Lee Bey: The Urban Observer

Urban planning ideas in Chicago never really die; they just resurface when the time is right. Millennium Park along Michigan Avenue has an outdoor ice-skating rink, of course, but this rendering from 1957 shows the idea of skating near the boulevard had been around a while. This unbuilt rink was proposed on the south of Jackson, next to the Art Institute--about two blocks of where Millennium Park was later built. Look at the detailing. With modernism in Chicago in full bloom, planners were still willing to propose a Beaux Art rink. The light standard at right is contemporary, though. It's a beautiful rendering, by the way. I like view of South Michigan Avenue across the street...a perspective that hasn't changed that much since then: the Sante Fe Building is to the left; then the Chicago Symphony Orchestra building, the then-brand new and modernist Borg-Warner building is next to that. The broad fourth building with the columns near the top is the former People's Gas Building.