Northerly Island

Northerly Island is a 91-acre man-made peninsula along Chicago's Lake Michigan lakefront. The site of the Adler Planetarium, Northerly Island connects to the mainland through a narrow isthmus along Solidarity Drive. This street is dominated by Neoclassical sculptures of Tadeusz Kościuszko, Karel Havlíček Borovský and Copernicus. With the demolition of Meigs Field Airport, Northerly Island is now a part of the Museum Campus and has been converted into parkland. A semi-temporary concert venue, the Huntington Bank Pavilion, occupies part of the site of the former airport.

The idea for Northerly Island began with Daniel Burnham's "Plan of Chicago" which called for the creation of Northerly Island as a lakefront park at the northern end of a five-island chain between Jackson Park and 12th Street. It was the only lakefront structure to be built based on Burnham's 1909 Plan. Northerly Island forms the southern end of Chicago Harbor , and the eastern boundary of Burnham Harbor. As indicated by the color green on the original plan, the island was to be populated by trees and grass for the public enjoyment. Daniel Burnham died in 1912. By 1916, Edward H. Bennett, co-author of the Plan of Chicago, wrote that a lakefront location would be most suitable for an airport serving the central business district. By 1922, Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson recommended locating the downtown airport at Northerly Island.

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