Last year there were 9.3 million visitors. Interestingly it has been for many years, the number one tourist attraction in the Midwest for good reason.
I feel that some Chicagoans who grew up in the city do not give the Pier its due. But another decade of abandonment occurred when the fest was discontinued. The launch of ChicagoFest, an annual music festival, boosted activity as well in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Grand Ballroom underwent reconstruction for the occasion and the pier was given Chicago Landmark status. It wasn’t until 1976, for the celebration of America’s Biennial, that significant activity returned to the pier. When the campus moved off the pier, the 3,300-foot-long structure fell into disuse. An estimated 100,000 students took classes there between 19. Following the war, an influx of veterans enrolling in school under the GI Bill resulted in the creation of a University of Illinois satellite campus on the pier. Navy turned the pier into a training facility that more than 60,000 service members passed through. During WWI, the pier housed soldier barracks and a prison for men who dodged the draft. Eventually, buildings were added to the pier so it could serve as a military training center during both World Wars. Plans for the other four piers were nixed by the city. Load Another FactĪs cars became more popular and the Great Depression set in, shipping activity slowed and in turn, the pier became less lively. Bush trained as a Navy pilot at Navy Pier. The Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy inspired the large, sweeping staircase designed by James Corner. The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare is the only theater of its kind in the world. The pier was a welcome addition to the city for its public use, with its picnic spots, children’s playground and access via streetcar, and for the relief it provided to the congestion on Chicago River docks. 2, it became a mix of business-with many freight and excursion ships coming through daily-and entertainment for the first few decades of its existence. The pier’s metal frame and wood plank flooring was built atop 20,000 wooden piles driven into the lakebed. When it opened in 1916, it consisted of two-story freight and passenger sheds, bookended by a classically designed head house and a large, elegant ballroom. Architect Charles Sumner Frost was hired to design the first pier, later known as Navy Pier, a few years after Burnham’s death. City planners liked Burnham’s idea so much they proposed building five piers. He believed the piers could serve as both shipping docks and relaxing, lakefront recreation hubs.
Realizing a need to accommodate this activity, architect Daniel Burnham’s famous 1909 Plan of Chicago called for two piers flanking a bustling harbor, at Chicago Avenue and Cermak Road. Despite several periods of abandonment and disuse, the pier has continued to evolve and accommodate new demands.Īt the turn of the 20th century, millions of passengers and millions of tons of cargo were entering Chicago by water annually. From naval base and university campus to shipping hub and entertainment destination, Navy Pier is Chicago’s hallmark of adaptive reuse.
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