Meigs Field
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport (IATA: CGX, ICAO: KCGX), was a single strip airport built on Northerly Island, the man-made island originally created to house the 1933-1934 Century of Progress in Chicago, Illinois. The airport opened on December 10, 1948, and became the country's busiest single-strip airport by 1955. The latest air traffic tower was built in 1952 and the terminal was dedicated in 1961. The airfield was named for Merrill C. Meigs, publisher of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and an aviation booster.
Northerly Island, owned by the Chicago Park District, is the first and only lakefront island to be built based on Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago. In the image to the right, Northerly Island forms the southern border of Chicago Harbor (now Monroe Harbor). As indicated by the color green on the original plan, the island was to be populated by trees and grass for the public enjoyment by all.
The airport was a familiar sight on the downtown lake front. It was also well-known as the default takeoff field in many early versions of the popular Microsoft Flight Simulator software program. It is an airport that is featured in Microsoft's Midtown Madness computer game (1999), which is based in Chicago.
The Main Terminal Building was operated by the Chicago Department of Aviation and contained waiting areas as well as office and counter space. The runway at Meigs Field was nearly 3,900 feet (1,200 m) long and 150 feet (46 m) wide. In addition, there were four public helicopter pads at the south end of the runway, near McCormick Place. The north end of the runway was near the Adler Planetarium.
[edit] Closing of Meigs Field
In 1995, Mayor Richard M. Daley's office recommended closing Meigs Field and turning Northerly Island into 75 acres (304,000 m<sup2) of lakefront park. In 2001, a compromise was reached between Chicago, the State of Illinois, and others to keep the airport open for the next twenty-five years. However, the federal legislation component of the deal did not pass the United States Senate.
In a controversial move on March 30, 2003, Mayor Daley ordered private crews to destroy the runway in the middle of the night, bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface. The required notice was not given to the Federal Aviation Administration or the owners of airplanes tied down at the field, and as a result sixteen planes were left stranded at an airport with no operating runway. They were later allowed to depart from Meigs' 3,000 foot (914 m) taxiway.
Mayor Daley defended his actions, described as "sneaky" by general aviation interest groups, by claiming it would save the City of Chicago the effort of further court battles before the airport could close. He claimed that safety concerns required the closure, due to the post-September 11 risk of terrorist-controlled aircraft attacking the downtown waterfront near Meigs Field. Meigs advocates pointed out that Daley had been trying to close the airport since 1995 for non-safety-related reasons.
Editorials in the Chicago Tribune pointed out that "the issue is Daley's increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take normally associated with democratic government." Daley himself played the populist against the general aviation pilots (some of whom were cardiologists and other medical professionals utilizing the field in the line of their work) who had previously used the airport because of its ideal location.
Interest groups, led by the Friends of Meigs Field, attempted to use the courts to reopen Meigs Field over the following months, but because the airport was owned by the City of Chicago and had paid back its federal aviation grants, the courts ruled that Chicago was allowed to close the field. The FAA did fine the city US$33,000 for closing an airport with a charted instrument approach without giving the required 30-day notice. This was the maximum fine the law allowed at the time. The notice requirement was in place in part to prevent a safety hazard because an aircraft may have attempted to land while the runway was being destroyed. The fine was small consolation to groups that were hoping to force the city to restore the airport. In the aftermath, the "Meigs Legacy provision" was passed into law, increasing the maximum fine per day from US$1,100 to US$10,000 retroactively.
By August 2003, construction crews had finished the demolition of Meigs Field. Northerly Island is now a park that features prairie grasses and strolling paths. In 2005, the 7,500 seat Charter One Pavilion opened on the site, which hosts music concerts in the summer. In February 2006, the city announced plans to open a heliport on the island.[1]
On September 17, 2006, the city dropped all legal appeals and agreed to pay the $33,000 fine as well as repay $1 million in misappropriated FAA Airport Improvement Program funds that it used to destroy the airfield and build the Northerly Island park.
Chicago-based artist Deb Sokolow presented a tongue-in-cheek theory for why Mayor Daley closed Meigs field in her drawing, "Someone tell Mayor Daley, the pirates are coming"
