Promontory Point
Friends of the Parks is proud to stand with the Promontory Point Conservancy and Hyde Park residents to protect and preserve The Point—a beloved lakefront gem and the last stretch of original limestone revetment along Chicago’s shoreline. This historic site, now both a Chicago Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, represents a vital piece of our city’s cultural and natural heritage.
For decades, the community has fought proposals by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), and the Chicago Park District to replace the limestone with concrete in a multi-million project that could close the park. Independent engineers have shown a better path: repairing the limestone for half the cost and in less than a year, without shutting down public access.
Through the long-running Save the Point campaign, the community has secured critical protections and demonstrated the power of grassroots advocacy. Friends of the Parks remains committed to ensuring preservation, public access, and genuine community input to guide future rehabilitation.
Leaders of the Promontory Point Conservancy, "Hammond and Spicer both know the importance of Promontory Point from a preservationist standpoint, but also understand it as the setting for some of the most profound moments we have in life: to grieve, rejoice, and love."
— Jasmine Barnes, South Side Weekly, July 17, 2025
Morgan Shoal
Morgan Shoal represents one of Chicago’s last natural and culturally rich lakefront ecosystems, an irreplaceable blend of ecological habitat, geological history, and community space that must be protected. This shallow shoreline supports rare aquatic species, preserves a 400-million-year-old fossil reef, and offers a unique pebble beach and underwater landscape found nowhere else along the city’s largely engineered coast.
In 2020, it was announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning major shoreline redesigns near Morgan Shoal as part of the final phases of the Chicago Shoreline Protection Project, including extending the pebble beach, building a breakwater, and constructing new revetments. The proposed large-scale engineering interventions risk disrupting fragile underwater habitats, altering currents, and erasing historic limestone features and community heritage.
FOTP supports a more balanced, community-informed approach that prioritizes ecological preservation, protects cultural assets, and maintains Morgan Shoal refuge for both people and wildlife along Chicago’s lakefront.
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