In March the city sent its rock crushers to start demolishing the limestone blocks that line the stretch of lakeshore between Belmont and Diversey. These blocks, like those along other sections of the lakefront, are to be replaced with a seawall made of concrete. And that has upset people, particularly some Hyde Parkers, who don’t think concrete is the way to go here or on the south side. “We’re on our way to another Meigs Field,” says Hyde Park resident Jack Spicer, referring to Mayor Daley’s unilateral decision to close the lakefront airport. “There’s been no real community input in this project. The city’s doing what it wants–no matter what people say.”
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City officials predicted that most residents would forget about the inconvenience and mess once the project was completed. But many were even more upset when they saw what the city had done. The limestone blocks, which had given people a way down to the water, were gone. In their place was a concrete runway. Bob Clarke, a Lakeview activist, says, “It’s so sterile and ugly and without any imagination.”
Seeing what had happened on the north side, people in Hyde Park grew uneasy. They knew the city also planned to redo Promontory Point, the peninsula of grass and trees that juts into the lake at 55th Street. This piece of the park, with landscaping by Alfred Caldwell, is one of Hyde Park’s most treasured spots. For more than 60 years residents have gone there to launch boats, swim off the rocks, wade, or dangle their feet in the water. “One of the most pleasing parts of the Point are those limestone rocks along the edge,” says Spicer. “People were concerned that the rocks not be replaced with concrete.”
In February 2001 a group of Hyde Park residents created the Community Task Force for Promontory Point and enlisted the support of Fifth Ward alderman Leslie Hairston in their effort to persuade Mayor Daley to alter the plan and keep the limestone. By October 2001 the task force had raised about $50,000, which they used to hire a coastal engineer named Cyril Galvin to, as Spicer puts it, “examine the feasibility of a preservation approach to the needed rebuilding of Promontory Point.”
It was true, he wrote, that his original report hadn’t taken into account the needs of the disabled. But that was because “the Task Force advised me not to dwell on access matters in my initial report because the first priority was to demonstrate the feasibility of retaining the limestone.” His final report included plans for a smooth path through the rocks that would allow the blind and people who use wheelchairs or walkers to make their way to the water’s edge.
Local residents at a recent breakfast meeting in Lakeview say Mayor Daley let it be known that he thought the people who want to preserve the limestone are being unrealistic. “I asked Mayor Daley about the lakefront plan, and he launched into a truculent tirade,” says one north-side activist. “He said, ‘You want all this stuff? You go get the money for it.’ I then made the mistake of mentioning that we were working with people in Hyde Park. That really pissed him off. He said something like, ‘As to those people in Hyde Park, they’re not getting anything. Promontory Point can sink into the lake, and God help them if it does.’”
