Encyclopedia o f Chicago
Interpretive Digital Essay : The Plan of Chicago
The Plan of Chicago
Chicago in 1909
Planning Before the Plan
Antecedents and Inspirations
The City the Planners Saw
The Plan of Chicago
The Plan Comes Together
Creating the Plan
Reading the Plan
A Living Document
Promotion
Implementation
Heritage
Revised Preliminary Plan for Grant Park
Return to "Antecedents and Inspirations"

Among the many proposals for Grant Park was this one by Frederick Law Olmsted's sons for the South Park Commission in 1903. The Field Columbian Museum (note how much larger it is than the original Art Institute of Chicago building) dominates the park. It is situated, as the Plan of Chicago would recommend, along an extended Congress Street. North and south of the museum are large meadows, to the east are a boat landing and a lakeshore parkway bordered by trees, and to the west are the Illinois Central right-of-way, a landscaped line of basins, and then Michigan Avenue.