Olmsted in Chicago: Midway Plaisance Walking Tour

5850 S Woodlawn Ave,Chicago IL 60637

25 June, 2022

Description

Join Chicago park historian Julia Bachrach for this free walking tour of the Midway, one of Frederick Law Olmsted’s iconic landscapes. April 26, 2022, marks the 200th birthday of Frederick Law Olmsted, author, conservationist, social reformer, and America’s seminal landscape architect. Olmsted and his successors designed some of Chicago’s most beloved and important greenspaces. In partnership with the Hyde Park Historical Society, Chicago park historian Julia Bachrach leads free walking tours of Frederick Law Olmsted’s iconic Chicago landscapes: Jackson Park, Washington Park, and the Midway Plaisance. This tour illuminates Olmsted’s plan for the Midway Plaisance as a grand boulevard between Jackson and Washington Park, the site’s transformation into a carnival area for the World’s Columbian Exposition, and Olmsted’s vision for a canal as its centerpiece after the exposition. Highlights include the site of the original Ferris Wheel, a major attraction of the 1893 fair. Meet in front of Rockefeller Chapel (E. 59th and S. Woodlawn Avenue). This tour is presented by the Hyde Park Historical Society as part of Art Design Chicago Now, an initiative funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art that amplifies the voices of Chicago's diverse creatives, past and present, and explores the essential role they play in shaping the now.