Pier 63
The full view unfolded—the late summer foliage of Promontory Point stood defiantly before Chicago’s looming skyline, like a little brother with his chest puffed up to impress the cameraman.
I make lists. Think Jon Cusack in High Fidelity, only much less willing to commit to a number one, two, and three. My way of ranking rests on the general exclusivity of the number.
For example, I recently saw the original Alien at the Music Box Theatre, and I placed it among my top twenty-five films. Yet when, this summer, a group of friends projected The Sandlot onto my garage, I easily placed it among my top five. I was frozen; I felt that making a beer run would ruin the experience (You wouldn’t trade Beethoven’s Ninth for the restroom as the chorale begins, just as you wouldn’t stroll into St Peter’s with sunglasses on). Each moment of that film is soaked in my childhood; each scene brings me closer to the gates of my past and to moments that the earliest, most primitive tools of my memory seem unable to excavate
The Sandlot is among my top five, meaning there are four other films that have moved me in barely more or almost equally drastic ways. If you asked me what they are, however, I’d respond with a vacant stare and soon admit to my fear of commitment. I am, probably, most afraid of selling this honor to some qualified flash in the pan with no real chance of pervading history.
This narrative detour is meant only to strengthen the gravity of the following statement: My favorite place in Chicago is the Sixty-Third Street Pier. It is not simply among my top ten, top five, or even top three; it is my number one.
The pier needs to be introduced to you. To stumble upon it alone would certainly be adequate, but it has a capacity to overwhelm. Its serene beauty is best taken in slices and shared with a friend, or lover, whose company may ground the atmosphere.
I shared my first time with a friend—an older friend on whom I’ve relied throughout the years to pull back the gritty, unwashed covers of Chicago’s South Side and expose its hidden beauties. South from Hyde Park, we rode our bikes with a six-pack of Alpha King in tow and the destination a secret to me. We wiggled our way through Jackson Park, then skirted around Bacon’s gilded Statue of the Republic as it glimmered in the late-summer sun sinking behind us. Past a pick-up three-on-three and out from under Lake Shore Drive, we wheeled along, keeping our eyes on the road but glancing whenever possible to the left—towards the great blue expanse begging for our attention, childish wonder, and exploration. Dodging family reunions and grills and drum circles and booming speakers was no small feat, but we somehow managed. The parking lot was teeming with life: people everywhere, shouting, singing, dancing, eating—its chaos was settling. Soon we dismounted and proceeded by foot across the sandy boardwalk and came to the trees. The pier lay hidden behind stoic oaks and rustling bushes; our destination had been bound to remain secret until our arrival.
Bending left, it opened its arm to us. The pier, extending many feet into the cerulean waters before us, invited us to join the walkers, fishers, and gazers. First impressions were of the pavilion to the left, framed by the glowing embers of a sun exhausted of its daily duties. To the right was the evening, approaching from Michigan with a creeping constancy. We continued on, and the full view unfolded—the late summer foliage of Promontory Point stood defiantly before Chicago’s looming skyline, like a little brother with his chest puffed up to impress the cameraman. As we walked towards the end, the entire ensemble crescendoed into a rousing finale: the sun setting to the left and the lights of Chicago blooming in the distance, the waves licking the fishermen’s bait and the warm gusts of the fading summer sweeping across the great flat lake.
Time slows at the end of the pier. Although conversation comes easily, it’s not necessary; you feel your words will be swallowed up by the immensity of the setting. And so you sit. The towering buildings Downtown sit far off in an attentive silence. Their quiet is comforting, telling you that there is calm here, there is rest, there is a slowness so evasive elsewhere in this city.
A visit is both a communal and a highly individual affair; each moment is both shared and quietly kept. The cold-blooded Minnesotan who brings his dogs there every morning of the year takes a satisfaction in the pier that is different from the pleasure taken by a grandmother overseeing her rollicking clan. The fisherman who rises before dawn hoping to surprise his sleeping catch has his own reasons, as does the pair of lovers who wish the pier would remain forever in the crepuscular setting. Yet they also go to see each other, and they leave with the pier’s communal blessing.
The place is worth the pilgrimage. It defines autumn, as it does summer, in Chicago—the lake, the sky, the sun, the leaves. Yet, most of all, there is the people it brings: a mixture of every race, class, and profession united, as they are nowhere else, in a shared peace. This is beauty. Go.
