Chicago’s Lake Michigan shoreline hosts an amazing collective work of art, engraved on the limestone blocks that run down in steps to the water along several miles of its length. The thousands of rock carvings made by mostly anonymous creators starting in the first half of the 20th century represent an efflorescence of public art that is unique in the world, and barely acknowledged in Chicago.
The carvings start at Calumet Beach Park near the Indiana state line and end 22 miles north, just south of Osterman Beach at Hollywood Avenue.
More than 6,000 of these carvings have survived into the 21st century. Thousands more, including many significant individual works of art, were lost earlier in the century when the government’s lakefront protection project rebuilt several miles of decaying shoreline. And more than a thousand carvings are at immediate risk of a similar fate as planning proceeds for additional anti-erosion, anti-flooding measures in and around Hyde Park on the South Side.
The links below will take you to galleries, and in some cases maps, of the most interesting carvings at each location where they survive as well as galleries of lost carvings that were documented before they disappeared.
The Major Sites
Other Locations
- Fullerton Avenue: Some spectacular carvings on relocated blocks.
- North Side: Leone Beach, Fullerton Avenue, North Avenue, Olive Park
- Burnham Park: 12th Street Beach, McCormick Place, Northerly Island, Oakwood Beach
- Jackson Park: 57th Street Beach, 63rd St. Beach
- Unknown: A handful of artworks whose location is unknown. All are presumed lost..
Read more about the lakefront carvings here or buy my book about the carvings, Lakefront Anonymous, here.