Lakeshore Drive

Edg ewater Community As Burnham told Lakeshore Drive - Built to Be Beautiful the #hicago Record -Herald newspaper by Sue Burke In 1898, the #ycle and Saddle #lub in 1910, “Make no opened its facilities on Foster Avenue, little plans; they where it remains today but without its have no magic to Lincoln Park were eXtended from Foster original beach access. By 1908, the Red stir menµs blood.© Avenue to Bryn Mawr and Hollywood± Line of the ¥Lµ reached all the way to Remember that our the section behind our building. How this Howard Street. With good transportation sons and our happened is interesting, but why it and a lovely lakefront, Edgewater happened tells us about #hicagoµs unique became a thriving, high-class area. to do things that would stagger us. Let lakefront parklands. The most important your watchword be order and your Meanwhile, the cityµs inøuential question is this: Is it beautiful? beacon beauty.” #ommercial #lub had asked an architect The Early Years named Daniel H. Burnham to create a #reating this new parkland wouldnµt be The story actually starts in 1835 when plan to direct #hicagoµs growth. difæcult, according to the plan. At the the citiZens of the Village of #hicago, Burnham thought big. His architectural time, the city was dumping its refuse out which had been incorporated only two ærm gained fame in 1881 for erecting in the lake. If it dumped that refuse at years earlier, established a park at the such a tall building in downtown the shore, the city could build up new lakefront that eventually became Grant #hicago that a new word was coined to land and breakwaters “in the course of Park. From the beginning, the lakefront describe it: “skyscraper.” It rose an another generation.” Thus #hicagoµs trash was treated as a public treasure. astonishing 10 stories tall. became the groundwork for its increasing treasure. In 1860, the city acquired more lakefront The Burnham Plan land just north of downtown, and it “Imagine this supremely beautiful In 1909, Burnham, working with other became the start of Lincoln Park. Over parkway,” the plan said, and 10 years civic-minded individuals, ænished the years, bit by bit, north and south of later, the #ity #ouncil approved it as the The Plan of #hicago. It was published as the harbor, the lakeshore parkland grew, blueprint to create a lakefront park from a lavishly illustrated 280-page book full and #hicago was proud of it. one end of the city to the other. The city of ambitious proposals for public already had the right to claim any land it The city kept growing, with Edgewater buildings, highways, railroads, industry, founded in 1880. Seven years later, a real and parkland. Number One on the list: created in the lake by landæll. estate developer named John Lewis “The improvement of the lakefront.” A portion of the road we now call Lake #ochran began selling houses and The plan envisioned parkland from Shore Drive already eXisted. Back in mansions in the area bounded by Foster Winnetka to the Indiana state line, with 1875, the ærst mile was created as an and Bryn Mawr Avenues, Broadway and a road on breakwaters at the lakefront eXtension of Michigan Avenue. It was an Sheridan Road. At the time, the lakeshore side of the park, passing over bridges elegant carriage-way in front of lakefront came up to roughly where the back fence between newly-made islands. mansions, and it stretched from the of Park Tower is now. harbor to the south end of Lincoln Park. By 1910, Lake Shore Drive, then known as Outer Drive, had reached two miles farther north to Belmont Avenue, and it resembled Burnhamµs plan. The road had been built through Lincoln Park on an embankment and breakwater constructed at the lakeshore, with lagoons, a Zoo, and EarlY plaN for LaKe Shore $rIVe at par kla n d on the other side. BrYN MaWr AVeNUe The plan also called for landæll to create “The lakefront by right belongs to the large islands farther out in the lake to people,” the plan said. “Everything provide shelter for yachts during storms. possible should be done to develop its Eventually that part of the plan was natural beauties, thus ætting it for the forgotten, along with the creation of part it has to play in the life of the multiple lagoons behind Lake Shore whole city. It should be made so alluring Drive, but the desire and need for the that it will become the æXed habit of the road remained, and it would keep people to seek its restful presence at growing north and south during the every opportunity.” coming decades. 6 And beyond, to Hollywood Opinions differ about why the Edgewater Beach Hotel closed in 1967. Perhaps, because the drive cut off its access to the beach, it became less of a vacation spot. But the hotel also faced increasing competition as a premier national resort, and a new owner neglected its upkeep. The buildings BUrNhamµs laKefroNt plaN WIth larGe offshore were raZed in 1971, and Park Tower IslaNds from LINcolN ParK to EVaNstoN. #ondominium opened in 1973 on land ArroW poINts to BrYN MaWr AVeNUe that had been the hotelµs parking lot. In the early 1900s, Edgewater was enjoying The Breakers was built in 1987. a building boom, and some of its ænest What might have been apartment buildings and churches were built. In 1916, the Edgewater Beach Hotel But Lake Shore Drive was originally opened where The Breakers is located now. envisioned to go even farther north. The hotel was one of the nationµs leading That was before high-rise apartments resorts, with 1,000 rooms in two adjoining and little parks ælled in the shoreline buildings. Over the years, its guests north of Hollywood. In 2004, activists included Babe Ruth, Groucho MarX, gathered enough signatures to put a Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, non-binding referendum on the Mahatma Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. November ballot asking neighborhood By 1950, when the road ended at Foster voters if Lake Shore Drive or “any other Avenue, trafæc was funneled onto roadways, marinas, housing, or Foster and Sheridan Road and had commercial structures” should be congested the neighborhood. established as part of any lakefront Something needed to be done, so work eXpansion from Hollywood Avenue to began to eXtend Lake Shore Drive to Evanston. Bryn Mawr and Hollywood Avenues. The idea was that Bryn Mawrµs commercial Voters said no, by a decisive 88%. Even district could use the trafæc, and a project to eXtend the bike path in Sheridan north of Hollywood had little 2008 met with solid opposition. No one development so additional cars heading is interested in resurrecting any of toward Evanston wouldnµt cause those ideas now, according to Ald. problems. Harry Ostermanµs ofæce. Rubble from the Eisenhower Right behind our building, Lake Shore EXpressway was trucked in to create Drive has reached its northern new land where there had once been conclusion with both a road and a only sand. The eXtension ofæcially public park. Thanks to Burnhamµs big opened on November 27, 1954. #hicago plans, we can stroll the seawall Mayor Martin H. Hennelly proclaimed between Osterman and Foster Beaches the road “a monument to cooperative and gaZe at the horiZon. “These views ArroWs IN thIs aNd NeXt photo poINt to enterprise” as a hundred onlookers of a broad eXpanse,” his plan said, “are EdGeWater Beach ApartmeNts, “shivered from a cold wet wind off the helpful alike to mind and body. They North of ParK 4oWer lake,” according to a report in the beget calm thoughts and feelings, and #hicago Tribune. afford an escape from the petty things Work began in 1929 to eXtend Lake Shore in life.” Drive to Foster Avenue. When the Great Edgewater Beach Hotel Depression hit, ment Is it beautiful? According to the plan, provided funding as part of Rooseveltµs good roads matter, but beauty makes a New ærst cloverleaf city great. ramps were built (and replaced in the 1960s) at and Lawrence. 3ue is a resident of Park Tower and Lake Shore Drive had been envisioned as a contributed this storY at the invitation of pleasure parkway for horse-drawn the Newsletter #ommittee. carriages, but it became the nationµs ærst limited access highway. 7 .

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