Promontory Point (Chicago)

Last updated

Promontory Point
Promontory Point from south.jpg
South side of Point, 2005
20220919 Promontory Point from Regents Park.jpg
from Regents Park, 2022
20060528 Promontory Point Building.JPG
Promontory Point Field House, 2006
Promontory Point Northerly View.JPG
Northerly view, 2006

Promontory Point (known locally as The Point) is a man-made peninsula jutting into Lake Michigan. It is located in Chicago's Burnham Park. The Point was constructed from landfill and by the late 1930s was protected by a seawall or revetment. The revetment was designed and constructed by Chicago Park District engineers and consists of limestone blocks arranged in a series of four steps leading to a promenade.

Contents

The site was designated as a Chicago Landmark on April 19, 2023. [1]

Background

Located on Chicago Park District land at 55th Street in Chicago's south side Hyde Park neighborhood, it was opened to the public in 1937. Alfred Caldwell, a disciple of Jens Jensen, [2] designed the landscaping, following the Prairie School which uses native plants and stone. Caldwell's design featured a raised "meadow" section in the center of the 12-acre (49,000 m2) peninsula and included hundreds of flowering trees and shrubs. In 1938, Caldwell created stone sitting rings - called "council rings" - around the lakefront edge, which today are used as fire pits. Few of Caldwell's original plantings remain today.

The park is accessed by the Lakefront Trail, and a tunnel which passes under Lake Shore Drive at the east end of 55th Street. At the head of the park, seen immediately upon emerging from the 55th Street tunnel, is the David Wallach Memorial Fountain. This fountain was designed in 1939 by Elizabeth and Frederick Hibbard in the shape of a fawn, with drinking areas at human and animal levels. [3] During the Cold War the park also housed a 150-foot (46 m) radar tower for the Nike Hercules missile defense system; it was dismantled in 1971.

The park contains a field house, built in 1937, the exterior of which is made of Lannon stone from Wisconsin. Partly because of its view of the lake and cityscape, it is a popular wedding and corporate event location. It competes with the much larger Jackson Park 63rd Street Beach House and the even larger South Shore Cultural Center as south side beachfront special use facilities. The frequent summer fireworks displays at Navy Pier are often viewed from The Point, especially on Independence Day, when large numbers of Hyde Parkers and other south side residents gather there. It neighbors the Museum of Science and Industry and the 57th Street Beach.

Water access is an important aspect of the Point's history of use. Swimmers, sunbathers, kayakers, and windsurfers use the Point's revetment to access the waters of Lake Michigan. People have been swimming off of the limestone revetment at Promontory Point since it was built, in 1937. In the summer months, the North side of the Point functions as a "rock beach." The water is shallow and the lake bottom is sand, making the North side a family friendly swimming area. On both sides of the Point, open water swimmers enter the water off the rocks and swim across the bays. Both North and South side swimming areas are marked with "Swimming Area" buoys in the summer months. In the past, open water, or distance, swimming was a source of conflict with the Chicago Park District as the legality of swimming off the Point is ambiguous. From time to time, swimmers were ticketed. Recently, however, the Chicago Park District created an officially sanctioned open water swimming area off the South side of the Point. All motorized boat traffic is prohibited inside the buoyed areas.

Events

Though open-water swimming continues year-round for the brave and hearty, there are spring and fall swimming events, held on weekends near the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox to celebrate the tradition and community of swimmers at the Point.

The Spring Swim Around the Rocks is held each year on the Sunday following the summer solstice. The Fall Swim Around the Rocks is held each year on the Sunday preceding the autumnal equinox. These events are open and no registration is required. Spectators watch from the shore while swimmers enter the water at the South side ladders and swim around to the north side shallows, completely circumnavigating the Point. The route then reverses back to the ladders (some swimmers complete a half-course).

Revetment

Map of Promontory Point in Chicago Promontory Point Map.PNG
Map of Promontory Point in Chicago

Much of Chicago's lakefront was landfill. To protect this lakefront park land, a seawall or revetment was built by the Chicago Park District in the 1930s. This revetment consists of limestone blocks (with an average weight 2 to 4 tons) arranged in a series of “steps” leading down to the lake. These blocks are supported by a crib structure made from wooden timbers that encloses crushed rock. At the outer edge of the revetment, a series of wooden pilings, held together by a steel rail, keep the limestone blocks from tumbling into the lake.

At the Point, the revetment features four steps leading down to a 16-foot (4.9 m) wide promenade. The revetment at the Point is exposed to severe wave action and had partially failed by the early 1960s. A 1,000-foot (300 m) section of the revetment (out of approximately a 6,000-foot (1,800 m) total length) at the Northeast tip of the Point was repaired by removing the limestone blocks that form the promenade and pouring a pad of 3 feet (0.91 m) of concrete over the badly eroded crib structure. This repair stands today.

By the 1980s, the City and the CPD began a project to repair the revetment along almost all of the city's lakefront. Federal funds were sought from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a project study was begun. The conclusion of the study, published in the 1993, was that different areas of the revetment needed different treatments. At Promontory Point, a historic preservation treatment was agreed to and signed into public contract, and into law when the Congress approved the project, in a memorandum of agreement. This document states that “the Corps shall consult with the SHPO (state historic preservation officer), the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District to ensure that the design and construction of the revetment will match the existing in accordance with the recommendations of the Secretary of the Interior's ‘Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic Preservation’."

As the project moved forward and was finally funded, the ACOE, the City and the CPD changed the design at Promontory Point. The new plan called for the demolition of the historic revetment, and replacement by a monolithic concrete seawall.

In January 2001, the City and CPD held a community meeting to announce their plans for the Point revetment. This started a controversy that has not yet been resolved.

Controversy

The January 2001 meeting was attended by about 150 users of the Point and members of the Hyde Park community. Residents reacted very negatively to the City/CPD proposal to replace the revetment with a concrete and steel structure. Some felt that the revetment was not really in need of repair and should be left intact. Others felt that the City/CPD plan denied water access so vital to Point Users. Many felt that limestone was a more aesthetically pleasing material and should be used. The proposal clearly violated the Memorandum of Agreement signed by the City and the ACOE in 1983, which promised the preservation of the historic limestone revetment - a structure which the Chicago Park District itself nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. At the end of this meeting, Alderman Leslie Hairston (5th) announced that she would form a working group of community members to meet with the City in an attempt to change the plan.

In the months that followed, this volunteer group, which Alderman Hairston called The Community Task Force for Promontory Point met and elected officers, called the executive committee. This Executive Committee met privately with the CPD, the city, and the ACOE. The result of these meetings was that the executive committee agreed to nine largely symbolic concessions that modified the CPD's new proposal. Included in these nine points were limited water access, limitations on the height and width of the concrete revetment, and a staged construction plan that would keep some part of the Point open for use during the two-year construction. The plan still mandated the destruction of the historic limestone revetment, to be replaced with a uniform concrete seawall. When the executive committee presented their agreement to the Community Task Force, it was rejected and the Task Force voted to not ratify the agreement. In protest against the executive committee operating without consultation with the Task Force members, the Task Force then immediately elected four new members of the executive committee. The original executive committee members then quit the group in protest. The nine-point agreement was rejected by the Task Force as without substantial compromise.

Following the departure of the four original Executive Committee members, the Task Force became more open and democratic, the membership grew, and the Task Force gained real leverage with the CPD.

Over the next several years, the Task Force worked with the city, the CPD, and the ACOE to preserve the limestone revetment, maintain access to the water, and perform restoration work, to include the thoughtful addition of access features (stairs and ramps). The effort was aided by Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. and then-Senator Barack Obama. The current status of the effort is that all parties agreed to a new ACOE study on the preservation of the Point, to be performed under the direction of the Army Corps office of historic preservation.

The Task Force used may activities to engage as much of the community of Promontory Point park users as possible. They promoted the effort with newsletters, letters in newspapers, meetings, presentations, T-shirts, and bumper stickers, to name a few. Bumper stickers can be seen on many vehicles (including automobiles, bikes and skateboards) in the city reading "Save the Point."

Save the point bumper sticker 20060703 Save the Point Bumper Sticker on Bike.JPG
Save the point bumper sticker
Another example of a save the point bumper sticker 20060703 Save the Point Bumper Sticker on Car (no plate-).JPG
Another example of a save the point bumper sticker

According to an August 2006 statement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in response to issues raised most recently in a March 2006 meeting of the Corps, the City of Chicago, the Community Task Force, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, Preservation Chicago, the Hyde Park Historical Society, the Office of U. S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. and the Office of U. S. Senator Barack Obama, preservation work will adhere to the following concerns of those in attendance and those of the Chicago Park District Lakefront Construction Director: [4]

Promontory Point has been named by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois to the 2004 List of 10 Most Endangered Historic Places In Illinois after being named to their 2002-3 Chicagoland Watch List. As of November 2006, they list it as still threatened. [5] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Michigan</span> One of the Great Lakes of North America

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the 3+1⁄2-mile (5.6-kilometer) wide, 295-foot deep Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; the two are geologically a single lake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Bird Lake</span> Reservoir in Austin, Texas, United States

Lady Bird Lake is a river-like reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas, United States. The City of Austin created the reservoir in 1960 as a cooling pond for a new city power plant. The lake, which has a surface area of 416 acres (168 ha), is now used primarily for recreation and flood control. The reservoir is named in honor of former First Lady of the United States Lady Bird Johnson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Shore Drive</span> Lake-side expressway in Chicago, Illinois, United States

Lake Shore Drive is an expressway that runs alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan, and adjacent to parkland and beaches, in Chicago. Except for the portion north of Foster Avenue, Lake Shore Drive is designated as part of U.S. Highway 41. A portion of the expressway on the Outer Drive Bridge and its bridge approaches is multilevel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackson Park (Chicago)</span> Public park in Chicago, Illinois

Jackson Park is a 551.5-acre (223.2 ha) park located on the South Side of Chicago. The park was designed in 1871 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, then greatly remodeled in 1893 to serve as the site of the World's Columbian Exposition, making it one of the largest and most historically significant parks in the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lincoln Park</span> Public park in Chicago, Illinois

Lincoln Park is a 1,208-acre (489-hectare) park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue, on the south, to near Ardmore Avenue on the north, just north of the DuSable Lake Shore Drive terminus at Hollywood Avenue. Two museums and a zoo are located in the oldest part of the park between North Avenue and Diversey Parkway in the eponymous neighborhood. Further to the north, the park is characterized by parkland, beaches, recreational areas, nature reserves, and harbors. To the south, there is a more narrow strip of beaches east of Lake Shore Drive, almost to downtown. With 20 million visitors per year, Lincoln Park is the second-most-visited city park in the United States, behind Central Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revetment</span> Structures designed to absorb energy

A revetment in stream restoration, river engineering or coastal engineering is a facing of impact-resistant material applied to a bank or wall in order to absorb the energy of incoming water and protect it from erosion. River or coastal revetments are usually built to preserve the existing uses of the shoreline and to protect the slope.

Sanford Lake was a man-made reservoir located in Midland County, Michigan, but is no longer present since the failure of the dam in May 2020. It was formed by the damming of the Tittabawassee River near the village of Sanford, Michigan. It was built for flood control and the production of hydroelectric power. The dam is owned and operated by the Four Lakes Task Force, a property owners' group that was established by the Midland and Gladwin County boards of commissioners to oversee the dams and the impoundment lakes created by them, who took over ownership as a condition of the settlement agreement that resulted from the condemnation proceedings with former dam owner, Boyce Hydro, LLC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicago Park District</span>

The Chicago Park District is one of the oldest and the largest park districts in the United States. As of 2016, there are over 600 parks included in the Chicago Park District as well as 27 beaches, 10 boat docking harbors, two botanic conservatories, a zoo, and 11 museums, along with one stadium. The Chicago Park District also has more than over 230 field houses, 78 public pools, and dozens of sports and recreational facilities, with year-round programming. It also owns and operates the lakefront stadium, Soldier Field, which the Chicago Bears and Chicago Fire FC lease. The district is an independent taxing authority as defined by Illinois State Statute and is considered a separate agency of the City of Chicago. The district's headquarters are located in the Brighton Park neighborhood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tidal Basin</span> Reservoir in Washington, D.C.

The Tidal Basin is a man-made reservoir located between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel in Washington, D.C. The Basin is part of West Potomac Park, is near the National Mall and is a focal point of the National Cherry Blossom Festival held each spring. The nearby Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial overlook the Basin, which is south of the Washington Monument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deep Eddy Pool</span> Historic public pool in Austin, Texas

Deep Eddy Pool is a historic man-made swimming pool in Austin, Texas. Deep Eddy is the oldest swimming pool in Texas and features a bathhouse built during the Depression era by the Works Progress Administration. The pool began as a swimming hole in the Colorado River, became a resort in the 1920s, and is today a popular swimming pool operated by the City of Austin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Shore Cultural Center</span> United States historic place

The South Shore Cultural Center, in Chicago, Illinois, is a cultural facility located at 71st Street and South Shore Drive, in the city's South Shore neighborhood. It encompasses the grounds of the former South Shore Country Club.

Beach evolution occurs at the shoreline where sea, lake or river water is eroding the land. Beaches exist where sand accumulated from centuries-old, recurrent processes that erode rocky and sedimentary material into sand deposits. River deltas deposit silt from upriver, accreting at the river's outlet to extend lake or ocean shorelines. Catastrophic events such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and storm surges accelerate beach erosion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burnham Park (Chicago)</span> Urban park

Burnham Park is a public park located in Chicago, Illinois. Situated along 6 miles (9.7 km) of Lake Michigan shoreline, the park connects Grant Park at 14th Street to Jackson Park at 56th Street. The 598 acres (242 ha) of parkland is owned and managed by the Chicago Park District. It was named for urban planner and architect Daniel Burnham in 1927. Burnham was one of the designers of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago, Illinois, operated by the Illinois International Port District. It is a multimodal facility featuring Senator Dan Dougherty Harbor, the Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminus, and Harborside International Golf Center. The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hotel Aurora (Aurora, Illinois)</span> United States historic place

The Hotel Aurora, also known as Aurora Hotel, is a hotel built in 1917 on Stolp Island in Aurora, Illinois, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Revetment (aircraft)</span> Parking space for aircraft, separated by blast walls

A revetment, in military aviation, is a parking area for one or more aircraft that is surrounded by blast walls on three sides. These walls are as much about protecting neighbouring aircraft as it is to protect the aircraft within the revetment; if a combat aircraft fully loaded with fuel and munitions was to somehow ignite, by accident or design, then this risks starting a chain reaction as the destruction of an individual aircraft could easily set ablaze its neighbours. The blast walls around a revetment are designed to channel any blast and damage upwards and outwards, away from neighbouring aircraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lacey-Keosauqua State Park</span> State park in Iowa

Lacey-Keosauqua State Park is located southwest of Keosauqua, Iowa, United States. The park is located along the Des Moines River in Van Buren County. First dedicated in 1921, it is the largest state park in size in Iowa. In 1990, three areas were named nationally recognized historic districts and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dynamic revetment</span> Cobble-based coastal protection

Dynamic revetments, also known as "cobble berms" or "dynamic cobble berm revetments", use gravel or cobble-sized rocks to mimic a natural cobble storm beach for the purpose of reducing wave energy and stopping or slowing coastal erosion. Unlike seawalls, dynamic revetment is designed to allow wave action to rearrange the stones into an equilibrium profile, disrupting wave action and dissipating wave energy as the cobbles move. This can reduce the wave reflection which often contributes to beach scouring.

Preservation Chicago is a historic preservation advocacy group in Chicago, Illinois, which formally commenced operations on October 23, 2001. The organization was formed by a group of Chicagoans who had assembled the previous year to save a group of buildings which included Coe Mansion, which had once housed Ranalli's pizzeria and The Red Carpet, a French restaurant that had been frequented by Jack Benny and Elizabeth Taylor. Other preservation campaigns that were instrumental in the founding of Preservation Chicago included St. Boniface Church, the Scherer Building, and the New York Life Insurance Building.

References

  1. ↑ "Promontory Point Is Now A Chicago Landmark, A Major Victory For Activists Who Fought For Decades". Blockclub. April 19, 2023. Archived from the original on April 19, 2023. Retrieved April 19, 2023.
  2. ↑ Hueber, Jeff (2001). Chicago Parks Rediscovered. Jannes Art Press, Inc. p. 85. ISBN   0-912223-02-2..
  3. ↑ Ossewaarde, Gary. Promontory Point Park and Promontory Annex in Burnham Park, Chicago, Illinois.
  4. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved August 20, 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on December 26, 2013. Retrieved December 26, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

41°47′45″N87°34′37″W / 41.79583°N 87.57694°W / 41.79583; -87.57694

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.