Northerly Island
In the summertime, Grant Park and Museum Campus swarm with locals and tourists taking advantage of the best that Chicago has to offer. But keep on walking, past Adler Planetarium, past the Charter One Pavilion and into the remains of Meigs Field. As the city tries to figure out what it wants to do with this unfinished bit of the Burnham Plan, it lets the ninety-one-acre peninsula called Northerly Island go virtually unfettered and unpromoted. Take a walk among the tall grass and wildflowers, and you’ll leave the crowds behind for a bit of Walden Pond-like isolation smack dab downtown. If you start to wonder whether you’ve walked through a space warp into Maine or something, take a look up. That skyline will remind you that you’re home.
400 South Lynn White Drive, (312)745-2910
Best of Chicago 2007