09/07/2026
Gm
Northerly Island is a 91-acre peninsula sticking into Lake Michigan just south of the Museum Campus, and it has been at least four completely different things.
It is not actually an island anymore. It was built as one, from landfill, as part of Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago. Burnham proposed a chain of offshore islands along the lakefront and only this one got built. A causeway later connected it to the mainland.
The 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair used it as a primary site, filling it with modernist pavilions, exhibits and crowds during the worst years of the Depression. The Adler Planetarium at the north end is the surviving piece of that era.
Then it became an airport. Meigs Field opened in 1948 as a single-runway lakefront field for small aircraft, and it operated for fifty-five years with a spectacular approach over the water into downtown.
The end of Meigs is the part everyone remembers. In March 2003, Mayor Richard M. Daley sent bulldozers onto the runway in the middle of the night without notice, carving large Xs into the pavement and stranding aircraft. He said it was a security decision after September 11. The FAA fined the city. Aviation people have never forgiven it, and Chicagoans still argue about whether it was outrageous or overdue.
What replaced it is what Burnham arguably wanted. The Chicago Park District turned it into a natural area with prairie plantings, wetlands, walking paths and a small lagoon. Migrating birds use it heavily and birders work it in spring and fall.
The Huntington Bank Pavilion is there too, an outdoor concert venue on the north end with the skyline directly behind the stage.
The view back at the city from the southern tip is the best skyline view in Chicago and it is free.
Go at sunset. Walk out to the end.
