Modern Art Statue on South Lakefront Trail in Chicago
[A version of this article previously ran in the Chicago Reader. Here's the much longer original typhoon, with boosted fabric and photos.]
While being mindful of the fact that heavy snowfall makes life more hard for many Chicagoans, I accept to say that in some ways this unusually snowy winter was a blessing during COVID-xix. At a fourth dimension when hanging out inside indoor public spaces was not a great idea, the plentiful white stuff gave people more options for having fun outside and beating cabin fever. Residents seemed to be having a great time making snow sculptures, sledding, and exploring the beaches, checking out the surreal drifts and ice formations. (It was important to stay off the shelf ice, though.)
Personally, I took advantage of the atmospheric precipitation most every solar day of Jan and February by snowshoeing, biking snowy streets on a fat-tired cycle, and, specially, cross-country skiing. I find Ninety skiing to be an especially relaxing and scenic way to get physical activity.
I know I'g not alone in that respect, since this winter it seemed like I saw more than people than always before Nordic skiing on the Chicago lakefront. This ski blast paralleled the fasten in biking (and, tragically, cycling deaths) that happened terminal year are people sought socially-distanced forms of transportation and recreation during the pandemic. And merely as there has been a shortage of new bikes in local shops, I've heard new cross-land skis were hard to come by this winter, although you could e'er scour the thrift stores.
During the great blizzard of 2011, when more 20 inches paralyzed our city, and hundreds of vehicles were eerily abandoned on Lake Shore Bulldoze for a 24-hour interval or two, I snowshoed the entire 18.v-mile Lakefront Trail from Due south Shore to Edgewater in ane day. That was an epic take a chance, but it was something of an Into the Wild -manner death march, and I didn't have much time to check out the sights along the way.
Since I'd been exploring new shoreline skiing routes this year, I figured I'd requite the Lakefront Trail trip another go from north to south on skis, unclipping and hiking where necessary. Since I assumed it would exist a swifter manner than snowshoes, I'd stop and odour the roses whenever I felt like it.
On the morning time of February 13, with the mercury in the low single digits Fahrenheit, I parcel upwardly in lots of layers and board the Cherry-red Line in Uptown with my skis. A guy in my car asks for a lite. Fed upward with the epidemic of smoking on the 'L' I've noticed during COVID, when ridership has plummeted, I say without thinking. "Y'all want a lite to smoke on the railroad train? You lot're not supposed to smoke on the train, my friend." Luckily, instead of getting aroused, he but shrugs and switches cars.
Exiting at Thorndale, I walk a few blocks due east to the eponymous Embankment and , north of which the shoreline is privatized. Just s is the Thorndale Beach Condominium edifice, 5901 N. Sheridan Ave. where Bob Newhart'southward psychologist character lived in his 1970s sitcom. A lady walking her dog looks at my skis and says, "This is your kind of atmospheric condition, huh? She's cold." "I bet!" I say, before stepping into my bindings to start my trip.
Skiing atmospheric condition are excellent as I burke across Osterman and Hollywood beaches, gazing at the fractured surface of the semi-frozen lake. Merely due south of Hollywood I laissez passer the council rings at Meditation Indicate, where I've hosted countless blaze hangouts this flavour as a safe form of socializing. While burning wood isn't technically legal at that place, the authorities seem to tolerate it: On the winter solstice, there were four separate fires going on at the betoken.
I continue due south on the snowy shoreline revetment, accompanied by large blackness cawing crows, and so shortcut across Foster Beach. I'grand staying off the Lakefront Trail itself since, unlike most bikeways in this metropolis, the path is plowed past the Chicago Park District on a near-religious ground. Information technology'southward snowing now, just looking towards Montrose Harbor, I tin just barely discern the outline of the Hancock Tower.
After skirting Montrose Beach and heading west past the harbor, where the skyline view has come up into focus, I turn south to take the snow covered gravel road that leads towards the Waveland Clocktower. I encounter my first skier of the day, who'southward traversing the Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course. "Nice conditions, huh?" I say.
When the road reaches the Nib Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary, I accept to caput west to the Lakefront Trail to get by Belmont Harbor. I pass a bench that's covered with birdseed, and the squirrels that are feasting on it don't abscond when I come up close to snap their photo.
Skiing parallel to the path, I visit the colorful Kwa-Ma-Rolas totem pole, which is actually a replica of the original artwork by the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island, donated to Chicago in 1929 past Kraft Foods founder James L. Kraft.
A few blocks due south at the Belmont rocks, a longtime LGBTQ gathering identify, stands another monumental sculpture. Keith Haring's 30-foot-tall green effigy "Self-Portrait" is the centerpiece of the AIDS Garden, a tribute to lives lost to HIV, plus those currently fighting to eliminate the disease.
Just due north of the Diversey bridge stand up 3 more sculptures, including two highlighted this calendar month by the city-created Chicago Monuments Project as being amidst 41 potentially controversial artworks on park district belongings "identified for public discussion," presumably because they are portrays of Native Americans done by white sculptors. While some monuments on the list depict American Indians every bit murderous or servile, to my non-Native eyes, these two seem to be respectful portrayals.
"The Alarm," which shows a Native family unit, was commissioned in 1880 by former fur trader Martin L. Ryerson, who defended the work to "The Ottawa Nation of Indians — my early on friends."
And "A Signal of Peace," sculpted in 1890 past Cyrus E. Dallin, which depicts a man on horseback with a feathered headdress and upraised staff, was donated to the city past arts patron Lambert Tree with an explicitly anti-racist intent. Tree wrote that the monument was a tribute to Native Americans who had been "oppressed and robbed by government agents, deprived of their lands… shot down by soldiery in wars fomented for the purpose of plundering and destroying their race, and finally drowned by the ever west tide of population."
The monument commission, which includes three enrolled citizens of Native tribes, volition make a conclusion on whether these pieces "warrant attention or action," informed past public input.
The tertiary sculpture was also controversial, but for a totally different reason. Artist John Henry's "Chevron," a lofty, blue windmill-similar structure, formerly stood on private belongings at Burling and Armitage in Lincoln Park, until too many neighbors complained that information technology was an eyesore. It was relocated to the lakefront in 2015.
Continuing s to Fullerton, I'm at Theater on the Lake, formerly a day nursery for kids with tuberculosis. The statue "Charitas" by Ida McClelland Stout, a bronze work depicting a woman conveying two children, was installed by the facility in the early 1920s, ane of Chicago'due south few 20th Century monuments by a female person artists. It was put into storage in 1939 during a Lake Shore Drive reconstruction projection, and reinstalled in 2022 as function of a rehab of the theater.
I keep forth a narrow strip of snowy state between the plowed path and 8-lane LSD until I come to the North Avenue embankment business firm, disguised as an former-timey steam send. Nearby is Boris Gilbertson'southward mid-century modern Chess Pavilion constructed in 1957 of physical and Indiana limestone with a wing-like canopy, flanked by five-foot-alpine king and queen sculptures.
The trail is officially closed between North and Ohio due to icy weather, merely it'southward smooth sailing as I head towards the famous vista of the Hancock and the giant Old English sign for the Drake Hotel. The notorious Oak Street curve, where loftier waves have nearly dragged many trail users into Lake Michigan, is a dissimilar story, simply the lake is pretty much frozen here, or at to the lowest degree totally still, and then the only result is navigating the water ice boulders that hug the shoreline.
In front of me at Grand Avenue looms Lake Signal Belfry, the exclusive high-rise with a Y-shaped crossed section, which has been home to many Chicago pro athletes, plus actors Mickey Rooney, Kurt Russell, and Goldie Hawn; singer Helen Reddy; and shock rocker Alice Cooper.
Adjacent to it is the Navy Pier Flyover, a $lx meg-plus bicycle-and-pedestrian overpass that has taken almost twice equally long to complete as the Golden Gate Bridge, although the Chicago Department of Transportation promises it's nearly finished. CDOT is currently tunneling through one of LSD'south Fine art Deco river bridge houses to brand room for widening the trail to 16′. I ski up the unplowed flyover, but have to unclip to cross the river.
Following the bend of the shoreline, I continue on the snowy edge of Monroe Harbor, with a backdrop of Michigan Avenue's cliff of high-rises. But southward of Buckingham Fountain stands Marking di Suvero'southward gnarly-looking rusty steel kinetic sculpture "Magma," installed in 2016.
I round the Shedd Aquarium on the snowy "seawall" beneath the Lakefront Trail, pass past the Adler Planetarium, and stop for a snack of chocolate chip cookies and piping hot ginger tea. (The Thermos is a wonderful invention.)
Nearby is the Italo Balbo Monument, a ii,000-twelvemonth-erstwhile Roman pillar donated to Chicago in 1933 past Benito Mussolini, according to its inscription, "in the 11th year of the Fascist era." The souvenir commemorated the trans-Atlantic flight to our metropolis past Mussolini'south air commander and Blackshirt leader Italo Balbo. In 2017, following the racist violence in Charlottesville, there was a movement by aldermen to relocate the pillar and rename Balbo Drive, only they ultimately caved to pressure level from local Italian-American leaders who viewed Balbo as a hero. The colonnade is on the Chicago Monument Project's list, so hopefully in this current age of anti-fascism, that public discussion will finally spur metropolis officials to get rid of these tributes to murderous totalitarians.
A couple blocks s, families are frolicking on the Soldier Field sled loma. As I'chiliad snapping a photo, my telephone battery dies, perhaps partly from the cold. I slog a couple more than miles forth the revetment past the black monolith of McCormick Place and 31st Street Beach. Simply past the fourth dimension I reach 35th it'south getting night and my trunk is complaining – amid other things, it feels like I might lose my right-heart toenail – so I determine to catch the CTA back n and complete the trip the following weekend.
I render the following Sabbatum, Feb xx, to have reward of the plentiful snow – 18 more inches had fallen that calendar week – returning to the elegantly serpentine 35th Street Bridge. Just west of the span stands the tomb of Illinois senator Stephen Douglas. The 96-pes-alpine construction features a column topped past statue of the "Footling Giant," a who stood only 5'4″ just was a commanding presence in politics. Douglas is famous for arguing to allow the expansion of slavery to new U.Southward. territories during his 1858 debates with Senate challenger Abraham Lincoln, the anti-slavery candidate.
The Chicago Monument Project has identified all five statues of Lincoln on park district belongings equally existence potentially problematic, largely due to comments he made during the debates reassuring white voters that, while he opposed slavery, he didn't support equal rights for Black people. (His position later evolved, thanks in part to lobbying by abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who recently replaced Stephen Douglas as the namesake of Chicago'southward Douglass Park.) Ironically, dissimilar the statues of Lincoln, there's little hazard of the monument to a slavery apologist beingness removed, since it's not on parkland but rather a state celebrated site.
After heading to the lakefront, I come beyond "La Ronda Parakata," a band-shaped sculpture with a butterfly motif, with seating made of expressionless ash trees, created by artists Hector Duarte and Alfonso "Piloto" Nieves. It's ane of a few "Gathering Spaces" recently installed along the Burnham Wildlife Corridor.
As I head south on the revetment by tall, scrubby vegetation, atmospheric condition are excellent and the lake is totally still, maybe frozen through. At 41st ski across Oakwood Embankment and laissez passer by some other giant new bike-pedestrian span, a curving cobalt structure I've dubbed "The Blue Moving ridge."
Approaching the 47th Street bridge, I encounter a couple of teens flop down in the snow and so recline there for a while, gazing at the sky. By tiny 49th Street Beach, there's a comfort station covered with a colorful mural of faces, flowers, and seagulls. Standing towards Hyde Park, there are lots of Academy of Chicago students and families out enjoying the sunshine.
Nigh 53rd there's another rusty, hulking Marker di Suvero kinetic sculpture chosen "Destino." Created in 2003, it features a v-shaped top that tin can rotate when a potent air current blows.
Two blocks due south at Promontory Point I encounter the David Wallach Memorial Fountain, created by hubby-and-wife team Frederick Cleveland Hibbard and Elisabeth Haseltine Hibbard, which, when running, provides refreshment for people, dogs, and birds. It's topped with an adorable bronze faun.
At 57th I glide past the Museum of Science and Industry, the just remaining remaining building from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Originally a semi-temporary plaster-and-brick structure, the Palace of Fine Arts, information technology was eventually recast in limestone for permanence.
On the bridge at the oral cavity of 59th Street Harbor I notice an ornate green lamp — peradventure a leftover from the World's Fair? 63rd Street Beach has a similarly elegant bathing pavilion, a Classical Revival building with open up balconies, designed by Cardinal Park architects Olmsted & Vaux and built in 1919.
At 64th I finish to photo the sun setting next to "Angling Eagle," which artist Jim Long carved out of a dying Ash tree, still rooted in the basis, with a chainsaw in 2014.
Then I cantankerous the Beast Bridge, which connects Jackson Park's outer and inner harbors, created by Peter J. Weber and Thomas E. Hill, built in 1904, and adorned with carvings of the heads of hippos and rhinos, faces of water gods, and ship's prows.
From in that location the trail curves southeast forth Marquette Drive, past La Rabida Children's Hospital, and a Daniel Burnham-designed, classically-inspired park pavilion that has been immune to crumble for many years. I catch ane more glimpse of the downtown skyline from the snow migrate-covered embankment at Maquette, 67th, and Southward Shore Bulldoze.
Four more than blocks takes me to the S Shore Cultural Center, my finish line. It'due south an imposing structure, built as a country lodge in the early on 1900s, with a design partly inspired by a club in United mexican states City. Early on members included retail tycoons Marshall Field and Montgomery Ward. African Americans and Jews were barred from membership in the individual society into the 1970s, when it went out of business and the park commune bought the holding, turning it into a highly inclusive community center. Nowadays, at least in not-pandemic times, the cultural center hosts a wide array of recreation and arts programming, as well as stables for Chicago Police Section horses.
The day after I consummate my odyssey on skis, the temperature hits 38 Fahrenheit, and fifty-fifty warmer weather is predicted for the coming week, promising to melt all the mounds. I'm glad I took reward of the primo skiing weather condition while they lasted, and got an instruction on coastal, sometimes controversial, public art equally part of the deal.
Source: https://chi.streetsblog.org/2021/03/29/pondering-the-chicago-monuments-project-while-skiing-the-entire-lakefront-trail/
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