A Romantic in Chicago: First Dates
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Buckingham Fountain Light Show and Navy Pier
after dark at the lakefront
Buckingham Fountain Light Show and Navy Pier after dark at the lakefront Perhaps after dinner out, or a picnic in Grant Park…
Arrive to Buckingham Fountain, 500 S. Lake Shore Drive, where a music and light show is featured every hour on the hour from dusk. The last show is at 10 p.m.
After dark, between Light Shows, the fountain glows softly with over 800 lights.
Folks are gathered around, in clusters. They look like silhouettes. Some are twirling glowing-light toys of various shapes and colors. Venders sell these toys – most flash at the touch of a button – for $5 up. It’s okay to try to barter.
On the hour, whoosh! the water jets shoot high, and piped-in music starts. Fountain lights show brighter, and change colors, amber, violet, red and blue. The center jet shoots up to 150 feet.
People spin their glowing-light toys. Some, if they are like me, run around the fountain. The most fun thing about this is that the wind usually causes the high-jet water to spray in one direction – that you get caught in.
Usually a photographer is around to offer pictures by the fountain, for purchase in a frame.
The music and light show lasts for 20 minutes. Then the lights and jets go tame again.
This is time to start north toward Navy Pier, that’s at 600 E. Grand. You’ll see it along the lakefront, its glowing lights, including that of the Ferris Wheel.
Depends on the time of dusk and the night of the week. The distance between the Fountain and Navy Pier is approximates 10 hardy Chicago blocks.
A taxi or bus would zip you to Navy Pier post haste. Yet, if time permits, I recommend a walk along the lakefront path. You’re close to the lapping waves, and you pass docked sailboats in Columbia Yacht Club harbor.
Navy Pier presents free fireworks shows Memorial Day through Labor Day, Wednesday nights at 9:30 and Saturday nights at 10:15.
You could behold the show any time along the way.
Or, you might prefer to allow enough time to arrive to the Pier and grab a bag of roasted almonds, or to get tickets for the Ferris Wheel, or to get ice cream cones, or a beverage in the beer garden before the fireworks start.
If it’s not a Wednesday or a Saturday, or you’re not aiming to arrive during fireworks, no worries. Just know that Navy Pier summertime hours include closing at 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, and at midnight Friday-Saturday.
As for Buckingham Fountain, weather permitting, it’s open April through mid October, 8 a.m.-11 p.m. For updated info call (312) 742-PLAY. A Buckingham Fountain note:
“Like soft moonlight,” was how heiress Kate Buckingham envisioned the fountain she’d dedicate to the city in memory of her brother, Clarence. He was a Chicago Art Institute trustee who had died in 1913.
Many nights Kate Buckingham worked with technicians, testing colors of glass filters to shine in the fountain’s nighttime lights; she worked with them in experimenting different water mists and currents to achieve a celestial display.
She donated the fountain at a cost of $750,000. The Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain was dedicated on August 26, 1927.
It had gone through many renovations since. By the by, it’s in need of restoration donations now. Find more info here.