Milton Olive Lee Park

by Heather Prince

runs as a green ribbon throughout Chicago. From the far-seeing legacy of Daniel Burnham’s lakefront of parks and green space to the large civic parks scattered throughout, many famous names of landscape architecture have left their mark. As we walk the paths set out by Jensen and Olmsted, we also have mid-century modernist spaces to explore. One of those that tends to sail along under the radar is Milton Lee Olive Park adjacent to Navy Pier.

A Dan Kiley landscape, the 10-acre park was completed in 1965 as part of the Central District Filtration Plant, now known as the Jardine Water Purification Plant. Constructed on fill and jutting into Lake Michigan, the site is separated into two portions. The east section is the massive filtration plant that includes an underground reservoir, labs, pump-rooms, and administration offices, and occupies the majority of the sixty-one-acre site. The west section, Milton Lee Olive Park, serves as a gateway to the plant and is a public park. Kiley and his team worked with architectural firm C.F. Murphy Associates to develop the site. We talked with Joe Karr, landscape architect, who at just 26, was the lead on the project at the same time as he oversaw the construction of the South Garden of the Art Institute of Chicago. “I went to work for Dan Kiley in early 1963,” recalled Karr. “At that time, the filtration plant was already underway. The architect was C. F. Murphy and Associates which later became Murphy Jahn, with Helmut Jahn, and finally JAHN. Dan Kiley was very active in Chicago and across the country from San Francisco to New York. He had a great connection to Chicago through the C. F. Murphy office and the Harry Weese office.” The central filtration plant is just one of three that serves the city of Chicago. “There were three filtration plants – one on the North Side, one central, and one on the South Side,” commented Karr. “The big plant next to Navy Pier, it consists of two filter buildings, each one 10 acres in size, with an administrative section in between the two. The project scope was doing landscaping around the whole thing. The only part that’s accessible to the public is Milton Olive. The rest of the landscape can be viewed from the high rises.”

Next to the glitz and carnival of Navy Pier, it’s easy to miss the tall wrought iron gates of the park tucked next to the Ohio Street Beach. A broad pebbledash drive forms a straight avenue through a grove of honeylocust trees gently tilted from prevailing winds. Once through the copse, your vista opens to the broad sweep of the lakefront and the spectacular skyline. The avenue leads you to a cantilevered landing at the central point jutting out over the water and dotted with granite benches. The whole panorama of Chicago is laid out, but it’s easy to be drawn into the far vistas of water and sky as you continue to the end of the drive. Honeylocust is planted in blocks to line this broad avenue, breaking up the clean lines. (continued on page 42)

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Short flights of concrete stairs draw you up to the gently rolling lawns and direct you to the five huge circular fountains. Against the filtration buildings, two flagpoles frame a monument to Milton Lee Olive, the first African American recipient of the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, for which the park is named. The gentle roll of the landscape echoes the swell of the waters surrounding it and the uncluttered views of the cityscape are not to be matched.

Creating this distinctive vision wasn’t easy. “This whole site was landfill and it took 15 years of being filled to build it,” said Karr. “The first Mayor Daley was coming under great pressure to get that job finished. During the winter of 1964 they were building it and needed to finish it. It was a terrible winter – snow, ice, all of what a Chicago winter can be. They had to pour all this concrete, including all the five great fountains in the park. All of it had to get done that winter.”

In the spring of 1965, plantings were due to be installed, but before that, the contours of the grounds had to be created. Karr worked with Ron Damgaard, who had won the contract for the landscape construction. “The reason that Ron got the job was his brilliant idea,” remembered Karr. “Ron decided to bring all the materials by barge from Morris, IL. All the sand and gravel and soil. And they’d bring the barge up to the site and unload it all. It made it very efficient rather than hauling it all by truck, which would have taken forever. It also was cheaper, so he won the bid.”

As a large civic project on the lakefront, the filtration plant was a prominent development and Karr and Damgaard were under tremendous pressure by city officials to get the job done. “I was only 26 years old then, and Ron was about 30,” recalled Karr. “So, we were very young and under all this pressure. Every week Ron and I would have to come to Chicago for a meeting with the head engineer of Chicago, the director of public works, and the head of the Army Corps of Engineers. ‘What are you going to have done this week?’ they’d ask us. I looked across at Ron and he was very calm, as he always was, and he would describe very clearly the work that would be completed the next week.”

The design Dan Kiley envisioned was to create five fountains that lay in the center of flat circular pools scattered about the site as if stones in a Japanese garden and symbolizing the five Great Lakes. Yet, Kiley himself said, “My first thought when I visited the site was of moon craters – huge, shallow pockmarks in the ground that would seem to fill up with water from below, as if the reservoir was seeping up to the surface.” He took great care to design for the surrounding high-rise buildings as that was the vantage from which most people would be viewing the park. “So, not only did we have extensive plantings, because this was not only viewed from the ground level, but also from all the tall buildings along Lake Shore Drive there, looking down on the filtration plant,” commented Karr. “It was like a (continued on page 44)

(continued from page 42) big moonscape in a way with these five fountains.”

Although today they are infrequently turned on, the fountains were designed to be a dramatic focal point on the lake. They were originally engineered to throw water straight up, exclamation points in wide still pools. “The fountains were very tall to respond to the huge pools, the largest in diameter being 100 feet,” commented Karr. “They shot up 40 to 50 feet, but they finally had to tone the water down because of the wind and it being so windy there. They steam heated the water so they could run the fountains all through the winter. They even had a colored light program.”

Because of everything had to be viewed from the tall buildings, the plantings also had to respond to the immense scale. Plus, “Dan Kiley often liked to design in a formal pattern,” said Karr. The plant choices had to be hardy enough to withstand the tremendous winds off the lake and the challenging seasons of the Midwest. The good choices were, “Honeylocust in blocks – they’re still there – along the whole edge. They were chosen primarily because they’re open. They’re hardy, but they’re open and light in their habit. They were a good choice and they’re still doing very well. Hawthorns – a line of Washington hawthorns, which separates Milton Olive park from the rest of the complex. Cockspur hawthorns were planted at the far east end which is only seen from Navy Pier or from up above. Rugosa rose was planted in blocks along the water’s edge because they are adapted to flooding conditions. We had a row of ginkgoes along the entry road going up to the administration building. They’re still there and doing very well.”

Of course, there were also plant choices that didn’t succeed. “We had Russian olive with the beautiful, unique silver-grey leaves. But they weren’t hardy enough and didn’t last,” remembered Karr. “Dan wanted a big mass of barberry along the backs of all of the fountains – a total of 66,000 barberry. He wanted it for the red color in the fall, the green leaves in the summer, and the simplicity of one big mass. One thing he didn’t think about was the thorniness of the plants. Anything that drifts into them sticks. So, all the paper and debris that blows off Michigan Avenue ended up in the mass planting. Eventually that had to come out.” One of Karr’s biggest challenges, though, was sourcing 66,000 barberry. “In those days, Otto Damgaard was still very active in the firm with Ron. He was the one who would go out and find the plants. I remember going to his office. He was always a gentleman. ‘Mr. Karr’ he says, patting a stack of paper about a foot high, ‘This is where the barberry is. I have it all located. There are (continued on page 46)

(continued from page 44) 1000 here, 500 there, 2000 here, 600 here.’ Can you imagine finding 66,000 plants? Somehow, he got them. It had to be the whole country’s supply of barberry.”

The barberry is long gone now and only sweeps of lawn lie between the great fountains, becoming a favorite spot for picnics, outings, and dog owners who can let their pets run. The honeylocusts still sway in the winds off the lake and the hawthorns are filled with bright red berries each fall. Karr is still grateful for the experience of the project and the lifelong connections he developed. “The landscape contractors and nurseryman are very important. That’s been my relationship. I’ve always had a very strong relationship with them and made many friends as well. It’s not just the landscape architect giving someone a design to implement. We work together, and that’s the way it should be. We help each other.”

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