Promontory Point 1937-1987
By John McDermott, Jr.
Edited by Victoria Post Ranney
Promontory Point, at 55th Street and Lake Michigan, is an historic landscape and the focal point of Chicago's Burnham Park. Conceived as part of Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago, in 1909, "the Point" was created by landfill in the 1920s and landscaped in 1937 by Alfred Caldwell in the Prairie School tradition. To Caldwell, the Promontory represented the meeting place of the vast prairie and the Great Lakes, and thus symbolized all that was unique about the landscape of Chicago. Today, Caldwell's design can still be recognized, and its spirit makes Promontory Point a favorite retreat for Chicagoans from all walks of life.
An early Chicagoan walking east on 55th Street would have met the lake just east of Everett Avenue. Burnham called for a promontory co be built in the lake near 52nd Street, along with a series of islands and lagoons screeching from 12th Street co Jackson Park. In 1919, the City Council approved a plan co fill in the south lakeshore according co Burnham's plan.
The Commissioners of the South Park District hired the Construction Materials Corporation co construct a breakwater and fill the area inside it with sand. The filling operation, which began at 12th Street and progressed coward the south, reached 5 5ch Street by 1924. There, and not at 52nd Street, it created a promontory.
By 1926, the 55th Street Promontory, as it came co be called, had been largely filled with sand and garbage. The latter component upset the Hyde Park Herald which complained not only chat the rubbish was unsightly, but also that the wind blew sand and foul odors into the new apartment buildings nearby.
In 1917, there had been only one such building near 55th and the lake, the ten-story apartment house at 5490 South Shore Drive. But in the mid-1920's, the residential area to the west developed rapidly. The huge Shoreland Hotel was completed in 1926, and the Flamingo opened in 1927. These buildings began a wave of hotel growth that eventually provided 20,000 rooms in East Hyde Park.
By 1929, grass was planted on the Promontory. Leif Erickson Drive (now Lake Shore Drive) was opened to traffic and trees were planted on the portion of landfill west of the Drive. But construction did not proceed until the consolidated Chicago Park District was formed in 1934. At about that time, Fifth Ward Alderman James Cusak began to receive complaints that the Promontory was being used as a makeshift parking lot by the nearby Shoreland Hotel. In an interview shortly before his death in 1986, Cusak said that he had used his influence with the Park District's new general superintendent, George T. Donoghue, to have the parking lot removed and the Promontory developed.
Whether or not Cusak's influence played a role, the Promontory, in 1935, was designated to receive funds and workers from the Works Progress Administration. It was one of 67 Illinois parks which the WPA assisted during the Depression. Thanks to the WPA, the Point was developed as we know it today.
The planning was assigned to Alfred Caldwell, an architect and landscape architect on the Park District staff. From 1926 to 1931, Caldwell had assisted Jens Jensen, the great landscape architect of Chicago's West Park system and the pre-eminent figure in the Prairie School movement in his field. Caldwell shared Jensen's devotion to the midwestern landscape and his practice of using only native plants in his parks.
Caldwell began by adding soil, raising the meadow to its present height and creating a hill where a shelter would be built. By the summer of 1936, water and sewer pipes had been laid, and the underpass below the Drive was completed.
Caldwell's planting plan, dated September 1, 1936, relied on indigenous plants. It included 241 American elms, 50 American lindens, and 637 prairie crabapples, as well as sugar maples, hop hornbeams, and two varieties of hawthorn, the tree which had been one of Jensen's trademarks.
The thick groves of trees and shrubs formed a ring around a large central meadow which sloped downward gradually toward the path. The ring was interrupted at the north, allowing a spectacular view of the downtown skyline, and at the south, where the vast manufacturing districts of South Chicago and Indiana were visible on the horizon. The Point includes two distinct experiences: the lofty meadow, from which the rocks along the water cannot be seen, and the rocks themselves, from which the meadow cannot be seen. Plantings on the outer edge of the peninsula once reinforced this distinction.
Caldwell said in a 1986 interview that he had conceived of the Promontory as "a place you go co and you are thrilled-a beautiful experience, a joy, a delight." He sought co convey "a sense of space and a sense of the power of nature and the power of the sea."
A member of the Park District's architectural staff, E. V. Buchsbaum, designed the shelter (now known as the fieldhouse). Construction began in 1936 and was finished the next year. The walls were made of Lannon scone, quarried in Wisconsin. Caldwell, an architectural modernist, tolerated the building though he felt it was coo heavy for the site and of little architectural value. Buchsbaum felt he was creating a "picturesque, distinctive building" and that its playful allusion co a castle or a lighthouse were appropriate for the setting.
After 193 7, the area received various small improvements. Benches were erected in 1938. Boulders called for in Caldwell's plan were set in place in March, 1939. Also in that year, the David Wallach Memorial, a bronze sculpture of a resting fawn set on a marble fountain, was dedicated. Little is known about David Wallach who, at his death in 1894 left a bequest for a fountain in a park for "man and beast." True co his wish, the monument has a drinking fountain at ground level which has been enjoyed by generations of local beasts.
In the late 1930's and 40's, the Shelter became a busy center for square dances, scout meetings and other activities. In 1953, the U.S. Army leased land from the Park District for a Nike missile base on a Jackson Park meadow. Soon afterward, it cook pare of the Point for a radar site. The towers stood south of the field house on a large tract surrounded by a barbed wire fence. One of the cowers reached 150 feet in height, and all of chem dwarfed the turret of the field house.
Many neighborhood residents resented the radar cowers, but protests became vocal only in the Vietnam era. After the cowers finally came down in 1971, there was a victory rally with the slogan, "We've won our Point!"
For its 50th anniversary in 1987, a group of landscape architects carefully surveyed the Point, comparing the original features executed under Caldwell with the landscape of today. Though few of the original shrubs and trees remain, and lake damage has badly_eroded the perimeter, the basic features and open spirit of the design can be seen. Park District officials and the public, recognizing the place of Promontory Point in Chicago's past and its value in the present, should work co restore, for future generations, chis historic prairie landscape on the lake.
Promontory Point and it’s Advocates Today
The following was taken from https://www.promontorypoint.org:
Promontory Point Conservancy grew out of the original 2001 Community Task Force for Promontory Point and the Save the Point community initiative. It was established in 2004 by the Illinois Secretary of State under the State's general Not For Profit Act for the purpose of protecting and preserving Promontory Point Park. The Conservancy fought to preserve the historic limestone, step-stone revetment from 2001-2006 and spearheaded the National Register listing for Promontory Point in 2017-2018. And now the Conservancy works with the community, elected officials and government agencies to Save the Point Again! The Conservancy is now filing for its 501(c)3, not-for-profit status.
Promontory Point Conservancy's mission is to protect and preserve Promontory Point Park, Burham Park, on Chicago's South Side, most especially its historic limestone, step-stone revetment and Alfred Caldwell Prairie School landscaping. The Conservancy is community group primarily dedicated to protecting and preserving the historic features of Promontory Point Park for public enjoyment. Promontory Point proves a safe place for visitors every day of the year who swim, walk, meditate, read and rejuvenate in its unique natural surrounds; Point lovers come from all over the City to be there. The Conservancy cares for this unique sanctuary in the City, acts as the park advisory council and works to protect all its unique historic features.
The Point is the only stretch of the original WPA limestone revetment remaining along the City's eight-mile lakefront so the Conservancy advocates a preservation approach because:
the Point is on the National Register of Historic Places for its unique crib construction and historic limestone revetment and these historic features are protected under the National Historic Preservation Act and the Secretary of the Interior Standards
community-funded engineering design studies in 2002 and 2004 show that rehabilitation and repair are doable -- and even more cost effective than demolition and new construction -- under the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Preservation
adaptation for ADA compliance offers creative opportunities for preserving the unique limestone revetment while meeting contemporary needs for easy, equitable access to the water