The city is filled with monuments that most of us sadly, but for obvious reasons–oh, I’m in such a hurry to get to Starbucks–take for granted. How much, for instance, do you know about the famous totem pole that sits in Lincoln Park near Addison Street?
And what do you know about the strange rock piles that have sprouted just to the east, past the tennis courts and just to the south of the golf course known as the Sydney R. Marovitz course to bureaucrats, but is ever just Waveland to the rest of us?
The tallest of the piles, which looks like a pyramid made by monkeys, is composed of huge chunks of scarred limestone, some of which bear the initials of long-dead lovers, and others that carry the graffiti of now-forgotten mischief-makers.
These are rocks on which people once sunbathed and smooched, rocks which for decades fought a valiant fight to save the shoreline from the ravages of waves and wind and water.
Now they are being reduced to rubble. The smaller piles–look closely at Osgood’s photo–are what happens to the big blocks when they have been run through the crushing machine that is poking its head, like some man-made dinosaur, from the piles. Its purpose is to make the rocks progressively smaller, almost down to dust.
The piles have been here all summer, fenced off from what would be the dangerous attentions of King of the Hill players but plainly visible.
“What are those things all about?” a young golfer asked, seemingly more intrigued by Osgood and his camera than by the piles. “I’ve been seeing them for a couple of months but never thought to ask.”
“It’s a modern sculpture,” I said.
“Really?” he said.
No. The rocks were removed to allow for the construction of new barriers to save the lakefront. The Shoreline Protection Project is a collaborative effort of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the city and the Park District. It began last year, is scheduled for completion in 2005 and will cost $301 million. It involves this section between Belmont Avenue and Irving Park Road, as well as the areas between 51st and 53rd Streets, I-55 and 30th Street and between 33rd and 37th Streets.
The lake’s a ferocious foe. The limestone rocks were part of protective walls installed in 1931. Their duty done, they sit here awaiting the crushing machine. They fought the battle, these unknown soldiers, and this is their burial ground.
