Celebrate Chicago's Ties To River, Lake Michigan With Sunday Reenactment

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 13, 2012 10:15PM

Chicago has long been shaped by Lake Michigan, the Chicago River, and how we've tried, to varying degrees of success over the years, to manipulate each. From Marquette and Joliet's following the original Lake Michigan coastline in 1873, to George Streeter's attempts to claim landfill used in the construction of Lake Shore Drive as the "District of Lake Michigan" in 1888 to the city's reversing the flow of the Chicago River in 1892, Chicago has used the waterways to grow and prosper.

Pocket Guide To Hell, the group responsible for last year's reenactment of the Haymarket riots, will look at Chicago's history with its waterways with a day-long celebration beginning July 15 at 11 a.m.

The reenactment, in three parts, starts in the park across the street from the River East Art Center (435 E. Illinois St.) with free bowlers and squirt guns and Streeterville currency to the first 100 participants. Tintype photos will be taken by Chris Olsen and paper silhouettes made by Nina Nightingale. The first part of the reenactment—Marquette and Joliet's following the Lake Michigan coastline—will take place at Chicago and Fairbanks. From there the procession will head back to the River East Art Center to reenact the Streeterville raid at noon. At 2 p.m. the river's reversal will be reenacted at the Centennial fountain at McClurg Court and East River Drive. A host of performers will help mark the occasion, including Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner Debra Shore, WBEZ's Alison Cuddy and Chicagoist's Kevin Robinson, reprising his role as Mayor Carter Harrison from last year's Haymarket reenactment.