A warm Thursday evening brought groups of people, with the occasional lone book-reader or phone-surfer, to the original limestone steps at Burnham Park’s Promontory Point, a serene spot cherished by locals and tourists alike tucked away in the East Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s lakefront.
In an effort to maintain the point’s historic charm, hundreds of thousands of federal dollars have been requested for the 2023 fiscal year to re-up a study looking into the long-awaited preservation of the limestone revetment at Promontory Point, which has been there since its creation in 1938.
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The study would determine a “preferred preservation approach” for the design of the Promontory Point Shoreline Protection Project with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to a news release from U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, who represents Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District, who called the point “beautiful.”
“It’s a gem in the city, and we should do everything we can to restore it,” Kelly said.
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Promontory Point is a 40-acre, man-made peninsula on the shore of Lake Michigan between 53rd and 57th streets, according to the Promontory Point Conservancy, a community group with a mission to “protect and preserve” the point. The limestone revetment was designed as the four or five tiers of step stones point-goers know and love at the edge of the lake that lead up to Burnham Park.
High lake levels in the 1980s led to the plan to repair and replace the revetments along Chicago’s entire lakefront, including Promontory Point, but many residents took issue with replacing the historic limestone blocks with concrete. Several community groups rallied together by 2006 and called for an alternative that would hopefully preserve the point’s original limestone, but no funding was made available to continue these efforts until now.
Kelly submitted the request for funding in May as one of 15 community service projects across her district she put on the congressional table this year. She said the Chicago Park District put in the proposal and determined the amount needed for the study, $550,000.
Over 75 proposals were submitted to Kelly, and she selected the 15 this year “based on need and impact for the communities she represents,” according to the news release.
Kelly said she walked around Promontory Point at the end of 2012, before she was elected to Congress, with Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, who gave her a tour and who Kelly said has been a “warrior for this project.”
Once the funding is approved, Kelly said, the money will go to the Army Corps, who will run point on the study. Kelly said she is “optimistic” about the approval because all 10 of the projects she put forth last were approved, bringing more than $6.7 million in federal funds to her district.
Other projects up for funding this year include improvements to South Shore Hospital, gun-violence prevention and streetlight improvement.
Don Lamb is an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and a member of the Promontory Point Conservancy. Lamb said he has been involved with saving the point since about 2005. He said the point is “an incredibly unique and special place” for the South Side and the entire city and finally sees some light at the end of a lengthy tunnel toward preserving it.
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“It still needs to be passed by Congress and signed by the president, but I feel more optimistic today than I have in 16 years that Promontory Point will be saved,” Lamb said.
