Captain on the Helm

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 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.

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.

Generally, the Chicago Harbor comprises the public rivers, canals, and lakes within the territorial limits of the City of Chicago and all connecting slips, basins, piers, breakwaters, and permanent structures therein for a distance of three miles from the shore between the extended north and south lines of the city. The greater Chicago Harbor includes portions of the Chicago River, the Calumet River, the Ogden Canal, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Lake Calumet, and Lake Michigan.In a more narrow sense, the Chicago Harbor is that artificial harbor on Lake Michigan located at the mouth of the Chicago River bounded by outer breakwaters to the north and east, Northerly Island to the south, and the Chicago shoreline to the west. The main entrance to this harbor is marked by the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse. The Jardine Water Purification Plant, Navy Pier, the Chicago Harbor Lock, Coast Guard Station Chicago, the municipal harbors - Dusable Harbor and Monroe Harbor, and the yacht clubs - Chicago Yacht Club and Columbia Yacht Club are all located here.The Port of Chicago is located within the greater Chicago Harbor in and around Calumet Harbor, the Calumet River, and Lake Calumet. The Chicago Park District operates a municipal harbor system within the greater Chicago Harbor in Lake Michigan for recreational boaters. With accommodations for 6000 boats, it is the largest system of its kind in the nation. The system comprises (from north to south) Montrose Harbor, Belmont Harbor, Diversey Harbor, Dusable Harbor, Monroe Harbor, Burnham Harbor, 31st Street Harbor, 59th Street Harbor, and Jackson Park Inner and Outer Harbors.

Lake Point Tower is a residential skyscraper located on a promontory of the Lake Michigan waterfront in Chicago, just north of the Chicago River at 505 North Lake Shore Drive. Completed in 1968, it is in the Streeterville neighborhood on the Near North Side. Located adjacent to Navy Pier, the building is the only skyscraper in the city east of Lake Shore Drive. Its tall curved three wing 'Y' shape was an inspiration for the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates by Chicago-born architect Adrian Smith.

Jane Addams Memorial Park is a public park in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located near Navy Pier, the park is named after Jane Addams, the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.The park has featured a monument designed by Louise Bourgeois.

Milton Lee Olive Park is a public park in the city of Chicago, Illinois. Designed by Dan Kiley, the park is located west of the James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant and adjacent to Jane Addams Memorial Park and Ohio Street Beach. The park provides large grassy areas for recreation as well as paths for walking, jogging, and biking. Several benches are located in the park either in open, sunny areas or areas shaded by tall honey locust trees. The park contains multiple fountains creating large, circular seating areas. Open views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline can be appreciated from the park.

DuSable Park is a former commercial and industrial site in Chicago. It is located at the mouth of the Chicago River that has been the subject of environmental remediation and is awaiting redevelopment into a public park. The project, first announced in 1987 by Mayor Harold Washington, is named in honor Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who settled nearby in the 1780s and is known as the "Founder of Chicago". The development at 400 Lake Shore began construction in 2024.

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!

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.

Ohio Street Beach is an urban beach in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It faces north.In Lonely Planet's 2022 list of the nine "best beaches in Chicago for a taste of the lake life", Ximena N. Beltran Quan Kiu said Ohio Street Beach was the city's best for swimming.

North Pier Apartments is a 581 ft (177m) tall skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. It was completed in 1990 and has 61 floors. Dubin Dubin Black and Moutoussamy designed the building, which is the 43rd tallest and the tallest precast concrete panel clad building when completed, in Chicago. The buildings façade has dark gray, maroon, and pink panels in an abstract pattern. It was named after North Pier, a long building to the west along Ogden Slip. It has been described by the architects to be masculine counterpart to the curvaceous Lake Point Tower nearby. The North Pier Apartment Tower was officially renamed "474 North Lake Shore Drive" when the building was converted to condominiums in 2005.