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Wrigley Field Walls Become Memorial For Departed Cubs Fans

By  Alex Nitkin and Kelly Bauer | November 3, 2016 12:37pm 

 As Wrigley Field became the  epicenter of the world's most raucous party  late Wednesday night, one part of it — the brick wall facing Sheffield Avenue — became an impromptu memorial site for all the Cubs fans who didn't live long enough to  see the curse broken.  

  
Wrigley Field Wall Becomes Memorial For Departed Cubs Fans
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WRIGLEYVILLE — They may not have lived to see this moment, but they're still here.

As Wrigley Field became the epicenter of the world's most raucous party late Wednesday night, the brick walls facing Sheffield and Waveland avenues were used as an impromptu memorial site for all the Cubs fans who didn't live long enough to see the curse broken.

Hundreds of names were written in chalk, spanning the bleacher walls facing Waveland and Sheffield.

RELATED: Cubs World Series Victory Parade And Rally Is Friday

When people ran out of space, they stood on each other's shoulders or climbed ladders to reach the top edges of the brick facade. 

The brick wall facing Sheffield Avenue became an impromptu memorial site for all the Cubs fans who didn't live long enough to see the curse broken. [DNAinfo/Kelly Bauer]

Dozens of people gathered along the wall Thursday morning, trying to find whatever small space they could to write their name or a note.

"Go Cubs! Fly the W!" wrote Charlie Greenburg, 8, of Wrigleyville. His mom and brother wrote on the wall Wednesday, so he and his nanny, Jessie Santiago, came by to add their notes Thursday.

Greenburg's a Cubs fan because he lives in Chicago, he said matter-of-factly. He was falling asleep during Game 7, but when the Cubs won he woke up and cheered.

"We just wanted an activity to do and he wanted to come and write on the wall," Santiago said.

Nearby, James Adams, 47, of River North, and his neighbor, Sonny Saranow, 31, fit their messages on the mortar between bricks.

"We saw the wall. We got excited. We got excited! We want to be a part of history, too," he said. "I just wrote my name and how much I love the Cubs, which is an arrow going that way," he pointed to the left, "and an arrow going that way," he pointed to the right, "as far as they can go."

People walking by left nubs of chalk for others to use, putting it on the ground near the wall or passing it on to strangers. They talked about the messages they had left — "Is it supposed to be a memorial wall?" one woman asked a stranger. "It is for me," the other woman said — and helped each other take photos of the notes.

Children, unable to reach high, left messages on the ground. One man stood on a woman's back to reach a free space over the rest of the messages.

"Now, it's like legendary, right?" Adams said of the wall. "Everybody wants to be a part of it."
Adams and Saranow watched Game 7 with fans in the Near North Side. When the Cubs won, they said, you could hear cheers throughout the city.

"We could hear people screaming," Adams said. "You could hear this roar of the city, people just like, 'Aaaaah!' It was like one big stadium. It was insane."

And for all the departed friends and loved ones whose memories were physically etched into the Cubs legacy, fans chimed in from all over the world to offer a few more names.

The brick wall facing Sheffield Avenue became an impromptu memorial site for all the Cubs fans who didn't live long enough to see the curse broken. [DNAinfo/David Matthews]

The brick wall facing Sheffield Avenue became an impromptu memorial site for all the Cubs fans who didn't live long enough to see the curse broken. [DNAinfo/David Matthews]

By Thursday night, messages had spread to the entire stadium facade, including this note at the ticket counter. [DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]

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