One year from now, Chicago expects to find itself in a rare position for a lakefront city: It will have 91 prime, downtown acres along Lake Michigan to play with.
Under a deal struck four years ago by Mayor Richard Daley, Meigs Field is scheduled to close Feb. 10, 2002. And despite continuing pleas by some critics to leave the airport alone, Daley is moving ahead to turn Northerly Island into a park–a nod to Daniel Burnham, who dreamed up this island almost a century ago.
The question now is what to do with the park. Though the details, price tag and timing remain a matter for debate, the city and several parks advocacy groups are pressing for a natural philosophy: an Indiana Dunes-style nature area of prairie and woodland, lagoon and wetland. Birds, fish and frogs, not swing sets or tennis courts, get top billing in the plans.
“The real focus is on a natural area where people can go to get away from the more active recreational uses,” said David Doig, general superintendent of the Chicago Park District. “This is a chance to preserve what our lakefront was originally like and to promote birding, overnight camping, fishing.”
On Monday, the Lake Michigan Federation, a watchdog group, offered a specific proposal for the new park during a meeting with Park District officials. Though elements of their drawing differ some from plans the Park District already has under way, the federation’s overriding theme of preservation echoes the earlier ideas.
There’s a certain irony to the notion that Northerly Island could become the place for people to look back at what Chicago’s native land, grasses and animals looked like before so many people came along. After all, Northerly Island (which is actually a peninsula thanks to Solidarity Drive) is manmade.
In the early 1900s, as part of their historic plan for the city, Burnham and architect Edward Bennett envisioned a string of five park islands that would lace Lake Michigan’s edge. The first–and northernmost–island was built, but then the Depression set in, and plans for the rest fell by the wayside.
In the late 1940s, ground was broken for Meigs Field, as part of what was then a 50-year lease of Northerly Island for the airport. In 1997, after a public fight over the future of Meigs with then Gov. Jim Edgar, Daley agreed to grant Meigs five more years of life.
That reprieve ends in a year, at which time Daley fully intends to close the airport and build a park, his spokeswoman said Monday.
Despite the array of park plans on the drawing boards of local advocacy groups, Meigs supporters say they haven’t given up their fight. As recently as late last year, lawmakers in Springfield tried to extend the Meigs deadline as part of a battle over legislation for a new stadium inside Soldier Field.
“We are absolutely opposed to the closure, and we will do whatever we can to stop it,” said Steven G. Whitney, who leads Friends of Meigs Field, a group he said has bloomed from six people in 1995 to some 5,200 this year.
“If this is such a great idea–to have another park on the lake downtown–that can be done, but we could also keep the airport open,” he said. “At a time when airports around the country are facing gridlock, it seems irresponsible to talk about closing this.”
For now, though, at the Park District and among the city’s vocal park advocacy groups, park plans are moving forward.
Chicago Park District officials are “working off of” a $27 million plan for the park drawn up in 1997, Doig said Monday. That plan includes wetlands, lagoons, fish ponds, a “promenade” along the water and an expanded, handicapped-accessible beach at 12th Street. Programs planned for the park would try to bond educational elements of the three nearby museums with laser light shows, camping, snorkeling.
Other earlier notions for a glitzy-looking “galaxy slide,” an “ice cave” and “sound/wave playgrounds” for children appear less certain now, Doig said Monday.
The Lake Michigan Federation’s proposal calls for dunes, wetland marshes, suspended boardwalks for pedestrians to avoid harming plants or animals, restored prairie and woodland areas to create stopping points for migrating songbirds, and protected coves for fish. The group also wants to rename the area “Sanctuary Point.”
“This is going to attract a different type [of activity]–birding and kayaking,” said Cameron Davis, head of the federation. “It’s a prime spot, and what we’re saying is this: If ever there is going to be a place for sanctuary-based recreation in Chicago, this is it.”
Other park advocacy groups seemed generally pleased with the federation’s ideas.
“What we see here is a chance to take advantage of this dramatic location,” said Gerald W. Adelmann, executive director of the Openlands Project. “There are opportunities for active recreation close by in Grant Park. Here, you want to capitalize on the unique features and location. It’s pretty far from traffic, a place to find solitude.”
Eleanor Roemer, of Friends of the Parks, said the details of a final plan “can be looked at” in the months to come.
“For us, the main thing is that Northerly Island was designed and financed and built to be a park. The plans we’ve seen have this in common–using the island to promote an understanding of the sky, the land and the lake.”
Among remaining questions ahead for the city are the park’s cost and construction, which will begin at the same time work is going on at Soldier Field. The costs, though estimated at $27 million, could go higher depending on how hard it is to remove the airport and the condition of the seawall around the peninsula.
The work could take as long as seven years. “This isn’t going to be an instant park,” said Doig.
