Grant Park: The Evolution of Chicago's Front Yard

7. Parking Lots, Protests, and Mayhem: Grant Park in the Daley Era

136 7 Parking Lots, Protests, and Mayhem: Grant Park in the Daley Era Chicago emerged from the Great Depression and World War II poised for a bright future. The city had a large population that had survived the Great Depression and had contributed significantly to the war effort. If you asked the man on the street in the 1950s if his downtown was on the decline or at all threatened, he would have scoffed. Business leaders would have found it inconceivable that their operations in Chicago and its periphery could ever see a decline. Yet, as Robert M. Fogelson shows in Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950, despite expectations, city centers nationally would begin to decline.1 During this monumental transition, Richard J. Daley served as mayor of Chicago. From 1955 to 1976, he led the city through what emerged as one of the most difficult periods in its history. Chicagoans elected Daley mayor in May 1955. During his tenure as mayor, the city experienced its first decline in population. The 1950 census marked a Parking Lots, Protests, and Mayhem 137 peak in the city’s population at 3,620,962. At the same time, the surrounding eight counties saw a rise in population, corresponding to their increased economic importance. In an era of complex change, Daley displayed a conservatism that was borne out of Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods.2 Yet, in this era, Grant Park’s landscape represented a kind of changelessness . Its orderly walkways, lions in front of the Art Institute, and its classically inspired design bespoke of community stability. The use of the park reflected the significant changes in society. The park, however, provided the backdrop for events in the civil rights movement, youth and antiwar protests, and mayhem of the early 1970s. The Prudential: Symbol for an Age Grant Park provided Chicagoans a front-row seat from which to view the construction of the Prudential Building, the first major skyscraper built near the Loop since the onset of the Great Depression.3 Developers set to work on its construction in 1952 on the northeast corner of Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue (see fig. 7.1). The architectural firm of Naess and Murphy completed what was, at forty-four stories, the city’s tallest building in 1955, the same year Daley was elected mayor (see fig. 7.2). Featuring an observation deck that provided spectacular views of the park and lakefront, the building continued a long tradition of observation decks overlooking the park that went back to the Auditorium Building and the Aaron Montgomery Ward building at 6 North Michigan Avenue. Alfonso Iannelli, a sculptor who had worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and executed the bas-relief sculptures for the Adler Planetarium, designed the enormous Rock of Gibraltar, Prudential’s corporate symbol, for the building.4 The Prudential was representative of the new corporate organizations that had become synonymous with America in the post–World War II era. It also served as a potent symbol of the recovery from the Great Depression. The construction of the Prudential Building became possible when the Illinois Central Railroad offered the air rights of its rail yards for the structure. Part of the building’s foundation stood near the old depot and headquarters of the Illinois Central Railroad built in the 1850s and rebuilt after the Chicago Fire of 1871. The site was important for the Prudential’s corporate image, with its corporate buildings located in prominent cities throughout the world. The Chicago Park District, in anticipation of the increased parking demands that the Prudential Building would make on the area, constructed a large underground parking lot within Grant Park. Located between Ran­­­ dolph and Monroe streets along Michigan Avenue, the district provided parking for the new skyscraper and surrounding area and created an Parking Lots, Protests, and Mayhem 138 additional revenue stream for the park district without resorting to surface parking. The idea for an underground parking lot had been floated earlier but was now an integral part of the park. The Chicago Park District also improved the surface parking lot at Monroe Street. Built on an area of reclaimed land, it stood to the east of the expansive Illinois Central rail yards. Perhaps with this Monroe Street lot in mind, the Prudential Building did not build its own parking garage, although subsequent skyscrapers in Chicago, such as the Inland Steel Building, would.5 In the 1950s...