Highlights
In the influential 1909 Plan of Chicago, Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett proposed two recreational piers for the city's lakefront. Only one was built-Municipal Pier #2 was renamed Navy Pier in 1927. Constructed in 1916, the 3,000-foot-long pier, which sits on 20,000 wood pilings, served as a cargo facility and a docking place for passenger excursion steamers. With its lake breezes, it was also a popular gathering place for Chicagoans seeking to escape the summer heat. In 1918, the pier was used as a temporary jail. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was the location of one of the city's traffic courts. During World War II, the U.S. Navy had a training facility on the pier. From 1946 to 1965, it...
In the influential 1909 Plan of Chicago, Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett proposed two recreational piers for the city's lakefront. Only one was built-Municipal Pier #2 was renamed Navy Pier in 1927. Constructed in 1916, the 3,000-foot-long pier, which sits on 20,000 wood pilings, served as a cargo facility and a docking place for passenger excursion steamers. With its lake breezes, it was also a popular gathering place for Chicagoans seeking to escape the summer heat. In 1918, the pier was used as a temporary jail. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was the location of one of the city's traffic courts. During World War II, the U.S. Navy had a training facility on the pier. From 1946 to 1965, it was the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois, where more than 100,000 students attended classes before the school moved to the Near West Side. For the next four decades, the pier was all but abandoned, little used except from 1978 to 1983, when it was the annual site of ChicagoFest, a popular summer music festival. In 1995, after a four-year, $150 million renovation, the pier was reopened as the city's new playground, featuring a 150-foot-tall Ferris wheel, an outdoor stage, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, shops, restaurants and exhibition halls. It draws 8.6 million visitors a year.
Displaying items 1-12 of 463
» View newsday.com items only
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11-20
•
Next >
-
WEEKLY PLANNER
CONVENTIONS Sept. 6-8 | American Association of Tissue Banks Annual National Conference. Expected attendance, 650. Chicago Marriott Downtown. www.aatb.org/. Sept. 6-10 | 19th International Forging Congress. 500. Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. www....Tags: Des Plaines, Illinois, Interior Policy, Merchandise Mart, Internal Revenue Service
-
Up, up and awry
Special to the Chicago TribuneTo truly understand this Saturday's Red Bull Flugtag event at North Avenue Beach, you need to have spent the last 10 Wednesday nights in Fleet Neighbors' Elmhurst backyard. That's where Neighbors, his son, his brother and two friends created a human-...Tags: Lake Shore Drive, Air Transportation, Transportation, Mike Ditka, Chicago Transit Authority
-
Madigan plan would lease Lottery to pay for state construction
Chicago Tribune reporterHouse Speaker Michael Madigan is crafting a plan to lease the Illinois Lottery to pay for a major statewide construction program and has called members back to Springfield next week to consider it. "We're working on a bill and hope to make good...Tags: Rod Blagojevich, Emil Jones, Tourism and Leisure, Illinois, Gaming and Lotteries
-
Designer to speak to entrepreneurs
The 22nd annual Entrepreneurial Woman's Conference is being held Wednesday and Thursday at Navy Pier. The largest women's business conference in the Midwest will feature fashion designer/entrepreneur Eileen Fisher, of Eileen Fisher Inc., as a keynote... -
Chris Jones recommends
Blue Man Group: If you'd told me in 1997 that I'd be back more than a decade later watching a weirdly expressive trio of cobalt dudes, I'd have said you'd ingested too much blue paint. But the Blue Men got a lot of things right, marrying spectacle with...Tags: Oriental Theater, Armed Forces, Blue Man Group, Banking, Broadway
-
ASK TOM WHY
Dear Tom, Twenty-five years ago I was caught out on Lake Michigan in a terrible storm. The storm took off roofs and capsized dozens of boats. What information do you have on this storm? Ralph Bassett Wilmette Dear Ralph, The storm that...Tags: O'Hare International Airport, Wilmette
-
Traffic expert/author tells us why we drive the way we do
Chicago Tribune reporterEleven o'clock on a bright midweek morning, and traffic expert Tom Vanderbilt is standing tall against the chain-link fencing that overlooks the northbound lanes of the Kennedy Expressway at Chicago Avenue. He's posing for a photo with the host of trucks...Tags: Lake Shore Drive, Road Accidents, Transportation, Air and Space Accidents, Vehicles
-
In-box|
Tough going You need to go an extra step to let people really know how hard it will be for their kids to get into a top-tier school ("The College Issue," Aug. 3). In addition to the brutal competition with their peers, they also have to overcome the...Tags: Chicago, Wrigley Field, Minority Groups, University of Illinois at Chicago, National or Ethnic Minorities
-
Wasteful show
I was relieved and pleased to find Colin McMahon's piece on the Chicago Air and Water Show. A Boston native, this my first summer as a Chicago resident. Not only do I find the air show wasteful, loud and irritating to the senses, I also find it...Tags: Chicago Air and Water Show
-
What is competitive yoga?
Yoga may be reverentially called a "practice," but Bikram Choudhury is pushing for it to be a competitive—and perhaps one day Olympic—sport. In competitions, yogis take the stage individually and are given three minutes to perform seven...Tags: Chicago, Los Angeles, Illinois, Yoga, International Olympic Committee
-
A wonderful day
I am very sorry that letter writer Joseph Smith finds the noise from the air show, particularly the Blue Angels, offensive (Voice of the People, Aug. 16). My daughter, my 87-year-old parents and I had an extremely enjoyable day at Navy Pier on the...Tags: Joseph Smith
-
Yoga's top dog oversees a hot commodity
Chicago Tribune reporterBikram Choudhury, the outspoken Beverly Hills yoga mogul, has two passions in life: cars and yoga. Though he's often criticized for having a garage stuffed with gleaming Bentleys and Rolls-Royces—yogis don't generally flaunt material wealth—he...Tags: Illinois, Michael Moore, Animal Science, Philosophy, Vehicles
Sep 8, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Sep 4, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Sep 3, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Sep 1, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 29, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 19, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 21, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 24, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 19, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 20, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 23, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Aug 20, 2008
|Story| Chicago Tribune
Original site for Navy Pier topic gallery.
