Free Exhibit at City Gallery Chicago. Growing Community
When: through January 5, 2020
Where: City Gallery in the Historic Water Tower, 806 N Michigan Ave.
Admission free.
Growing Community: An exhibition celebrating community-managed green spaces throughout Chicago, is part of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
If you’re in the area on a Tuesday check out the Loyola University Museum of Art located across the street and is free on Tuesdays.
About Neighbor Space
NeighborSpace is the only nonprofit urban land trust in Chicago that preserves and sustains gardens on behalf of dedicated community groups. We support community gardens – through property ownership, insurance, water, stewardship, education, tool lending, project planning, fundraising support, troubleshooting, and more — so that community groups can focus on gardening and on their community-building vision, generating food, beauty, play, health, and safety for their neighborhoods.
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The Water Tower, View South along Michigan Avenue; Chicago Daily News, Photograph, 1929 (DN-0020190). Chicago Historical Society
About the Historic Water Tower
The Chicago Water Tower is the city’s most familiar and treasured landmark. Constructed between 1867 and 1869, it was created for Chicago’s municipal water system, and originally housed a 135 foot iron standpipe used to regulate water pressure.
It gained special significance as one of the few buildings to survive the destructive path of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Both the Water Tower and Pumping Station to the east were designed by William W. Boyington, one of Chicago’s most prolific architects of the mid-nineteenth century.
The completion of the Michigan Avenue Bridge in 1920 joined Michigan Avenue below the river and Pine Street above it into a single street. The “boulevarding” of Michigan Avenue on both sides of the river also widened it considerably. Handsome new office buildings, starting with the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower, began to spring up north of the river, leading to the creation of what became known as the “Magnificent Mile,” between the Main Branch of the Chicago River and just beyond the Water Tower. We see this development clearly in this view from just north of the tower.
Check out more images here.
