Cool 1930s Home Video Shows A Day Out At Wrigley Field

This is a pretty cool home video of a bunch of guys sitting around in fedoras and smoking cigars while watching a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, shot in either 1937 or 1938. The video belongs to the Chicago Film Archive and has been up on their website since 2012, but was only put on YouTube this week. DNAinfo explains a bit about who the cameraman was:

The footage was shot by Jacob Glick, a Ukrainian immigrant born in 1898, who owned cigar shops around the city, including one in the old New Lawrence Hotel at Lawrence and Sheridan, where Glick's son and daughter were born and raised.

"My father was a big Cubs fan, and all I remember, during the season, some of the Cubs players stayed in the hotel," said daughter Diane Berolzheimer, now 83 and living in Evanston. "He went to every game he could."

And as for the uncertain date of the film?

One commenter suggests the footage comes from the home opener against the Cardinals on April 22, 1938.

The bleachers were built in 1937, 23 years after Wrigley Field was erected at 1060 W. Addison St. in 1914. Bill Veeck planted the ivy in September of 1937.

Though originally marked as from 1937, the 1938 date could be correct, according to the Chicago Film Archives, as the film date comes from the stock code, and may not be when the reel was actually used.

DNAinfo has a lot more info on the film—like what is that "Ricketts" advertisement you can see on a Waveland Avenue roof?—and you can see more Glick family home videos (though there are no others set at Wrigley) at the Chicago Film Archive website.

[ DNAinfo]