Michigan Avenue to Lake Michigan
from Randolph Street to Roosevelt Road
Grant Park opens up like the prairie on which Chicago was
built. Oh, all right, Chicago was built on a marsh, and the name
is derived from an American Indian word meaning “stinky onion.”
But Grant Park looks the way we’d like to think our natural
landscape looked. The fact that it’s built on landfill doesn’t
bother us a bit.
After all, it’s historic landfill. In the aftermath of the
Great Fire in 1871, rubble and ruin were carted to the edge of
the lake and unceremoniously dumped in. There was quite a bit of
rubble. The final result is a magnificent park whose 1836
charter states that it shall remain “forever open, clear and
free.” The park, once known as Lake Park, was renamed for the
Civil War general who became our 18th President.
The Olmsted Brothers’ plan of 1907 was never implemented,
but its aesthetic, predicated on the formal gardens of
Versailles, still informs the spirit of the park. Long avenues
of trees line the lakefront and mask railroad tracks cutting
through the park. Discrete spaces unfold for the pedestrian like
rooms created out of lawns, shrubbery, and flowers.
Ivan Mestrovic’s mounted warriors, erected in 1928 at the
Congress Plaza entrance to the park, are known as “The
Spearman” and “The Bowman.” As you head toward the lake,
look left to see Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ second Chicago statue
of Lincoln (the other is in Lincoln Park, east of the Chicago
Historical Society). Ahead of you lies Buckingham Fountain,
built in 1927. It was designed by competition winners Marcel François
Loyau and Jacques Lambert, inspired by the waterworks of
Versailles, but created from pink Georgia marble. Ironically,
its hourly jets of water are now electronically controlled from
Atlanta.
Aaron Montgomery Ward, of the Montgomery Wards, is the
man we have to thank for the park’s uncluttered spaces.
Fighting an often unpopular battle against commercial interests,
Ward fought for 20 years to keep Grant Park’s greensward free
for Chicago’s poor, “not for the millionaires.” A plan to
build a large performing arts complex at the park’s
northwestern corner is under way, presumably the result of the
kind of canny deal-making for which Chicago’s city leaders are
famous.
Summer brings decorous aficionados of classical music to the
Petrillo Music Shell; even a torrential downpour does not damp
the spirits of the hardiest of these. More audibly enthusiastic
crowds throng Petrillo and the surrounding lawn for rock
concerts and the Blues, Jazz, Gospel, and Country Music
Festivals. The Taste of Chicago, held the week of the Fourth of
July, is a greasy, burnt, sticky, soaking-wet success for the
millions of people who head to the park to sample foods of many
lands. (Most of them seem to be eating grilled corn, but that’s
another story.) Music, giveaway booths, and kids’ activities
round out the Taste.
Tip: Albin Polasek’s “Spirit of Music” sculpture has
lived many places in Chicago, but now you can see her standing
at the corner of Michigan and Balbo.
