If you think the James R. Thompson Center, the Harold Washington Library and North Michigan Avenue are the top three contenders in Chicago’s Architectural Disaster of Modern Times competition, hold your vote until you’ve seen the new and vastly unimproved Navy Pier. You’ll be amazed at what $200 million can’t buy.
What it obviously hasn’t bought is my personal vision of an urban paradise: a magnificent one-of-a-kind park in the lake defined by sublime gardens and enlivened by restaurants, shops and amusements housed in graceful pavilions.
Imagine the shock of awakening from my dream of Tivoli on the Lake to the nightmarish mix of McCormick Place, Midway Airport and Great America that is now Navy Pier.
The retail arcade is crude, and the general atmosphere smacks of theme-park hokiness, but these, sadly, are relatively minor problems.
Unbelievably, where there should be acres of park, there are acres of parking for more than 1,000 cars consuming most of the pier’s priceless water level. Banal airport terminal-like buildings line the pier’s spine from east to west, cruelly obstructing what should be enthralling views from the south dock to the north dock–and vice versa, thereby blunting the essential thrill of being engulfed by water.
Even the south dock’s waterfront promenade is left feeling rather uninspired, not too surprising given what it’s physically up against.
And the north dock’s relegation to little more than an auto access ramp is simply appalling.
Where do we get the gall to ridicule Los Angeles for its obsessive car culture? We should take a look at our own lakefront expressway and our lakefront neighborhood strip malls.
Then we should take a look at European cities like Paris and Amsterdam, where they’re banishing cars in droves. And didn’t McCormick Place teach us long ago that big, intrusive exhibition bunkers have no place on the lakefront?
At least the grand old ballroom and its splendid surrounding terrace still grace the pier’s east end, offering some much-appreciated consolation. This is, after all, the $200 million bitter end of a long sweet dream.
