Forever Open, Clear, and Free: The Struggle for Chicago's Lakefront

by Lois Wille

Book Overview

Of the thirty miles of Lake Michigan shoreline within the city limits of Chicago, twenty-four miles is public park land. The crown jewels of its park system, the lakefront parks bewitch natives and visitors alike with their brisk winds, shady trees, sandy beaches, and rolling waves. Like most good things, the protection of the lakefront parks didn't come easy, and this book chronicles the hard-fought and never-ending battles Chicago citizens have waged to keep them "forever open, clear, and free."

Illustrated with historic and contemporary photographs, Wille's book tells how Chicago's lakefront has survived a century of development. The story serves as a warning to anyone who thinks the struggle for the lakefront is over, or who takes for granted the beauty of its public beaches and parks.

"A thoroughly fascinating and well-documented narrative which draws the reader into the sights, smells and sounds of Chicago's story. . . . Everyone who cares about the development of land and its conservation will benefit from reading Miss Wille's book."--Daniel J. Shannon, Architectural Forum

"Not only good reading, it is also a splendid example of how to equip concerned citizens for their necessary participation in the politics of planning and a more livable environment."--Library Journal

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226898717
• ISBN13: 9780226898711
• Release Date: June 1991
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An outsider's port of entry to the Windy City

Here is the story the subtitle suggests: Chicagoans gradually realized that the lands fronting Lake Michigan were more than mere wastelands to be utilized variously by industrialists and conventioneers, and this realization led citizens from A. Montgomery Ward down to the plainest of the plain to do battle with a series of regimes which seemed to have a very odd construction of the phrase, from the city charter, "forever open, free and clear". It is the people, not the government of Chicago, whom we should thank that parts of Grant, Jackson, and Lincoln Parks are still "open, free and clear". Beyond her immediate theme, however, Lois Wille has written an excellent concise introduction to the history of Chicago, which will especially appeal to those who approach history from the viewpoint of non-conformism. And in a city like Chicago, you're either part of the Machine or a non-conformist. Lois Wille was a colleague of Mike Royko, all the way from the Chicago Daily News days. She has all of his creativity and productive skepticism, and, in her own way, did just as much to worry and afflict the destructive establishmentarians who by fair means and foul seem to wind up governing the City of Chicago.