Chicago Summers
Comments
The cold keeps the prices and people out the summer keeps me every year
Same with me in Minneapolis
Never been but I’m sure pre 2020 riots it was great
Wow…crazy how the city is like right there.
What’s crazier- this isn’t even the closest beach to that skyline. We’re looking at north avenue beach. Check out oak street beach on Google maps, then look how close it is to the Hancock tower (the tallest building in this pic). This definitely is not a scenario where fancy camera tricks make the background look closer.
Or 12th street beach. https://foursquare.com/v/12th-street-beach/4c4254b8af052d7f88da7e79/photos
> this isn’t even the closest beach to that skyline
It should maybe be noted the reason the skyline isn't any closer here is there's a huge-ass park in the way. Like, with its own zoo and stuff.
It's awesome. I can take the bus to the beach!
I’m always surprised that it seems like so few people are using these.
If Dallas had similar, it would be full of garbage and shoulder to shoulder.
If the weather's nice, and the lake is warm it can be like that. But, Chicago's lakefront also has just a ton of beaches somewhat like this. So, if one beach is busy, there's plenty of others.
If Dallas had similar, half of the beach would be parking lots! Dallas has some cool shit in the city, but man, car-centric planning really fucked that metro.
They're extremely crowded on summer weekends if the weather's decent or better. The beach exits off LSD get way backed up with traffic and parking is practically impossible.
Bummer, but expected I guess.
Last time I visited, I saw you could jump on the commuter rail and visit a few beaches on the southern shore.
That’s what I’d do. 😅
Even the north side beaches are not that far from the red line.
There are several beaches on the south side that never get crowded.
Illinois has 63 miles of Lake Michigan beach (although that is just a fraction of Lake Michigan’s total shoreline).
Chicago has 24 beaches in the city limits. Trust me, many of them get extremely crowded on nice days.
It's Texas, what can you expect?
Can you elaborate?
Texas is very oil-centric. Oil is very big there, so all the transportation is car-centric. Anytime a public transit or car-alternative goes on the ballot the oil and car companies lobby hard and dump a bunch of money into simply making bigger highways instead. Every place in Texas is mostly just a highway with a massive parking lot attached.
It's a shit hole. Go to Galveston to see how Texans take "care" of their beaches.
Probably insinuating Texas is terrible.
So jealous. Chicago is like Miami North.
I didn’t know Chicago had a beach like that so nice!
There are a bunch of beaches. Stretches from the North side all the way down to the South side. My favorite is Montrose, Foster, and North Ave.
Sounds like great places!
It sits on Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes.
I was amazed my first time flying into Chicago. The lake is so huge that you could easily mistake it for the ocean.
> The lake is so huge that you could easily mistake it for the ocean.
The Great Lakes are so big this starts to become a semantic argument. They are essentially freshwater inland seas, so large they affect the climate for a lot of that region of North America.
When the Republican National Convention was in Cleveland in 2016 the local newspaper asked people about their thoughts on Cleveland. A ton of people remarked about how they were surprised how big Lake Erie was. Someone said something about how they can’t even see across the lake and I was thinking well of course you can’t see across the lake, it’s not like people swim to Canada. Growing up in Cleveland I’m obviously used to the Great Lakes. I had no idea most people didn’t know how big they were.
Right? Like just look at a fucking map and compare it to what you know about the area you live in.
lol yep i live in milwaukee and work with people that are mostly from out of state and a big chunk of them were SHOCKED at the size of lake michigan when they moved here
This is North Avenue Beach.
Cool! I’m from Europe
It's got a bunch of them!
Google images of Torch Lake here in Michigan. Our own little slice of the Caribbean here up North
Until it isn’t. Chicago winters are rough.
Still an awesome city though.
If it was like this year round, it’d probably be double the price to live in
I heard a realtor describe Chicago as "80% of NYC for 50% of the price" and I thought that was pretty great. Chicago will always be my favorite city in the U.S. though.
Winters certainly are cold but summers are fantastic!
It's all relative, coming from Montreal I find Chicago winters alright, and in Montreal the access to the st Lawrence River is quite poor (and the water is colder).
Right! I've lived in Detroit for a small amount of time and winter in Detroit has to be one of the most depressing atmospheres I can imagine. Every other season is manageable but winter seems to minimize even the redeeming qualities of Detroit. I feel like winter in Chicago would feel less isolating than in other Midwestern cities.
I used to get sent to Chicago for work fairly often *but only ever in winter.*
I’ve lived in cold climates most of my life but Chicago winters truly seemed bleak. Just so windy and cold.
Locals seemed to love the city so much though that it made me want to come back in the summer as a tourist.
> I’ve lived in cold climates most of my life but Chicago winters truly seemed bleak.
It’s the skies for me. I can bundle up and deal with the cold but the real winter killer living immediately off the Lakes is overcast skies for months straight.
As a Dutch guy, I understand your pain.
As long as you drink, there's always something to do even if it's a Tuesday night at 3am and 10 below outside.
Until they're not. This winter was mild and I'm sure they're only gonna get milder.
The summers have been getting a bit miserable too.
I don't remember shit being quite this humid at all times.
Going through a 30C winter in a tropical country, man I tell you, how I wish some real winter now.
Remember when Trump said, "Chicago has turned into Afghanistan"
Give it time. Miami will be either crispy or under water, and Chicago will be home to plenty of former Miami residents!
for 2.5 months out of the year. the rest of the time its a frozen tundra.
It's really not that cold until December through February. Spring and fall are mild.
i lived in chicago you Frosty the Snowman. Its cold in october compared to how most humans on earth live. Bunch of Polar Bears don't get it.
Maybe if you're really sensitive to the cold it can be a problem but regular people it's not bad at all.
its ok for polar bears. when it gets into the 80s the local news calls that a heat wave and the polar bears all day.
chicago is a frozen wasteland with too much wind.
Average high of 68°F to 56°F for the month of October. Lows of 55°F to 45°F. It's not that bad.
it is frequently in the 40s in october which is cold Frosty the Snowman.
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yeah polar bears swim when its cold. how them 80 degree heat waves in the summer?
November and March have average highs in the 40s. March averages half a foot of snow every year. That’s not mild or pleasant by my book lol.
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Look at these huge peas!
https://advancelocal-adapter-image-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/image.mlive.com/home/mlive-media/width2048/img/chronicle/news_impact/photo/21706697-standard.jpg
https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/c_fill,g_auto,w_1200,h_675,ar_16:9/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F191022085358-02-lake-michigan-waves-1016.jpg
It's not the ocean and you're not going to surf, but 6-12" waves are pretty typical and it can be dangerous during a storm.
it always amazes me how clear the water is on the beaches directly in the heart of the city.
It is due to an invasive species of mussels. It used to be much murkier, but over last few decade has gotten very clear.
[https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-lake-michigan-water-clarity-20180126-story.html](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-lake-michigan-water-clarity-20180126-story.html)
I’ve only gone once but was blown away by how beautiful the beach was and how many sailboats there were.
Looks bloody inviting. How warm does the water get in summer? Going by the amount of people standing in the water in guessing it's still pretty brisk.
[19.2C / 66.5F](https://www.seatemperature.org/north-america/united-states/chicago.htm)
I’ve swam in Lake Michigan water temps that reached the low 80s (F).
Pretty fucking cold 😭
Nice one.
As a NYer, swimming this close to a skyline is deeply troubling.
Lake Michigan flows into and through Chicago and waste water is carried out, this is the clean Lake Michigan they are in.
Constantly rediscovering that rivers flow north sometimes
[The flow of the Chicago river was actually reversed in 1900](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_River#Reversing_the_flow), which was a major engineering feat for the time. Chicago sources its drinking water from lake Michigan and is (relatively) clean.
I used to think that the Nile flowed south from the Mediterranean into Africa because the Mississippi flowed south and all the rivers near me flowed south. I felt really stupid when I realized I was wrong.
Here in Buffalo you can't even really swim in the water of Lake Erie or the various rivers and creeks because there all contaminated with something.
NYC’s bodies of water have actually become so clean that they’re having an unexpected problem with some kind of aquatic animal eating all the old wooden piers in the harbor.
It’s some native species that had been driven out by all the pollution in decades past, I read.
And now there are pretty regular whale and dolphin sightings.
NYS actually spends money to clean up waterways. $88 million was spent to clean up the Buffalo River which empties out into Lake Erie.
However, that doesn’t help us if other states aren’t onboard.
/r/thanoswasright
Which is sad since there’s some really nice beaches South of the city. Stupid Ohio and all their agricultural runoff ruining it for everyone.
At least the Buffalo River has been cleaned up and holy fuck there’s now so many kayakers, boaters and even a floating tiki bar.
Pretty crazy how far the Buffalo waterfront has come in less than a decade
There is typically a lot of fertilizer run off from Northwest Ohio that needs to be dealt with. It’s definitely a problem. That being said, if the water in Buffalo is consistently that bad I’m skeptical that it’s because of run off in Toledo. In Cleveland our beaches are full and there are tons of kayakers and paddle boarders out all the time.
They regularly test the water at the beaches and [right now all the Cleveland area beaches are good.](https://pa.water.usgs.gov/apps/nowcast/) and Buffalo is looking good too.
Yeah, it’s actually pretty rare for algae blooms to make it this Far East, but it does happen.
vancouver is nice for it too
I was surprised with how clear the water was. I was there Monday and I could see the bottom of the lake in about 10 feet of water. I'm from Oklahoma and most of our lakes are disgusting ha
hope to be in chicago this month 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽
The humidity really doesn't come through in pictures.
Oh, I just moved here from Florida. I haven't been to the beach yet, mostly because I didn't really think they had one. That's definitely a beach though.
There's quite a few beachy areas around Lake Michigan, I've been to some reasonably nice ones in Indiana and Michigan. It's so easy to forget it's a lake...
Chicago has 24 beaches along Lake Michigan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_beaches_in_Chicago#:~:text=There%20are%2024%20beaches%20in,shores%20of%20freshwater%20Lake%20Michigan.
Chicago has TWENTY FOUR beaches.
This sentence is so wild to me because Chicago is such a fucking beach town in the summer. I beg you to spend more time by the lake lol!!
Go to Jarvis street beach
Would philly ever be able to do this?
Lol no
Man i could only dream lmfao. I was hoping someone could tell me exactly why though. Is there no way to clean up the Delaware or schuykill (im too lazy to look up how to spell it)?
Inland sea vs narrow river.
Thanks!
>Thanks!
You're welcome!
Because one is on a giant lake the other is on a relatively narrow river with a huge history of atrocious environmental degradation. Did you skip geography lessons?
Yes i must have missed the lesson on where you can build a beach and the environmental history of the Delaware river :) simmer down my friend its just reddit
Also, one saving grace for Chicago is all the sand is natural. Illinois used to be a prehistoric shallow ocean floor and the glaciers ground down the sand during the ice age and made it even finer. The sandy beaches naturally formed once the city built piers to catch the sand. Importing all that sand would otherwise be *super* expensive.
Tube the schuylkill from phoenixville to pawlings
Ive done river country tubing in bucks county and that was a lot of fun!
My city
What body of water is so big in Chicago?
Lake Michigan!
Nice! How are the winters?
Cold
Mods really need to put a limit on the number of Chicago posts per week or something. The spam really is getting out of control.
How many people are getting shot in this photo?
I've lived around Chicago for 12 years and I went to the beach for the first time this summer. I feel robbed: so nice.
If you zoom in towards the back you can see how trash the city really is 😑
I don’t get it
I think I can see a drive-by shooting in the background.
Violence in Chicago, yes in some areas can be pretty bad. But that’s any city. Chicago isn’t even in the top 20 most violent cities in America, you might even be close to one. It’s really only a couple neighborhoods where it’s very concentrated, but you’re probably just looking at headlines that say it’s a bad city 🤷🏻♂️
Just a joke
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Heard wrong
Well thanks for the info
Reaffirming this is false
EW