“Friday Night Lights” was a book, a movie and a TV show, but for neighbors of the Robert Crown Center, the story was “Sunday Night Lights.”
The bright glow from the fields at the recreation/community center were a weekend annoyance for those living nearby.
But now, the city is keeping the lights off on Sundays after dark, at two of Crown’s three athletic fields.
Parks and Recreation Director Audrey Thompson told Evanston Now that “we want to give the neighbors a night off” from lights and sounds from the Crown.
The city first kept the lights off on one of the fields for a few Sundays as a test. Now a second field will stay dark.
Besides less sound from cheering athletes, there will also be less noise from tennis balls hitting what’s called a “bang board,” at Crown, a backboard used for practicing a tennis stroke.
The continual “thud” of tennis balls hitting the board, Thompson said, led to “a lot of complaints about how loud it is.”
Well, it turns out that something called a “sound deadening strip” was never installed.
One will be put in soon, Thompson told a recent 2nd Ward meeting, which “hopefully will provide some relief.”