If You Live In New York, I Don’t Care What You Think About Soldier Field

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: July 1, 2021

Soldier Field on Twitter

I want to start off this post by saying that I am a fan of Jeff Hughes’ work. His site, Da Bears Blog, is one of the best in the Chicago Bears’ blogosphere. He has legitimate sources and is usually level-headed. Jeff is against the Bears moving to Arlington Heights and penned this post detailing his feelings on the matter. I disagree with Jeff’s take, but would not feel the need to respond in this manner but for one key factor: Jeff Hughes lives in New York.

“I remember the first time I saw it.

December 1st 2001.”

So before the renovation that made Soldier Field look like a giant toilet.

“A buddy of mine, a construction guy in Woodside, met me at our local last Friday and asked me about “the Soldier Field thing”. I explained it to him as best I could, handing him my phone and Twitter feed for ten minutes while he laughed and laughed and laughed. His response was great. “You can’t get rid of Soldier Field. That’s like Fenway.” (I guess he’s a Red Sox fan but I don’t know that much about him.)”

No. Just no. First of all, the Bears didn’t move into Soldier Field until 1971. Second, has anyone redesigned Fenway to make it look like a spaceship landed on the stadium? No.

“The fact that it is actually IN the city is one of its coolest elements. Soldier Field is a part of Chicago’s cityscape in a way that no other NFL stadium can claim to be. New York doesn’t have that. Los Angeles doesn’t have that. San Francisco and Houston and Dallas and Washington DC don’t have that. When you leave the building, marching with thousands upon thousands of other either jubilant or despairing fans, you’re deposited directly back into town.”

This I actually agree wholeheartedly with. Soldier Field has easily the best location of any stadium in the NFL and maybe sports as a whole and losing that should the team move to Arlington Heights would suck. Ideally, the Bears would build a new, state-of-the-art stadium in the city. The likelihood of that happening is not high, though, so if losing the location means no longer playing in the worst stadium in the league, so be it.

“Why do people in Chicago pretend like hosting a Final Four is a badge of honor the city needs? Chicago is one of the 2-3 best cities in the country, and I’d argue the world. It doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. Hosting the banner event of one of the country’s most desperate and corrupt organizations isn’t going to bolster your civic resume. (And I got news for those of you who want the Super Bowl or Final Four in Chicago: you won’t even notice. And you can’t afford to go.)”

I couldn’t care less about the “civic resume.” You already said it – Chicago is one of the greatest cities in the world. We don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I want those events here because it would be really cool to have them here. Don’t tell me I wouldn’t notice a Super Bowl being here. I was in college in Bloomington, Indiana when the Super Bowl was in Indianapolis. It was a huge deal. It was the lead story every day on the news for the better part of two weeks. Because it’s not just the game itself – it’s the fan fests surrounding the event. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to get up to Indy to check it out personally, but it looked amazing on the news, and by all accounts, the city did a great job with the event. Yeah, Indy, Detroit, and Minneapolis have only gotten one Super Bowl each, but those places aren’t Chicago. I have no illusions that I’d be able to go the game itself. Final Four tickets can be pricey, too, to be sure. But if I lived in New York, I wouldn’t have been able to afford Hamilton tickets when it was on Broadway, either. Does that mean we shouldn’t have theatres?

On top of that stuff, though, Chicago could also get the Big Ten Championship game, a college bowl game, concerts in the winter, WrestleMania and the weekend of wrestling shows that brings, because a) Chicago is one of the best wrestling cities in the world – we’ve hosted two and part of a third in the past and the Allstate Arena was the last non-stadium venue to play host and b) you know Vince McMahon is going to make sure he beats the NFL here.

“Sometimes folks in Chicago talk like they live in Syracuse. Chicago doesn’t need more events. Chicago IS the event. That’s why hotel prices at $300+ in the summer. People come to see the town. They don’t need Gonzaga to sweeten the pot.”

Says you. Again, you live in New York. I don’t want Chicago to get more events because I think we need to attract people to the city. I want Chicago to get more events because I would like to go to them.

“The Bears play most their games at noon in Chicago. Do you really need to be drunk before kickoff? You paid enough for the tickets, why not watch (and remember) the game?

I’ve had to step over a passed out puke machine in the men’s at both of my last two Bears home games. I got no issue with tailgating; I’ve had some great times in parking lots. I also would have no issue with it disappearing forever.”

You’re assuming that people only tailgate to get drunk. Some of us just, you know, enjoy tailgating. We like to grill up a few Polish sausages since we know that once we step in the stadium, the price of one is going to be roughly a car payment.

“Soldier Field’s remodel in 2003 is a work of art.”

Lol what?

“But many of you reading this think Forrest Gump is a good movie so your artistic opinions mean intensely little to me.”

a) Forrest Gump is a very good movie. Now, is it as great as it gets made out to be? No, so I’ll give you partial credit. b) You live in New York so your opinions on what Chicago should do mean intensely little to me.

“This is from Herbert Muschamp’s architectural review of the building in the New York Times (September 30, 2003):”

I don’t care what he thinks, either, because he, too, is in New York.

“I am, by no means, an architecture expert. The late-Muschamp was. You can criticize the building all you want but you also must acknowledge that experts on the subject believe the building is a breakthrough in stadium architecture; a merging of the old and the new; a chance taken on a project that rarely yields anything by way of adventure. Soldier Field’s new design may not be for everyone. But guess what? Neither is Stephen Sondheim. Neither is Edward Hopper. And I love them too, without so much as considering for an instant YOUR opinion on them.”

It’s a football stadium, not an art exhibit. The concept of merging the old and new is interesting in theory, but in practice, Soldier Field does neither the old nor the new well.

“But I find it sad how so many of you are willing to throw history in the bin for the potential promise of Marquette v. Kansas on a Monday night in April.”

What history? The Bears didn’t move into Soldier Field until 1971 and it was their third choice at the time. They would have stayed at Wrigley Field were it not for a post-merger league mandate that stadiums seat a minimum of 50,000. Then they tired to play at Northwestern before the Big Ten put the kibosh on that. So they moved into Soldier Field and have spent much of the last 50 years trying to find somewhere else to play. Meanwhile, on the field, they have two NFC Championships and one Super Bowl.

Jeff, I can certainly appreciate your love for the Bears, or rather, da Bears (daaaaaa Bears). But you are a New Yorker. You talk on Twitter all the time about the things you love about New York and have said New York will always be home to you. It’s all well and nice that you consider Chicago to be your second home, but it’s our first one, and we don’t need someone 800 miles away telling us what to do with it.

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312