This article is a bit outside Streetsblog Chicago's usual wheelhouse, but I thought many of our readers might enjoy it and find it useful.
"And the embers never fade."
In your city by the lake"
- "Tonight, Tonight" by Smashing Pumpkins, 1996
Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago" famously called this the "City of the Big Shoulders." But maybe "City of the Big Lakefront" would be more accurate. According to the Chicago Park District's website, the agency "manages the city's 26 miles of open and free lakefront," and the site lists 27 beach facilities the agency controls. (One of them is Humboldt Beach, a man-made plage in the Humboldt Park green space, a full four miles west of Lake Michigan.)
I got the idea to visit all 26 of the lakeside ones in single day last Fourth of July when I hung out with several of my old friends from Chicago Critical Mass at North Avenue Beach in Lincoln Park. Some of them had plans to attend another gathering later that day up the Lakefront Trail at Uptown's Montrose Beach. I had other plans, but it gave me the idea to do the equivalent of bar hopping, but visiting several sandy sites in a single day. Obsessive that I am, that idea expanded to stopping and wading at every one of the park district's designated shoreline beaches.
On Saturday, around 9:30 AM, with lovely weather but a high around 90F, I left SBC HQ in Uptown with my touring bike and flip flops (they worked fine for riding a little over 35 miles) and caught the Red Line from Wilson Station to the 95th/Dan Ryan stop in Roseland. From there, I headed east to the lake and proceeded north, with a few friends joining me along the way.
I'd be lying if I said it wasn't completely exhausted by the time I got to Juneway Beach in Rogers Park, next to the Evanston Border, from the miles, the heat, and the countless relatively hurried (but refreshing) dips in the water. But, while I've ridden most of our city's lakefront in single day before when leading the annual Chicago Perimeter Ride years ago, stopping and soaking at each and every plage along the way gave me a new appreciation for our shoreline.
We owe a tip of the helmet to entrepreneur A. Montgomery Ward, who campaigned to keep our lakefront "Forever open, free and clear" of commercial development, with an extensive coastal parks system. Of course, that didn't stop the powers-that-be from constructing an eight-lane highway that serves as a barrier between the neighborhoods and most of the beaches.
And the Illinois Department of Transportation is currently planning to rebuilding the DuSable Lake Shore Drive on the North Side pretty much as-is, without even adding dedicated transit lanes, which advocates have protested. Needless to say, even once you've gotten across DLSD by bridge, underpass, or often-unsafe at-level crosswalks, and reached the beach, the tranquility is often undermined by the sight, noise, vibrations, and pollution of drivers roaring down the highway.
But Chicago's dozens of beaches are still a wonderful asset that we shouldn't take for granted, as demonstrated by the following photo gallery below. I'll mostly let the pictures to the talking, without captions, unless warranted, but click on the links to learn more about these spaces. All photos are by yours truly, unless otherwise credited.
Here's a very simplified overview of my route, but I'll also include some other map sections of my exact route, in case you'd like like to try riding some or all of this some time.
0: Pregaming at Calumet Fisheries, 3259 E. 59th St.
1. Calumet Beach, 9801 S. Avenue G in the East Side community
2. Rainbow Beach, 3111 E. 77th St. in the South Shore community
3. South Shore Beach, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. in the South Shore community
4. 63rd Street Beach, 6300 S. DLSD in the Woodlawn community
5. 57th Street Beach, 5700 S. DLSD in the Hyde Park community
6. Oakwood Beach, 4100 S. DLSD in the Oakland community
7. Margaret T. Burroughs Beach (aka 31st Street Beach) , 3100 S. DLSD in the Douglas community
8. 12th Street Beach, 1200 S. Linn White Drive in the Near South Side community
9. Ohio Street Beach, 600 N. DLSD in the Near North Side community
10. Oak Street Beach, 1000 N. DLSD, Near North Side
11. North Avenue Beach, 1601 N. DLSD in the Lincoln Park community.
12. Montrose Beach, 4400 N. DLSD in the Uptown community
13. Foster Beach, 5200 N. DLSD in Edgewater
14. Osterman Beach, 5800 N. DLSD in the Edgewater community
15. Lane Beach (aka Thorndale Beach): 5915 N. Sheridan Rd. in Edgewater
16. Hartigan Beach Park: 1050 W. Albion Ave. in the Rogers Park community
17. North Shore Beach: 1040 W. North Shore Ave. In Rogers Park
18. Helen Doria Beach (aka Columbia Beach): 1040 W. Columbia in Rogers Park
19. Toby Prinz Beach: 1050 W. Pratt in Rogers Park
In this part of my trip, things got a little complex, since there are several different names for what is essentially the same stretch of shoreline. In addition, Hartigan Beach is mislabeled on the park district's beach map as 1123 W. Farwell Ave., when it's actually on Albion. So, technically, I didn't actually photograph and wade at every single one of the four designated beaches on a quarter-mile stretch, but I'm going to cut myself some slack here. Also note that it's a little tricky to access all four by bicycle, since there's no shoreline path, and Sheridan Road is a bike-hostile four-lane "stroad." So your best bet between Loyola Avenue (the northern border of the Loyola University campus) and Pratt is to use the alley just east of Sheridan. Here's a closeup of the map to show what I'm talking about.
20. Loyola Beach: 1230 W. Greenleaf in Rogers Park
21. Leone Beach, 1222 W. Touhy Ave. in Rogers Park
Between Leone and Griffin beaches, things get complicated again. If you're not up to riding the short distance on Sheridan between Touhy and Sherwin avenues, walk your bike on that stretch. After that, there's a little more alley riding involved. Here's another close-up.
22. Marion Mahony Griffin Beach (aka Jarvis Beach): 1208 W. Jarvis Ave. in Rogers Park.
23: Fargo Beach: 1300 W. Fargo Ave in Rogers Park
Sadly, Fargo is the last beach on the park district's list that is still a semi-sandy playa. Due to recent rising lake levels (read more about that issue in this interesting New York Times piece) are unhospitably covered with large, rough boulders. On the bright side, the street they're on, Eastlake Terrace, recently got a contraflow bike lane, which made my job easier.
24. Howard Beach, 7519 N. Eastlake Terrace in Rogers Park
25. Rogers Beach, 7705 N. Eastlake Terrace in Rogers Park
26. Juneway Beach: 7751 N. Eastlake Terrace
Want to try riding part or all of this route before it gets cold? Let us now how it worked out in the comments section, or via Streetsblog Chicago's Bluesky, Twitter, or Facebook accounts. And wear sunscreen!
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