Grant Park: The Evolution of Chicago's Front Yard

6. Gateway and Cultural Center: From a Century of Progress to Postwar Park

122 6 Gateway and Cultural Center: From a Century of Progress to Postwar Park The prosperity and significant building boom that typified the 1920s began to come to an end in October 1929 with the start of the Great Depression. Despite the economic climate, Chicagoans proposed another fair for 1933 during which the city would celebrate its first hundred years. Even with the severe economic downturn, the fair’s organizers pressed forward with preparations , which would require additional work in and around Grant Park. A Century of Progress International Exposition Much has been written about the great fair that raised people’s spirits during the Great Depression. Since the early 1920s, a number of Chicagoans had been discussing the idea of the city hosting another world’s fair. The 1920s were an ambitious time for Chicago to consider organizing an event of this magnitude, as it had been little more than a generation since Gateway and Cultural Center 123 Chicago gained renown for hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Yet, major business and civic leaders lobbied to use this fair to celebrate Chicago’s centennial.1 By 1925, this idea had a considerable following, and in 1928, the city shored up support by gaining a state charter to operate the “Chicago Second World’s Fair Centennial Celebration.”2 As with the World’s Columbian Exposition, organizers initially suggested that Grant Park should be the site for the fair.3 Advocates would again cite all the attributes of this location , including its proximity to the central business districts and hotels, the multitude of transportation links, and its picturesque location on the lake. Due to the design and landscape work completed in Grant Park in the 1920s, the fair’s directors decided to place the fair just south of the park. The exposition planners worked with municipal representatives with an eye toward the long-term benefits the fair could bring. The South Park Commission had already moved temporary events, such as circuses, from the eastern end of Grant Park toward Soldier Field. The park land south of Grant Park with the additional acreage acquired through landfill could logically be the location for the temporary grounds of the exposition. The South Park Commission could also use the exposition as a spur to encourage the completion of the park’s landscaping. Charles Wacker, the chairman of the Chicago Plan Commission, also wanted to use the 1933 fair as an impetus to push forward aspects of Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett’s 1909 Plan of Chicago. For example, the creation of Northerly Island had been proposed in the 1909 plan and could serve as part of the site of the exposition.4 Grant Park had already repeatedly demonstrated the long-term benefit of landfill programs. The fair’s organizers decided that the grounds would extend from “the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium at 12th Street south along the lakefront to 39th Street. This site included Northerly Island, which extended south from the Adler Planetarium to 23rd Street and created a lagoon between it and the mainland.” In June 1929, the state legislature authorized the use of this land for the exposition, and on April 16, 1930, the park commission gave its permission to build an exposition that would “open a new era in the exposition projects of the world.”5 Once the site had been selected, workers rapidly built on the newly created landfill. The exposition authority planned to use a bit of Grant Park for the festivities. The plan was that after the fair, the grounds would be returned to the South Park Commission. In 1930, the first building completed for the fair was the administration building, situated between Soldier Field and the Field Museum.6 The deepening economic downturn called plans for the fair into question . The fair’s commissioners, however, pushed forward. While some have Gateway and Cultural Center 124 reasonablyarguedthattheGreatDepressionkeptlaborandmaterialcostslow, it may also have lowered the expectations for the fair, which had been built up to the point that many anticipated a fair twice as grand as the one of 1893.7 Preparations included improvements to Grant Park, as the southeastern end of the park served as an entry to the fairgrounds. This work included planting trees along the park’s wide boulevards of Monroe, Jackson, Congress , and Balbo, Twelfth Street, and the major north-to-south right-of-ways of West Drive (Columbus Drive...