Wrigleyville building boom pits quirky past against future: 'Change is going to happen'

CHICAGO - The Chicago Cubs' World Series victory last fall was a welcome change for Wrigley Field regulars.

But in the 11 months since neighbors, baseball fans and Clark Street revelers celebrated the Game 7 victory in the streets outside Wrigley, they've witnessed plenty of other changes outside the North Side baseball cathedral.

The neighborhood is peppered with signs of its history and future in near-equal measure. A new plaza on the field's west side, The Park at Wrigley, welcomes families for festivals and fans for fun before the game. Just across Clark Street, construction continues at a harried pace on a new multistory development and new bars are celebrating grand openings.

But there are plenty of remnants of the neighborhood's roots, businesses that have decades' worth of stories of their team of "lovable losers," nestled between temporary sidewalks and construction cranes. The famous Wrigleyville firehouse, built in 1915, still keeps watch on the ballpark from the north, just as it had for 100 years before the distribution of World Series Championship rings.