Grant Park

Proudly referred to as Chicago's "front yard," Grant Park is among the city's loveliest and most prominent parks. The site of three world-class museums -- the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium -- the park includes the museum campus, a 1995 transformation of paved areas into beautiful greenspace. Grant Park's centerpiece is the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain, built in 1927 to provide a monumental focal point while protecting the park's breathtaking lakefront views.

Grant Park's beginnings date to 1835, when foresighted citizens, fearing commercial lakefront development, lobbied to protect the open space. As a result, the park's original area east of Michigan Avenue was designated "public ground forever to remain vacant of buildings." Officially named Lake Park in 1847, the site soon suffered from lakefront erosion. The Illinois Central Railroad agreed to build a breakwater to protect the area in exchange for permission for an offshore train trestle. After the Great Fire of 1871, the area between the shore and trestle became a dump site for piles of charred rubble, the first of many landfill additions. New landfill at the park's southern border allowed construction of the Field Museum to begin, and the park evolved slowly. In 1934, the South Park Commission was consolidated into the Chicago Park District, which completed improvements using federal relief funds.

At the turn of the 21st century, the north end of Grant Park underwent a multi-million-dollar facelift, as old railbeds were transformed into Millennium Park.

On the night of November 4, 2008, Barack Obama celebrated his election victory for President of the United States in Hutchinson Field, on the south end of Grant Park. Thousands of spectators, along with media from all over the world, attended this historical event in Chicago's front yard.

Grant Park features include:

* Buckingham Foutain

* Daley Bicentennial Plaza Fieldhouse

* Ice Rink (late Nov. - late Feb.)
* Gardens:

- Spirit of Music Garden
- Grant Park Formal Garden

- Congress Triangle Garden
- Congress Median Garden

- Congress Plaza Gardens
- Cancer Survivors Garden
- South President's Court Garden

- North President's Court Garden
- Buckingham Fountain Flower Garden

* Statues, Monuments & Art:

- Agora
- Magdalene
- Christopher Columbus Monument
- General John Logan Monument

- Richard Oglesby Monument
- Spirit of Music

- Sir George Solti Bust