Labor Day weekend marks the unofficial end of summer and the official end of the Chicago Park District’s outdoor swim season.

Beaches in Chicago will open Friday at 11 a.m. for the 2024 season – just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Here is everything you need to know to enjoy those Chicago summer days. 

Created back in 1994, the day is meant to celebrate the connection between people and the green space in their community. 

A pair of water rescues on Chicago's lakefront over the holiday weekend resulted on one person dead and another in critical condition, according to the Chicago Police Department. Indiana officials report a teen drowned in East Chicago.

Beach season will run through Sept. 4. The city’s pools are expected to open by June 23.

The annual Adopt-A-Beach cleanup, organized by the Alliance for the Great Lakes, is set for Saturday.

The weather may still feel like summer, but when it comes to Chicago's beaches, the season is officially over.

Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the start of Chicago’s summer beach and boating season. Here’s what to know before you hit the sand and water.

Discovery is central to the work of an artist who seeks and finds all kinds of things on the shores of Lake Michigan. John Soss makes artwork out of seemingly nothing, sifting the sand for debris left by people and nature.

Recent storm waves stirred up deposits of invasive mussels from the bottom of Lake Michigan and brought them ashore, begging the question: Would you know a quagga mussel if you saw one?

The National Weather Service is warning people to steer clear of parks, trails, piers and breakwaters Wednesday and Thursday, with waves as high as 18 feet and wind gusts up to 45 miles per hour in the forecast.

Safety officials are reminding Chicagoans that even if it still feels like summer, the lakefront’s beaches are now closed for the season to swimming, with lifeguards no longer present along the shoreline. So far in 2021, 38 people have drowned in Lake Michigan.

As beach season winds down in Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium is hosting a series of weekend cleanups to clear the shoreline of a summer’s worth of litter and debris.

After a drowning in Lake Michigan near a Rogers Park beach earlier this month, longtime community activist Jim Ginderske decided to take action in the name of public safety. Now, a local alderperson is joining the effort.

For three months out of the year, Chicago’s every bit as much of a beach town as Los Angeles or Miami. As we kick off summer 2021, here are some things you might not know about the city’s sandy shore.

The city’s lakefront beaches will officially open Friday for the first time since 2019, with lifeguards on duty and concessions returning.