Navy Pier - An Entertainment District and Cultural Boardwalk.

Navy Pier has long been an icon and destination for our city. It juts out into the lake as an entertainment district and cultural "boardwalk”.

A little history - Chicago's Navy Pier opened to the public on July 15, 1916 and was built by Charles Sumner Frost, a nationally known architect using a design based on the 1909 Plan of Chicago by Daniel Burnham. The pier’s original purpose was  to serve as a dock for freights, passenger traffic, and indoor and outdoor recreation; occasionally events like expositions and pageants were held there. It had a strong utilitarian focus. In mid-1918, the pier was also used as a jail for draft dodgers. It was not the all frolicking along the lakefront.  In 1941, during World War II, the pier became a training center for the United States Navy where 10,000 people worked, trained and lived there. The pier contained a 2,500-seat theater, gym, 12-chair barber shop, tailor, cobbler shops, soda fountain and a vast kitchen and hospital.

In 1946, as the Navy was winding down from its mission, the University of Illinois
at Chicago held classes at the pier. As the maximum capacity was exceeded,
the school outgrew the pier and the university relocated to Circle Campus.
After the university left, the Navy Pier became underutilized. It has come a long
way since all this utility and abandonment.

To celebrate and honor its vibrancy, I took these shots at dusk, wanting to capture
all the new lights of the pier and to our city. It's one of the most dramatic views
of our skyline and and a symbolic view of our lakefront.