Many of Chicago’s oldest lakefront carvings are on the badly deteriorated revetments along Morgan Shoal in Hyde Park. The more than 1,000 carvings there, between 45th and 50th Streets in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, are in imminent danger of being lost. This section of lakefront is in terrible condition, with many of the old rocks topsy turvy and falling into the lake. The condition of the revetments is such that they cannot be rehabilitated, but that does not mean the rocks and their carvings must be abandoned. The city is proceeding with a project to rebuild and expand the shoreline here, which makes it essential that the carvings be recognized as an important cultural resource and, to the extent possible, preserved in the course of the reconstruction. In other areas of the lakefront pieces of the old limestone revetments have been reused as part of the landscape.
The group of carvings behind La Rabida Hospital are also in imminent danger of being lost to flooding and storm damage. As at Morgan Shoal and Promontory Point, blocks hosting important carvings are falling into the lake. The La Rabida section of shore is under study for protection measures, so again, it’s important that the value of the carvings as a cultural resource be recognized and the carvings preserved to the extent possible.
The pages behind the links below were prepared to give government officials a sense of the carvings’ extent and value.
Mapping the Morgan Shoal carvings
The interactive maps at this page feature the 700+ most interesting carvings along Morgan Shoal. An alternate set of maps at this page shows the distribution of all the carvings along the length of the Morgan Shoal shoreline.
49th Street Beach House
The “collective autograph” at the 49th Street Beach.
Morgan Shoal highlights
A selection of the most interesting Morgan Shoal carvings as well as a gallery of Morgan Shoal carvings by date.
La Rabida
A small area behind La Rabida Hospital at 65th Street and the lake hosts a small but dense group of nearly 600 carvings.
Examples of repurposed blocks
How limestone blocks were repurposed at three locations along the Chicago lakefront.
Comments for the Army Corps of Engineers
You might also be interested in my comments for the Army Corps of Engineers Chicago Coastal Study.
You can buy my book about the carvings, Lakefront Anonymous, and read more about them here.