Photos: The New Northerly Island Park Is Now Open

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Sep 4, 2015 7:00PM

The city opened its gorgeous new 40-acre park on Northerly Island this morning.

The $9.7 million park, on the former site of the Meigs Field airstrip, is years in the making. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley is said to have wanted to convert the small airport on the manmade Lake Michigan island into a park since at least the mid-'90s, but politics got in the way for years. That was, until Daley had the airstrip bulldozed in the dead of night in 2013.

Lately, the only construction vehicles the island has seen have been from the Park District diligently at work constructing the new park, which was designed by the award-winning Studio Gang architecture firm (behind such lakefront fixtures as The Aqua high-rise) and landscape architecture firm SmithGroupJJR.