What’s Below Chicago’s Bean? The Lost Railyard

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Beneath Chicago’s gleaming Cloud Gate lies the city’s most dramatic makeover. This episode traces Grant Park from marshland and post–Great Fire landfill to a soot-choked Illinois Central rail yard—and the century-long fight to keep the lakefront “forever open, clear and free.” We follow Daniel Burnham’s 1909 vision, Montgomery Ward’s lawsuits, and the philanthropists who turned coal dust into culture with Buckingham Fountain (1927) and a growing civic stage.

Then we jump to the 1990s deck-over that birthed Millennium Park: Frank Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain, and Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate—plus the hidden world beneath it all: Millennium Station, the Pedway, miles of garages, and relic freight tunnels. By the end, you’ll see why Chicago’s front yard is both a monument to beauty and a marvel of buried infrastructure.
#Chicago #GrantPark #MillenniumPark

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Date: September 28, 2025
History american history Anish Kapoor Art Institute Buckingham Fountain Chicago architecture Chicago Freight Tunnels Chicago history Chicago Pedway City planning Cloud Gate Crown Fountain Daniel Burnham documentary Frank Gehry Grant Park hidden infrastructure Illinois Central Railroad It’s History Jay Pritzker Pavilion Millennium Park Millennium Station Montgomery Ward Plan of Chicago The Bean Underground parking Urban planning White City

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34 thoughts on “What’s Below Chicago’s Bean? The Lost Railyard”

  2. Sorry to be a stick in the mud, but you show pictures of Richard J. Daley, who was the 48th mayor of Chicago from 4/20/1955 until his death on 12/20/1976 during his sixth term as mayor. The pictures of the parking lots in what is now Millenium Park are from R.J. Daley's mayoral terms. R.J. Daley was the patriarch of a political dynasty in Chicago. One of his sons was Richard M. Daley, the 54th mayor of Chicago from 4/24/1989 until 5/16/2011. Richard M. Daley conceived of Millenium Park and oversaw its construction before he decided to not run for a seventh term as mayor. In 2011, Richard M. Daley became the longest serving mayor of Chicago in the history of the city, just edging out his father by completing a sixth term as mayor.

  7. I left the Chicago area in 1981, that park was one of (many!) places where Chicagoans believed that Jimmy Hoffa was buried. It was the mob had him killed. He disappeared in 1975. To this day his body still has not been found. For those that don't know this story, the mob ruled Chicago for a long time. It was always my understanding that the first Richard Daley had ties to them. One of the things that the mob used to do, during the 70s was water down gas to make an extra buck. This was during the gas shortages of the President Carter era.

  9. My #1 favorite thing about living in Chicago is the Grant Park Music Festival concerts in the pavilion every weekend. Bringing a picnic there and then strolling around Lurie Garden with that skyline in the background is something I treasure every summer. That being said, entering Millennium Park is akin to going to the airport now. The whole thing is completely locked behind tons of fences with surly security guards. They're the first thing you have to encounter when enter and the last when you leave. The city needs to relax it's security grip on the place and return it to the people.

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