Events
The park has been the site of many large civic events. In 1911, it hosted the major Chicago International Aviation Meet. In 1959, to celebrate the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and a related Interntional Trade Fair, Elizabeth II, disembarked here from the Royal Yacht Britannia, giving "Queens Landing" its name. The park was the scene of clashes between Chicago Police and demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Pope John Paul II celebrated an outdoor mass to a large crowd here in 1979. Championship celebrations for the Chicago Bulls were staged here during the 1990s. The park was the location for President Barack Obama's Election Day victory speech on the night of November 4, 2008.
Annually, the park hosts some of Chicago's biggest festivals including The Taste of Chicago—a large food and music festival held each summer; the Grant Park Music Festival; Chicago Jazz Festival and the Chicago Blues Festival. The park is also the site of the start and finish lines of the Chicago Marathon.
Since 2005, Lollapalooza, a popular series of rock concerts has taken place in the park. Lollapalooza is under contract to be staged at Grant Park through 2018.
Read more about this topic: Grant Park (Chicago)
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The prime lesson the social sciences can learn from the natural sciences is just this: that it is necessary to press on to find the positive conditions under which desired events take place, and that these can be just as scientifically investigated as can instances of negative correlation. This problem is beyond relativity.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)