Plane Ghosts

Yesterday, I went biking along the lakefront and veered off to Northerly Island, which dates to the Chicago Plan of 1909.  Daniel Burnham envisioned a series of offshore islands for purposes of recreation.  Northerly, across from McCormick Place and a little south of Soldier Field, was the only one built.

From 1948 until will into the reign of Daley II, the island was home to Meigs Field, a small airport that catered to the rich and self-important (think Harrison Ford).  When Clare was three, we took her to Meigs to watch a P-51 take off.  There was also the first B-24 either of us had ever seen.  How they got so big a bomber on so short a runway is beyond me.  Daley sent bulldozers to carve X’s into the runway in March of 2003.

Clare and I also watched the planes—or jets—at Midway, which was a couple of miles west of where I grew up and parents lived.  I’d park by a fence, and the two of us would just watch the show, propeller vs. turbine.  Then 9-11 happened, and you couldn’t do that sort of thing anymore.

Someday, I’ll get my slightly older daughter back to Northerly Island.  It’s a nature preserve now, with a nice beach.  We could watch airliners pass over the lake.