Chicago Harbor Light

USS Chicago (CA-136/CG-11) was a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser laid down on 28 July 1943 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, by the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Launched on 20 August 1944, she was sponsored by Mrs. Edward J. Kelly, wife of the Mayor of Chicago, Illinois, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 10 January 1945, Captain Richard R. Hartung, USN, in command.

The Navy Pier Auditorium, designed by the architect Charles Sumner Frost and constructed in 1916, is located at the east end of Navy Pier in Chicago and is also known as the Hall. The Navy Pier Auditorium consists of the Festival Hall and the Aon Grand Ballroom.

Navy Pier is a 3,300-foot-long (1,010 m) pier on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Navy Pier encompasses over 50 acres (20 ha) of parks, gardens, shops, restaurants, family attractions and exhibition facilities and is one of the top destinations in the Midwestern United States, drawing nearly over nine million visitors annually. It is one of the most visited attractions in the entire Midwest and is Chicago's second-most visited tourist attraction.

The Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows was an exhibition that opened in February 2000 at Chicago’s Navy Pier entertainment complex. It permanently closed in October 2014. It was the first American museum dedicated solely to the art of stained glass windows. Named after prominent Chicago collectors E.B. and Maureen Smith, the museum held over 150 individual pieces displayed in four galleries: Victorian, Prairie, Modern, and Contemporary. The majority of the works originally came from Chicago-area buildings, and a number of prominent artists are represented, including John LaFarge, Adolfas Valeška, and Ed Paschke. The collection contained religious themes, secular work, and some more unusual items, including a stained glass portrait of basketball player Michael Jordan, a window created from glass soda bottles, and Marie Herndl's "Queen of the Elves" (also called "The Fairy Queen").The adjacent Richard H. Driehaus Gallery of Stained Glass Windows opened in 2001 and closed in September 2017. It was devoted to ecclesiastical and secular windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany and interrelated businesses between 1890 and 1930. The windows were from the extensive Tiffany collection of Chicago businessman Richard H. Driehaus. There were 11 Tiffany windows on display in the Driehaus Gallery, along with a Tiffany Studios fire screen.The museum was located along a strip of shops, theatres, and restaurants, and admission was free. Most of the windows in the museum were illuminated with artificial light to highlight the colors and intricate details. Since each piece was protected by a layer of bulletproof glass, patrons were encouraged to come close to the works and even bring food into the galleries. Curator Rolf Achilles said, "It’s one of the very few museums in the world you can stroll through eating an ice cream cone right in front of the art. We don’t keep people away". In December 2013, less than a year before its closure, the museum installed 22 stained glass windows in the Chicago Pedway in collaboration with Macy's; these remain on display.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) is a non-profit, professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Its more than six hundred annual performances performed 48 weeks of the year include its critically acclaimed Shakespeare series, its World's Stage touring productions, and youth education and family oriented programming. The theater had garnered 77 Joseph Jefferson awards and three Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2008, it was the winner of the Regional Theatre Tony Award.Founded in 1986 in a pub, in 1999 the CST moved to a purpose-built seven-story theater complex on Navy Pier, where it has a main 500 seat space called the Courtyard, and the 200 seat Theater Upstairs. In 2017, it expanded on the pier into a connected three-theater-campus with the addition of The Yard, a flexible space that allows for versatile arrangements from 150 seats to 850 seats and from proscenium to in-the-round.

The Chicago Harbor Lock is a pound lock located in Chicago, Illinois, separating Lake Michigan from the Chicago River. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lock was designed and built between 1936 and 1938 by the Sanitary District of Chicago as a component of the project to reverse the flow of the Chicago River and is one of two entrances from the Great Lakes to the Chicago Area Waterway System - the other entrance being the T.J. O'Brien Lock and Dam on the Calumet River. The lock chamber is 600 feet (180 m) long, 80 feet (24 m) wide, and 22 feet (6.7 m) deep and can accommodate up to 100 vessels at once. The lock requires 12–15 minutes to cycle through a typical water-level difference of two to five feet (0.61 to 1.52 m). Water level is controlled via gravity through partially opened lock gates. The Chicago Harbor Lock is the fourth-busiest lock in the nation for commercial use and the second-busiest in the nation for recreational use. Lock Navigation: (1) All communication with the lock is done on vhf channel 14. (2) Upon opening priority is (Red Light) Military only (Yellow Light) Commercial Vessels (Green Light) Recreation (3) ALL parties must have life vests on upon entering the lock and engines must remain on. (4) NO WAKE idle speed only. (5) Follow the instructions of the army Corp. try to stay as far away from the gate opening as possible for lowest current (6) HOLD ON! to the ropes. Do not let go or bad things will happen. (7) Wait for the horn to signal all is clear. Push off and go!

The Jardine Water Purification Plant, formerly the Central District Filtration Plant, is a water filtration plant located at 1000 East Ohio Street, north of Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. It draws raw water from two of the city's water cribs far offshore in Lake Michigan and supplies two thirds of City of Chicago consumers in the northern, downtown, and western parts of the city and to many northern and western surrounding suburbs. The plant was constructed in the 1960s and began functioning in 1968. The plant was renamed after James W. Jardine (1908-1977), a 42-year city employee, who served as water commissioner from 1953 until his retirement in 1973. Shortly thereafter the Ohio Street Beach was formed in the bay created by the plant. Landscaping around the plant and in the adjoining Milton Olive Park was designed by Dan Kiley, and a statue, Hymn to Water, by Milton Horn graces the front entrance. The southern portion of the city and many southern suburbs are served by a separate plant, the Sawyer Water Purification Plant. Together the two plants supply water to about 3 million households in the city and 118 suburbs.Filtration methods used by the Jardine Water Plant is extraction and adding chemical additives; with the use of sand and gravel to filter the water, while the chemical additives being fluoride to fight off tooth decay, phosphates to avoid corrosion from the pipes, and chlorine for disinfection.

The Chicago Children's Museum is located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1982 by The Junior League of Chicago who were responding to programming cutbacks in the Chicago Public Schools. Originally housed in two hallways of the Chicago Public Library, it soon began to offer trunk shows and traveling exhibits in response to capacity crowds on-site.The museum moved a number of times over its initial years of existence while it continued to search for a permanent home. In 1995, the Museum thought it found that home when it reopened as an anchor tenant at Navy Pier on Lake Michigan. The new facility offered 57,000 square feet (5,300 m2) of exhibition space and included three floors of educational exhibits, public programs and special events. Upon the move to the Pier, the expansion made it the fourth largest children's museum in the United States. The museum serves more than 650,000 people, both at its Navy Pier location and in communities in and around Chicago, each year. While the Museum has an admission charge, it currently provides free admission to children 15 and under each Thursday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and all-day on the first Sunday of each month.

Captain on the Helm, also known as Captain at the Helm, is an outdoor bronze sculpture by Michael Martino, installed at Chicago's Navy Pier, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The statue was donated by the Chicago Lodge of Shipmasters International and dedicated on May 19, 2000. A plaque reads, "To those courageous mariners who guided their ships through perilous waters, carrying cargo and people. Their contributions have been so much a part of our history. May they never be forgotten."

Crack the Whip is a sculpture by J. Seward Johnson. The artwork depicts eight children at play. One copy was installed in a cemetery in Flint. The copy at Chicago's Navy Pier was installed in 1996.

The United States Lighthouse Tender Dahlia was a lighthouse tender serving on the Great Lakes. The first Great Lakes tender to be specifically built for that purpose, she was built in 1874 by Neafie & Levy and placed into commission at Detroit, Michigan. The ship was refitted in 1881, and again in 1891. On 5 November 1907 while docked at Milwaukee she was struck by Christopher receiving $450 in damage. On 5 May 1909 she was sold to E. W. Seymour, of Chicago, and rebuilt as passenger and freight carrier, and rechristened Flora M. Hill on 12 May 1910, under which name she served as a ferry between Chicago and Green Bay. The ship became stuck in heavy ice on 11 March 1912, while attempting to enter Chicago Harbor; after her passengers were unloaded, she was allowed to sink to the bottom, where her remains were seen as a shipping hazard and dynamited.

Polk Bros Park is a 13-acre (5.3 ha) park at Chicago's Navy Pier. The park features the Peoples Energy Welcome Pavilion, Polk Bros Fountain, and the Polk Bros Performance Lawns, a pair of lawns with stages called City Stage and Lake Stage.