December 22, 1972: Continental Bank Christmas Party
	October 6-9, 1972: Jenny Fallis Visits Chicago
	Return to Index for 1972

The date on this page is an approximation, because the pictures on this page were taken throughout the first few weeks of December. Beginning in late November, Chicago experienced some very, very cold weather. There were a number of days in early December when the high temperature for the day didn't climb above freezing. So what happened is what happens almost every winter in Chicago- there was snow in both November and December, and because of the low temperatures, the lake shore froze.

This probably happened when I was very young and we were living in Muskegon, but since we moved to North Carolina in 1951, seeing frozen lakes or streams was foreign to me. Oh, sure, even in Charlotte, there were nights when a pail of water on the back porch might freeze, but I never saw a frozen lake- much less a frozen seashore. Anyway, on this particular afternoon, my next-door neighbor and I bundled up and went for a walk across Lincoln Park to the shore of the lake to see what conditions were like.

Here is the beach near Diversey Harbor, and and you can see, the entire beach is covered in ice and snow. Obviously, as the waves come in and break on the ice, some of the water freezes instantly and the ice gets thicker and thicker.

Here is my next-door neighbor (whose name I didn't record) perhaps fifteen feet out from the shore. If this were summer, she would be about waist-deep in water, but she is actually walking on ice that seemed to be about two feet thick. I could actually see it slowly rise and fall, indicating that it has not frozen all the way down.

At North Avenue, there is a curved breakwater that arcs out into the lake about a hundred feet to provide a sheltered swimming area. The concrete was ice-covered, but there was a cable railing most of the way to the end. We went out a short way (holding on tightly to the cable) and I was able to get a nice picture looking back toward Belmont Harbor across the ice floes that almost solidly covered the water.

On another evening, actually before the weather turned bitterly cold and the lake began to freeze, I thought I would go down to the John Hancock Center and try to get some night pictures. I took my car down to North Avenue to get a picture and then drove further on down to the Hancock Center.

I parked near North Avenue and then took the pedestrian cross way over Lake Shore Drive to the North Avenue breakwater. I walked out a ways and then took this picture looking south towards the area where the Hancock Center is located. That area is called Streeterville.

From the Observatory, this view looks north along Lake Shore Drive. The Gold Coast is immediately below, and the picture at left was taken from a point near that southernmost park light along the lake. The other major street is Clark Street, which angles northwest.

This view looks west. The urban area of Chicagoland extends more than twenty miles in that direction.

This is a good picture of the Chicago Loop at night.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	December 22, 1972: Continental Bank Christmas Party
	October 6-9, 1972: Jenny Fallis Visits Chicago
	Return to Index for 1972