Slice of Life: Living Off The Land

A group of people sift through the leaves underneath a tree in a Chicago public park.  There are probably lots of things you can eat in the city's parks.  In New York, the city actually had tours that show you all the edible things in Central Park.  I don't know if there's a similar tour available in Chicago.



I also don't know what kind of nuts or fruits or berries they were gathering.  They didn't speak any English.  Here's a picture of the tree's fruit.  If you know what it is, post it in the comments section of this page, or in our Chicago discussion forum.

Slice of Life: Icy Anticipation

The skating rink at Midway Plaisance Park awaits the first skaters of the season.  This picture was taken about an hour before it opened for the season, which was long before snow fell on Chicago.  On the left is a young priest discussing skating techniques with a city worker.

Slice of Life: Peaceful Night

A peaceful night in Erie Park (630 North Kingsbury Street -- officially called Park 511), along the banks of the North Branch of the Chicago River.

Slice of Life: Kinzie Park

Talk about an amazing transformation.  This is a picture of Kinzie Park, taken in August of this year.  Bikini-clad women stretch in the sun on undulating hills of grass.

I have a picture of this exact place taken almost exactly two years earlier.  It shows a flat, vacant lot where weeks battle tires for attention on a parched concrete griddle.

The developers of the awkwardly-named K Station project deserve a big round of applause for bringing this little oasis of green to what was an ugly scar on the cityscape not too long ago.

Park District to Burn Lincoln Park

Bad things happen in nature.  The cute and fuzzy are eaten by the ugly and toothy.  Sometimes the cutest penguin gets left behind.  And every once in a while Mother Nature sets things on fire.

The Chicago Park District has worked hard to restore patches of the city's parks to what they used to be -- Illinois prairie.  In the hum and thrush of summer they are fascinating places to sit and watch nature at work.  But as poet Bonnie Eldred noted, "Mother Nature is a bitch."

In the natural world she occasionally takes our her frustration on the prairie in the form of a prairie fire.  It's frightening and chaotic when it's happening, but in the long run it is cleansing and cathartic for the ecosystem.  And in the District's quest to really go the extra mile in simulating a natural environment in downtown Chicago, something's gotta burn.

Those things are the recreated prairies along the edge of Lincoln Park's north pond.  The exact date for this year's burn hasn't been set, but it's expected to happen before the end of the year depending on weather conditions.

Though I love the smell of a good wood fire, I don't know what a prairie fire smells like.  I don't think the neighbors are going to be too happy with it.  But the Park Department does have an entire web page about why burning is a good thing.  You can read it here: http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/custom.natureOasis01 Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated in seven years.

Here's the summary about this year's burn from the public notice:

The Chicago Park District uses controlled burn management to help maintain native plant communities.  A controlled burn is the use of fire as a management tool in a carefully planned and controlled manner.  Controlled burn management is an efficient and economical tool that reduces the amount of pesticides that otherwise may be needed to control invasive plants. Fire helps promote species diversity by controlling invasive woody shrubs and trees.  Without fire, natural areas often become thickets of shrubs or weeds with little diversity.  Fire burns off dead vegetation and stimulates new plant growth by allowing sunlight to warm the dark soil, encouraging germination. Fire also enriches the soil by returning nutrients back to the soil.

Research shows that fire is a natural part of native Illinois ecosystems.  These landscapes need to be burned periodically in order to stay healthy and to provide habitat for native plants and animals.

All persons who conduct controlled burns are specially trained, equipped, and supervised. The fire department has been notified and all permits have been obtained to do this work.

So, Lincoln Park is officially on burn notice.  

Audience Mostly Underwhelmed by Northerly Island Plans

Last week a meeting was held in the Loop at the Spertus Institute (610 South Michigan Avenue) to talk about the future of Northerly Island.  As community meetings go, this one was unusually heavily promoted, even receiving publicity on the local radio and television stations.  WBBM-TV sent a photographer.  About 400 local people also showed up and what they saw they didn't seem happy with.

What they saw is termed the "Northerly Island Framework Plan" -- a joint project of the Chicago Park District, JJR, Studio Gang, AES, AREA, Fish Transportation Group and Studio V. The audience listened as the Park District's Gia Biagi, Second ward alderman Bob Fioretti, and others talked about Northerly Island's past and present.

The history of Northerly Island and the midnight raid on the old Meigs airport are well documented.  Since then, the Chicago Park District has been busy.

• The runway has been removed
• 400 new trees have been planted
• 35 acres of prairie have been planted
• 35 acres of open lawn have been planted
• 9,000 linear feet of new pathways have been built
• The old terminal building has been turned into a field house

And of course, there are the concerts at Charter One Pavilion.  Those net the Park District $1 million a year.

There have been a number of ideas for Northerly Island collected from the public over the years.  Boxes and boxes of them, according to the presenters.  Those suggestions have been filtered down into five basic themes:

• Change the lake-facing shoreline 
• Change the harbor-facing shoreline
• Hack the island into several smaller islands, or add more small islands
• Add ponds to the island
• Replace the bridge from the World's Fair that once connected the middle of the island to the mainland.

Of course, with any modern park there are environmental concerns.  But more importantly, what was heard loud and clear is that people don't want another Millennium Park -- Disneyfied and overrun by tourists.  What the people who live in the area clamored for is an oasis of peace and calm in the city, but one that also has activities year round.

Four plans were presented at the event, each shaped by concerns like creating natural habitat, maximizing views, and utilizing existing infrastructure (transportation, utilities, etc…).  of the four, only one got much chatter -- the one called "Chicago."

In this plan, the word "Chicago" in all lower case script is carved into the shoreline, visible from the air and presumably passengers in jets leaving O'Hare headed east.  It is the most interesting plan of the four, though all four seemed to be just variations on a single theme.

The Chicago plan envisions using beaches, dunes, grass, and even an extra picnic island to spell out the letters along the shoreline.  There would also be a lift bridge connecting the island to the mainland, a fishing point, a simulated river estuary, a duck pond, tidal pools, a fish cove, a deep water swimming area, an art island, a nature center, a kayak venue, and even a power plant converting biomass into energy.

Yes, it's gimmicky, but by comparison the other ideas were so banal and predictable that this seems like genius by comparison.  It certainly would create a landmark that would garner worldwide attention, though a few saw that as a bad thing.  They said it seemed "tacky" and inspired by the Palm development in Dubai, rather than an original Chicago idea.

Another proposal is called "Clocks."  It also features fish ponds, a pebble beach, a rugged coast, a harbor walk, canoe and kayak center, and a pier bridge.  The idea is that the island would be constructed and planted so that different parts of it would be "activated" at different times of the year.  You could tell what time of the year it is based on where the activity was happening and what the plants were doing.

There is also a "Reef" proposal.  It features five different aquatic experiences.  Essentially, Northerly Island would be broken into a series of smaller islands with coves, marshes, duck ponds, a river habitat, and the kayak center that popped up in every one of the plans.

The final one is called "Viewfinder" and was intended to maximize views of the Chicago skyline.  Its natural elements include a rubble beach, a few pocket beaches, wetlands, and a lazy river loop.  There wold also be a Great Lakes educational center, a fishing pier, and elevated portions to really encourage people to look back upon Chicago's proud skyline.

Now, all these proposals are only that -- proposals.  The audience was told that these are only starting points, and much more input would be gathered from them and others before a final vision is settled upon.  In fact, after the presentations the audience was broken into color-coded groups and sent to work at tables placing green and red stickers on things they liked and disliked.  They were expected to sit at the tables and work on these projects and then move to the tables as a group until they managed to circle the room.

Because the people in attendance were adults and not children about half of them headed to the elevators instead.  I really didn't want to criticize the organization of this meeting, but it was really poorly done.  From the very beginning, people who arrived more than ten minutes ahead of the announced starting time had to wait in the lobby of the building because the high-tech elevators weren't programmed to go to the meeting room floors after hours.  It was a bad sign.  Once people were finally allowed upstairs it wasn't much better.  Four hundred people were asked to sign in at two tables, write their names on name tags (I used a fake name), and then jostle for position viewing a series of posters that were arranged around the room in no apparent order, with no context given to each other displays, and in some cases displays that were on the floor.

The name tags should have been the second indication that something was wrong, and it only got worse as newly minted starchitect Jeanne Gang failed to show up and appeared only via low-quality heavily-edited video.

You cannot call an event where half the audience leaves in the middle a success.  But at least it served its main purpose -- to give people an idea of where Northerly Island stands and where it is  going.  The proposals have made people think more about the future of the lakefront and hopefully those thoughts will be translated into action.

How representative the feedback the organizers got can be debated.  To only just begin the feedback process at 8:30pm on a weeknight and to try to gather it in a fashion reminiscent of a summer camp arts and crafts class is going to limit who you're going to hear from.  To be blunt, the best and brightest have other things to do and headed for the doors.  Perhaps if the event started on time a question and answer session would have keep them around.  Or perhaps they could have been given an e-mail address where they could submit their ideas after they've had a few hours or days to mull things over.

Organizational problems aside, it's good to see something happening with Northerly Island.  It is one of the most valuable raw resources the city has and what becomes of it affects all of us.  Hopefully the feedback provided by those who did stay will help move things in a more focused direction, and we won't have to wait 20 years for results.  Northerly Island shouldn't become "Block 37 By The Sea."

Another Patch of Green in Streeterville

Another small oasis of green has opened in Streeterville.  This is in the plaza between the neighborhood's two newest residential skyscrapers -- The Streeter (345 East Ohio Street), and Streeter Place (355 East Ohio Street).

There's not all that much to it, just a path, a patch of prairie, and some places to sit.  But the plantings have been designed cleverly so that they're arranged to continue the architectural patterns laid out by the architects in stone.

Video: Unusual Chicago Parks

WTTW's Geoffrey Baer did another installment of his "Hidden Chicago" series on channel 11 recently.  This one is about some of the city's more unusual parks.

What to do About Northerly Island?

Most Chicagoans have finished laughing, crying, or both, about what happened at Northerly Island that dark night in 2003 when Meigs Field (CGX) was turned into a meadow.

What's left of the old CGX runway

If you've visited the place lately, you've seen that in spite of claims that it's now a bird sanctuary, the land is clearly available for development.  Soon we will get a chance to see what kind of development that might be.

November 10, 2009  at 6:00pm there will be a public meeting at the Spertus Institute (610 South Michigan Avenue) where architects and design firms will present their ideas for what to do with the artificial island off the coast of Grant Park.

Downtown Chicago from Northerly Island

We haven't heard anything about the proposals, but they're all expected to be along the lines of parkland preservation.  Whether that means quiet formal gardens or a Millennium Park-style Disneyscape is hard to say.  But now that city aldermen are talking openly about the possibility of putting a casino at Block 37 (108 North State Street), we can cross that off our list of conspiracy theories.

Flying Into the Past

I'm not much on the 1960's and 1970's design aesthetic.  Perhaps I'm just too young to appreciate the sleek lines and curves that were once considered so daring and provocative.  Some people call it "Jet Age."  Some call it "Googie."  Some like to argue about the boundaries of such descriptions.  For those sorts of people, they should hop on a 146 bus and visit the old Meigs Field (1400 South Lynn White Drive).

Today, of course, CGX called Northerly Island and is mostly a park, a meadow, and a bird sanctuary that for some reason doesn't seem to attract as many birds as you might think it would.  The old Meigs terminal and control tower are still there.  The control tower has been taken over for storage by the Park Department.  The terminal, however, is open to the public as one of the city's park fieldhouses.

There's not much going on inside, but there are restrooms and meeting rooms, and activity spaces.  But most importantly, you can still get a sense of what the place was like when it was humming with activity and imagine the buzz of propeller planes landing just outside.

It is a remarkable structure that I hope the city continues to preserve.  And with its proximity to the Museum Campus, maybe some of the unused space could be converted into a Midwest aviation museum.

What the City Wants and Doesn't Want in a Burnham Memorial

The competition to design a new memorial to Daniel Burnham marking the 100th anniversary of his plan for Chicago has been described as difficult.

A field of 20 architecture and design firms has been whittled down to three finalists and the winner will be announced June 19th.

The Burnham Park Memorial Committee had some very specific requirements of the firms that were invited to the competition, and we're told that each came up with a very different solution.

For the purposes of giving the firms some design constraints to work with, they were told that the memorial would be located on the north side of the Field Museum, and that the budget for the project was five million dollars.

That's the same amount that was spent on the peristyle at the northwest corner of Millennium Park, which is officially known as the Millennium Monument.

Though official fundraising hasn't begun, several entities are already doing what they can to support the effort.  Among them, the Talbott Hotel, the Graham Foundation, and American Airlines.

Richard Driehaus, the man who recently turned a Near North mansion into a museum, has pledged $250,000 for the effort.  That's a personal pledge from him -- not from a company, foundation, or organization.  Not many people are that generous these days.

The 20 firms in the competition were encouraged, but not required, to include the following:

• A sculpture of Daniel Burnham.
  
• Narrative elements to make it a teaching facility and not just another statue out standing in its field.
  
• A donor wall to permanently thank those who made it possible
  
• A water feature
• Dramatic lighting elements
• A seating area within the memorial.
• A viewing area outside the memorial.

For inspiration, the entrants were pointed to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Memorial in Washingotn, DC.  Some of its elements:

In addition to the requirements from the Memorial Committee, the contestants are up against Mayor Daley's order not to mess with the view of the Chicago skyline from the Museum Campus.  Unlike everything else from the committee, the Mayor's orders are orders, not suggestions.  It's for that reason that we hear that of the three finalists currently being considered, none of them have much in the way of verticality.  All are pretty low and integrated into the terrain.

We'll keep you updated on what happens, and keep an eye on our Twitter feed on June 19th for the announcement of the winner.

Finding a Home for Daniel Burnham

Any large project undertaken in a major metropolitan area is going to be fraught with controversy.  It's just the nature of the game.

The current game being played is "Where's Burnham" -- an exercise is finding the perfect, or rather least imperfect, location for the new Daniel Brunham Memorial.

A number of locations have been proposed and rejected for one reason or another, but officially at least, none has been chosen.


View Larger Map

One location under consideration by the organizers of the Burnham competition is in a field in Grant Park south of the sitting Lincoln statue (see map above).  Officially, the name of this area is President's Court.  It has the advantages of being somewhat centrally located in Grant Park, and in an area with a fairly low density of other monuments.

But the Chicago Park District doesn't like that location for a Burnham Monument.  Can you guess why? 

Don't tell anyone, but it's being "held" in reserve for a future Barack Obama monument.  Barack Obama's statue would stare north across Congress Parkway at the existing Abraham Lincoln monument. Get the symbolism?  At this point, unless Barack Obama sets off a nuke in the White House, he's pretty much socially guaranteed a place in Grant Park.

View Larger Map

Another area being looked at is the northern part of Grant Park (see map above).  There are already plans underway to rehab the entire area, providing better links to the lakefront, rehabbing the leaking parking garages underneath all of the pretty gardens, and to make the entire area a little more cohesive.

But organizers feel the zone has been tainted by the Children's Museum controversy and won't touch it with a ten foot pole for fear of being sucked into that mess.

View Larger Map

Also on the list -- the Congress Parkway median between Michigan Avenue and Buckingham Fountain (again, see the map). This location has great promise because it features some of Burnham's greatest design work and is at the epicenter of his vision for the city.

But some feel the space is too constricted and hard for visitors to get to.  Congress Parkway is still a very busy thoroughfare in this area, especially during rush hours.  It might necessitate a bridge to get people there, like the one now linking the Lurie Garden with the Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing.  That won't work.  Vertical elements are very heavily frowned upon by those judging the competition.

View Larger Map

That leaves one other place under consideration:  The forecourt of the Field Museum (map).   

Until the recent realignment of Lake Shore Drive, this area was tiered surface parking lots.  The Chicago Park District has since transformed it into a grassy oasis giving people driving down the Drive a dramatic view of the Field Museum, and giving people on the north side of the Field Museum a dramatic view of the Chicago skyline.

That's one reason the Park District likes this location -- it has a goal of drawing more visitors into the area immediately north of the museum.  It's seen as an underutilized area.  The hope is that the Burnham Monument would help organize the area and people would use the additional walkways instead of blazing their own goat paths across the grass.

Also backing this location are officials with the Museum Campus who see a Burnham monument in their backyard as part of the campus' continuing mission as an educational institution.

The area just north of the Field Museum is officially known as Burnham Park, and a statue in the proposed zone could conceivably gaze out over its namesake park, across the city Burnham designed, with the Field Museum (another Burnham design) at his back.

How firm is this location for the Burnham Memorial?  It depends who you ask.

While it is true that this location was given to the 20 firms that entered the Burnham contest as a location, the official word from contest organizers is that it's not set in stone.  It was given to the contestants as an example of an ideal location, so that they would have something to design against.

Others don't see it that way.  People who live nearby believe the North Field location is a fait accompli, and is being shoved down Chicago's throat with no input from the public.

Organizers have promised that the public will have a chance to give its input on the location at meetings to be held after June 19th.  But that's not soon enough for some.

They criticize the location as being impractical in winter.  They claim that it would only be used seasonally because of its proximity to the lake.  But others who actually live nearby say winter is no obstacle for thousands of people who use the area year-round right now.

And then there are those who believe any location in grant Park is a bad one.  They feel that there is already enough "furniture" in Grant Park, and that spaces that were once natural oases are being overrun by man-made accoutrements.  There is something to be said for this view.  Though many look to Millennium Park as a great success in terms of urban park planning, others see it a similar application elsewhere in Grant Park as the worst possible outcome -- turning green spaces into low maintenance pseudo amusement parks.

• Coming up tomorrow: What the city does and doesn't want in a Burnham memorial.

Picking an Homage to Daniel Burnham

As you read this, a distinguished panel of architects, urban planners, and other city insiders is deciding what is the appropriate way to honor the only man in history to have more impact on the shape of Chicago than either Mayors Daley.

His name is Daniel Burnham, and whether you see the city today as the fruit of his loom, or as a botched attempt at half-greatness, it is undeniable that he, quite literally, laid the blueprints for today's Chicago -- and for many other cities, including Washington, DC; Cleveland; San Francisco; and Manila in the Philippines.

Last Friday a field of 20 local and international architecture firms narrowed down to three finalists presented their ideas for a grand monument honoring Burnham to a committee at a very closed-door meeting deep inside the Chicago Cultural Center.

The three finalists are:

• David Woodhouse Architects of Chicago
  
• Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects of Chicago
  
• Sasaki Associates of Boston
  

The original field of 20 architecture firms invited to enter the Burnham Memorial competition was heavily criticized for including only 15 Chicago firms.  But two-thirds of the finalists are locals.  Also interesting is that local starchitecture firm SOM didn't make the grade.

The process has also come under fire for not yet including the public.  That is to come, organizers note.  They defend the process thus far by saying that contest rules laid out by the American Institute of Architects are being followed.  But that wasn't enough for people at an informational meeting in Grant Park last week.

Members of the audience felt like they were being asked to approve a plan and a location that they haven't yet seen.  The presenters promised that everything will become clear as soon as a winning design is chosen.

That decision will be announced June 19, 2009.  Until then, everything is very hush-hush.

The organizers of the competition feel that the firms competing can do their best work if left to their own devices and not subject to public scrutiny at such an early stage.  There were particularly harsh words for Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, who has been an early critic of locating the Burnham Monument at the southern end of Grant Park near the Field Museum and of the process, itself.  Organizers think Kamin's criticism is premature and he should wait to see the actual results before he lobs stones from the Trubine's bully pulpit.

So, what do the firms who enter this contest get?  The winner gets $25,000.  The runner up gets $10,000, and third place $5,000.

In an ideal world, public meetings to gather input on the finalist's design will be held this summer, after the June 19th unveiling.  Fundraising for the monument would happen shortly after that, and the organizers hope to be able to start moving dirt in 2010.

All we know so far about the designs comes from Ed Uhlir -- the same guy who honchoed Millennium Park -- who said, "Each one is extremely different."  Feedback from the 20 firms that were invited to the competition ran along the lines of this being a very challenging project.  Put bluntly, "this was very hard."

Once the final design is chosen, there will be public exhibitions showcasing all of the entries.  The first one will be held at the Field Museum, then the show will go on the road, possibly to various schools and community centers across the city.

• Coming up tomorrow:  The controversy surrounding the location of the Burnham Memorial.
  
• Wednesday: What the city does and doesn't want in a Burnham Memorial.
  

Hidden Green: D'Angelo Park

For years we'd heard there was a pocket park near Sears Tower, but never came across it until recently.

D'Angelo Park is surrounded by freeway onramps, high bushes, and a tour bus staging area.  A plaque in the park reads:

OSCAR O. D'ANGELO PARK

This park is dedicated to lifelong near west side (Little Italy) resident Oscar O. D'Angelo for unselfish commitment, leadership and vision in the renaissance of his neighborhood, his city, and its parks.

RICHARD M. DALEY, Mayor.

October 24, 1990

Art learnin' - Not book learnin'

A beautiful summer day at the newly re-greened Seneca Park. Because of its shady location grass has a hard time growing here. That's why there is a fence around the grass and signs reading, "Newly seeded area, Please keep off the lawn."

As you can see, that concern for the condition of the park is not shared by the Museum of Contemporary Art next door. Those are MCA Art Camp kids and counselors frolicking of the fragile greenery. I guess artists don't learn to read.