue restaurant's two locations, the other in Wicker Park. Tagline "BBQ, Blues, Beers", with its own sauces and rubs for sale. Whether live blues is programmed at this branch is not stated by any source reached.

  8. 3650 North Clark Street: a storefront of a locally owned Chicago sports apparel retailer that describes itself as having more than 10 locations across Chicagoland, selling Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Bulls and Bears merchandise. Its own site lists no store addresses.

  9. 3664 North Clark Street: carried on the City licence register as Bernie's, with Tavern, Outdoor Patio, Retail Food Establishment and Public Place of Amusement licences. Its own domain does not resolve, and that register entry is the whole of the record.

  10. 3710 North Clark Street: wings, burgers, sandwiches, cheese curds and an Italian beef sandwich. Stated hours Monday to Saturday 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM, Sunday 1:00 PM to 12:00 AM, and it states that it opens for every Cubs game.

  11. 3724-3726 North Clark Street: the Wrigleyville branch on the chain's own locations page. The chain's Wikipedia article lists eight locations and does not include this one, so the two sources disagree; the 1934 founding and the 1945 goat belong to the original Madison Street tavern, not to this address.

  12. Metro

    sight

    3730 North Clark Street: a music venue founded by Joe Shanahan, first opened in 1982 in a building put up in 1927 as a Swedish Community Center. Capacity 1,100; Smart Bar, in the basement beneath it, holds 400.

  13. 3740 North Clark Street: a rotating draft list and a vinyl collection. It states that it opens two hours before every Cubs home game start and during all Metro shows. It states no ownership relationship to Metro, and no source establishes one.

  14. 3655 North Sheffield Avenue: local craft beers and pub food, with a recurring Pub Trivia Night except on home game days. Murphy Rooftop Company holds a City licence of the type "Wrigley Field" at 3649 North Sheffield Avenue.

  15. 3439 North Sheffield Avenue, ZIP 60657: a bar carried on the City licence register with Tavern and Outdoor Patio licences. Its domain does not resolve and no other source mentions it, so its founding, history and the origin of its name are unrecorded here.

  16. 1300 West Addison Street: a large collection of board games, craft cocktails, beer, wine, cider and hard seltzer, and pizza, soft pretzels, potato chips and cheese flights. A Thursday Jeopardy! league, Tuesday trivia and euchre leagues.

  17. 3733 North Southport Avenue: a cinema opened August 22, 1929, its original architects Edward Steinborn and Louis I. Simon, its interior style atmospheric. First-run features, repertory, weekend matinees, midnight cult films, foreign and independent film. Independently owned by the Southport Music Box Corporation since 2003.

  18. 3552 North Southport Avenue, ZIP 60657: breakfast and lunch alongside a specialty grocery of house-made preserves, pickles and mustards and artisanal local products. Stated hours every day 8 AM to 3 PM, with the kitchen closing before that.

  19. 3145 North Sheffield Avenue, ZIP 60657: opened in 1912 as the Victoria Theatre, designed by John Eberson, and recorded as a music venue owned by Jam Productions holding 1,400, or 1,000 seated. No source reached places it relative to the ballpark; Wrigleyville's sourced southern boundary is Cornelia Avenue, north of this address.

  20. North Alta Vista Terrace, one block at 1050 West running north from Grace Street to Byron Street: 40 single-family rowhouses built in 1904 by Samuel Gross, in twenty exterior designs arranged so that matching houses face diagonally across the street. A Chicago Landmark since 1971 and on the National Register since 1972. No source reached states whether any of the houses is open to visitors.

  21. 4001 North Clark Street: 121 acres founded in 1860, with monuments by Louis Sullivan, Lorado Taft, Henry Bacon and Daniel Chester French, and the graves of Daniel Burnham, George Pullman and Ernie Banks. On the National Register since January 18, 2001. No source reached gives visiting hours.

Getting there

Addison station, at 940 West Addison Street, is on the CTA Red Line and directly serves Wrigley Field; the ballpark was built with convenient access to the "L" in mind. The station opened on June 6,

  1. The CTA bus routes connecting there are Route 22 Clark, which runs Owl Service, and Route 152 Addison. Two Pace suburban express routes also serve it: Route 282 Rolling Meadows-Wrigley Field Express and Route 779 Hillside-Wrigley Field Express.

Sheridan station, at 3940 North Sheridan Road in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago's Lakeview community area, is the other Red Line stop used for games. Wrigley Field is less than a mile from it, and Red Line passengers travelling to Cubs games use it because Addison is often crowded after games. Beginning in spring 2007, CTA Purple Line Express trains stopped at Sheridan before Cubs weekday night games to provide service to the ballpark; that is a 2007 service change with no stated end date, and no later source confirms the arrangement still stands. The CTA bus routes connecting at Sheridan are X9 Ashland Express, 80 Irving Park and 151 Sheridan. Sheridan is also the closest "L" stop to Graceland Cemetery, about one-half mile to the west on Irving Park Road.

Parking around the ballpark is commercial. The City of Chicago licenses commercial garages on the surrounding blocks: A & A Parking at 3735 N Clark St, Red Top Parking at 3701 N Clark St and Sdralis Parking at 3745 N Clark St, all licensed to 2028; Red Top again at 3716 and at 3701-3707 N Sheffield Ave, to the same date; Wrigleyville Parking, Inc. at 1109 W Addison St, to 2028, and ABM Industry Groups at 1025 W Addison St, to 2027. Operators here are named by the legal name the register carries, not its trading-name field, which for that Addison Street garage reads "Wrigleyville Park Inc". Standard Parking holds both a commercial garage licence and a valet operator licence at 3630 N Clark St, the Hotel Zachary address.

Two things the licence register cannot tell anyone. It does not establish affiliation, so none of the garages above is an official Cubs lot, and this guide does not call one that. And it carries no price: no published parking rate for any Wrigley Field lot was reachable, so none is given here. Metra service to the ballpark, CTA fares and any club-run game-day shuttle were all outside what the research could reach.

Around the ballpark

The Clark and Addison intersection is the centre of it. Wikipedia's Lake View article names The Cubby Bear, Sluggers, Murphy's Bleachers, Casey Moran's, Merkle's and Sports Corner as the establishments there that host the Cubs crowds. This guide carries four of those six; Casey Moran's and Sports Corner were not researched in this batch, and are named here rather than quietly dropped from a sourced list.

North Clark Street holds the largest share, in street-number order: Merkle's at 3516 and Sluggers at 3540; Hotel Zachary at 3630, Mordecai at 3632, Smoke Daddy at 3636, Clark Street Sports at 3650 and Bernie's at 3664; Yakzie's at 3710, the Billy Goat Tavern's Wrigleyville branch at 3724-3726, Metro at 3730 and Gman Tavern at

  1. West Addison Street holds The Cubby Bear at 1059-1065 and Guthries Tavern at 1300 West. On North Sheffield Avenue, Murphy's Bleachers is at 3655 and Nisei Lounge south of it at 3439.

Two more stand on North Southport Avenue: the Music Box Theatre at 3733, a cinema since 1929, and Southport Grocery & Cafe south of it at 3552. Their ZIP codes differ — 60613 for the Music Box and 60657 for the grocery — and that is what the City register carries for each, not an error to be tidied. The Vic Theatre is at 3145 North Sheffield Avenue; no source reached places it relative to the ballpark, and Wrigleyville's sourced southern boundary is Cornelia Avenue, which is north of that address.

North of Grace Street, Wrigleyville's sourced northern boundary, are Alta Vista Terrace — one block of forty rowhouses built in 1904 — and Graceland Cemetery at 4001 North Clark Street. No source reached places either inside the neighbourhood, and neither is claimed to be.

One thing to know about the record behind all of this. Research was done without web search, and the City of Chicago's business-licence register did the work of discovery. That register shows a licence as active until its term expires or it is affirmatively cancelled, so a business that closed mid-term still reads as licensed. Four of the places above — Merkle's, Nisei Lounge, Clark Street Sports and the Vic Theatre — have no dated act on the register within the last year and no second source that could be reached, so this guide does not say they are trading. It does not say they have closed either: there is no evidence of that, and none should be inferred. Telephone first.

The ballpark and the team

Wrigley Field opened on April 23, 1914 as Weeghman Park, built for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Whales of the Federal League and designed by Zachary Taylor Davis. The Whales came second in the league in 1914 and won its championship in 1915, and the league folded after that season. The Cubs moved from the West Side Grounds to the much newer park before the 1916 season. It was named Cubs Park from 1920 to 1926, before changing its name to Wrigley Field in 1927. It follows the jewel-box ballpark design that was popular in the early part of the 20th century, and it is the oldest park in the National League, the second-oldest in the majors after Fenway Park (1912), and the only remaining Federal League park.

The club is older than the park. The Cubs began in 1870 as the Chicago White Stockings and joined the National League as a charter member in 1876. They were known as the Chicago Colts by 1890 and as the Chicago Orphans from 1898 to 1902 before becoming the Cubs. They played in the National League East Division from 1969 to 1993 and have played in the Central Division since 1994. They have won the World Series in 1907, 1908 and 2016, and the 2016 championship ended a 71-year National League pennant drought and a 108-year World Series championship drought.

The Curse of the Billy Goat attaches to the 1945 World Series. At Game 4, Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis and his pet goat Murphy were asked to leave. Two Wikipedia articles give two different reasons for the ejection, so this guide gives none. Sianis's family says he sent a telegram reading "You are going to lose this World Series and you are never going to win another World Series again." Sianis died on October 22, 1970. The Cubs won the National League pennant on October 22, 2016, the 46th anniversary of his death, and then beat Cleveland 8-7 in 10 innings in Game 7 of the World Series.

The fabric of the park is dated. Bill Veeck planted the ivy against the outfield walls in 1937, the year the scoreboard was installed; the scoreboard is still worked by hand, with a number turner watching the score changes on a computer and replacing the numbers from within it. The marquee over the main entrance went up in 1934, was green until it was repainted red on March 23, 1960, is art deco-style, and reads "Wrigley Field, Home of Chicago Cubs" in white. This was the last Major League Baseball park to have lights installed: they were lit on August 8, 1988, after 5,687 consecutive Cubs day games. The ballpark was designated a Chicago Landmark on February 1, 2004, and a National Historic Landmark and a National Register listing on September 23, 2020.

The $575-million privately funded 1060 Project was revealed at the January 2013 Cubs Convention and began its first phase on September 29, 2014; the ivy-covered walls in the left and right field corners were cut from 15 to 11 feet before the 2015 season. Hotel Zachary, just across Clark Street, was constructed along the west side of the street as part of the Wrigley Field renovation project, and was open for business in time for the Cubs' first home game on April 9, 2018.

Around it, Lake View was absorbed into Chicago in 1889, and Wrigleyville is its low-rise brick buildings and houses, some with rooftop bleachers colloquially called Wrigley Rooftops where people can purchase seats. Under an agreement reached in 2004, rooftop owners were required to pay the club 17% of their gross revenue. That agreement ran until 2023, and no source reached says what replaced it.

Frequently asked questions

Which trains serve Wrigley Field?
Addison station, at 940 West Addison Street on the CTA Red Line, directly serves the ballpark, which was built with convenient access to the "L" in mind. Sheridan station at 3940 North Sheridan Road is also on the Red Line, less than a mile from the ballpark, and is used by passengers travelling to Cubs games because Addison is often crowded after games. Beginning in spring 2007, CTA Purple Line Express trains stopped at Sheridan before Cubs weekday night games; no later source confirms that arrangement still stands. Whether Metra commuter rail serves the ballpark could not be established.
Is there official parking, and what does it cost?
The City of Chicago licenses several commercial garages on the blocks around the ballpark — on North Clark Street, West Addison Street and North Sheffield Avenue — and Standard Parking holds a garage and a valet licence at the Hotel Zachary address. A licence records that the City has licensed a garage operator at an address; it establishes nothing about affiliation, so none of them can be called an official Cubs lot. No published parking price for any Wrigley Field lot was reachable, and this guide publishes none.
Why does this guide not say whether some of these places are open?
Because the evidence does not reach that far. Research was carried out with web search unavailable, and the City of Chicago's business-licence register did most of the work. That register shows a licence as active until its term expires or it is affirmatively cancelled, so a business that shut mid-term still reads as licensed. For Merkle's, Nisei Lounge, Clark Street Sports and the Vic Theatre, the most recent dated act on the register — a term start or a fee payment — is more than a year old, and no second source was reachable. None of that is evidence of closure, and none is stated as such.
Why is no reason given for the 1945 goat ejection?
Because two sources give two reasons. Wikipedia's Curse of the Billy Goat article says the pair were bothering other fans; its Billy Goat Tavern article says Philip K. Wrigley allegedly ejected them because of the goat's odour. Rather than pick a winner, this guide publishes the incident and no reason for it.
Are the rooftop bleachers part of the ballpark?
They are on the surrounding buildings, not in the park. Wrigleyville's low-rise brick buildings and houses include some with rooftop bleachers colloquially called Wrigley Rooftops, where people can purchase seats. Under an agreement reached in 2004, the rooftop owners were required to pay the Cubs 17% of their gross revenue; that agreement ran until 2023, and no source reached says what replaced it.
Are Alta Vista Terrace and Graceland Cemetery in Wrigleyville?
No source reached says so, and this guide does not claim it. Wrigleyville's sourced borders run from Grace Street to Cornelia Avenue north to south. Alta Vista Terrace, which the source places in Lake View, runs north from Grace Street, putting it at or just beyond that edge. Graceland Cemetery is at 4001 North Clark Street, north of Grace Street; no source reached names a community area for it.

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