Over the weekend, just in time for the Chicago Cubs’ first homestand of the year, the Ricketts family’s Hickory Street Capital quietly announced it had sold the naming rights to the year-old semi-public plaza that debuted last year on the west side of Wrigley Field. What we knew in 2017 as the Park at Wrigley is henceforth to be known as Gallagher Way, named for an insurance company you’ve probably never heard of that’s headquartered in the northwest suburbs. As dud corporate monikers for civic spaces go, we’d put it somewhere between the CIBC Theatre and whatever we end up having to call the John Hancock Center.
The good news is, Gallagher Way will continue to host free programming all summer long, including a second year of outdoor movie screenings selected by the staff of the Music Box Theatre. The park will show movies on Wednesdays when the Cubs are on the road, beginning May 16; the lineup includes 10 mostly family-friendly titles from the ’80s and ’90s, with the schedule as follows:
- May 16: A League of Their Own
- May 30: The Fugitive
- June 13: The Mighty Ducks
- June 27: Raiders of the Lost Ark
- July 11: Home Alone
- July 18: Twister
- August 8: Grease
- August 22: Space Jam
- September 5: Top Gun
- September 19: Back to the Future
New for the 2018 season is Sundown Sessions, a series of free performances by musicians from Buddy Guy’s Legends and the Jazz Institute of Chicago, on select Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evenings; a separate music series, the Line-Up, will feature classical, jazz, folk and percussion performances on June 24, July 15, August 19 and September 9.
The Green City Market will return to the park on Thursday evenings from 4 to 8pm from May 31 through September 20, and the Old Town School of Folk Music will bring Wiggleworms kids’ concerts back on Tuesdays at 10am, May 15 through September 25. Find a complete schedule of events at gallagherway.com/events.