Fourth Use: Public Gathering Place
From 1965–1989, Navy Pier was considered underutilized.
In the bicentennial year of 1976, opened by a concert by Fort Sheridan's 81st Army Band, Navy Pier began its fourth life as an area for public exhibits, when the East Buildings (furthest into Lake Michigan) were opened as exhibition halls. Special events including music and arts festivals (ChicagoFest was one) began to draw crowds to the Pier despite its aging infrastructure.
The halls were used to represent Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the 1986 movie The Color of Money for the 9-Ball Championship. From 1979 to 1987, a submarine, the USS Silversides, was docked at Navy Pier.
In 1989, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority took control over the Pier. Major renovation and construction followed in the 1990s at a cost of US$200 million. As rebuilt in the 1990s, the Pier's layout included fast-food kiosks, shops, a ballroom, a concert stage, and convention exhibition halls.
Centerpiece attractions include a Ferris wheel, an IMAX theater, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Amazing Chicago's Funhouse Maze, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, and at the entrance to Navy Pier is a statue of Oak Park comedian Bob Newhart, sponsored by the TV Land network.
The Pier now features a large front lawn showcasing numerous larger-than-life public art sculptures and an interactive animated fountain created by WET (of Fountains of Bellagio fame). The Pier continues to be used as an embarkation point for tour and excursion boats and is a popular place to watch lakefront events, including the annual Air and Water airshow and the parade of lighted and decorated boats during Chicago's Venetian Night festival.
The Pier and its grounds encompass more than 50 acres (200,000 m2) of parks, gardens, shops, restaurants and other shore entertainment. Navy Pier contains 170,000 total square feet of exhibition space, 50,000 square feet (5,000 m2) of reception space and 48,000 square feet (4,500 m2) of meeting room space.
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Famous quotes containing the words public, gathering and/or place:
“A sceptic finds Dallas absurd. A cynic thinks the public doesn’t.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“This was once
a city among men, a gathering together of spirit.
It was measured by the Lord and found wanting.”
—Robert Duncan (b. 1919)
“It was such a leafy wilderness; a place for fauns and satyrs, and where bats hung all day to the rocks, and at evening flitted over the water, and fireflies husbanded their light under the grass and leaves against the night.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)