Northerly Island Park opens Friday on Chicago lakefront

Photo: studiogang.net.

Twelve years after former Mayor Richard M. Daley's "midnight raid" that shut down the small lakefront airstrip called Meigs Field, a new park will open Friday on the southern portion of what is now called Northerly Island, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday.

Accompanied by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the mayor previewed the 40-acre, $9.7 million park, which features man-made hills, a 5-acre lagoon and a winding bike and pedestrian trail. Great blue herons were spotted during the tour, which also offered sweeping views of the downtown skyline.

Referring to the airport's conversion, as well as the transformation of an elevated railroad line into the new 606 trail and the new downtown Riverwalk, which replaces docks along the Chicago River, Emanuel said: "We are at the epicenter of taking old transportation platforms and turning (them) into public space."

In 1996, after Daley announced he would close Meigs Field and turn it into a park, then-Gov. Jim Edgar got the General Assembly to authorize a state takeover of the airport. That led to a deal that kept Meigs open through 2002.

Then, in 2003, as the Iraq war began, Daley sent out city backhoes to carve giant X's into the airport's runway. His pretext for that signature power grab was that terrorists could possibly crash small planes into downtown skyscrapers.

The new park occupies almost half of the 91-acre Northerly Island, which is actually a peninsula linked to a land bridge that connects the Adler Planetarium to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum.

The park's cost was covered by $6.3 million in federal funds and $3.4 million from the Chicago Park District. The Park District's share was paid for by revenue from a concert pavilion on the northern half of the island, officials said.

Before the tour began, Durbin recalled flying into the airport, where small planes shuttled politicians between Chicago and the state Capitol in Springfield.

"It was Springfield's personal airport," Durbin said before the tour. "It is now being put to great use."