Friends of the Parks is re-starting the conversation surrounding the gaps in Chicago’s lakefront park system and what those four miles could mean for shoreline protection, promoting biodiversity and delivering green space to areas where it’s in short supply.
Chicago Lakefront


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is about to embark on its first comprehensive study of the city’s lakefront in more than 25 years.

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.

CEO Mike Kelly’s announcement reverses the city’s longstanding argument that life rings along the waterfront would encourage people to enter the water and put themselves at risk of injury or death — and make the city liable.

After recent drownings in Lake Michigan, activists have been clamoring for the Chicago Park District to install life rings along the lakefront, but the agency’s safety plan reinforces messaging surrounding “not safe to swim” locations.

Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve in suburban Darien is roughly 30 miles and a world away from downtown Chicago, but this is where a section of the city’s prized lakefront once rested.

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.

Lake Michigan is one of Chicago’s biggest attractions. And while it’s scenic, it’s also sometimes dangerous. What water safety advocates are proposing to stop people from drowning and dying in the lake.

An Iowa man who was in custody in Chicago after police found a rifle with a laser sight in a hotel room that overlooks a Lake Michigan beach during the July Fourth weekend made bond and then proposed to his girlfriend upon his release.

Keegan Casteel, 32, was allegedly found in possession of a loaded rifle with a laser sight and multiple ammunition magazines inside his 12th-floor Chicago hotel room overlooking Ohio Street Beach during the Fourth of July weekend.

Chicago’s lakefront is often referred to as one of the city’s crown jewels, and as with many valuable things, it’s been the subject of frequent high-profile political and legal fights. A new history of the lakefront traces more than 150 years of nearly nonstop litigation.

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.

The project’s many delays – some due to unexpected maintenance, some to funding availability – became a source of both frustration and humor for trail users and observers, who joked about the flyover taking longer than engineering marvels like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Sears Tower.

The long-awaited, sometimes-maligned structure carrying the lakefront trail over Grand Avenue, Illinois Street and the Chicago River has missed its latest target to wrap up in April. But the Chicago Department of Transportation says it’s “very close” to completion.