Just east of where I live is Promontory Point. It sticks out into Lake Michigan like the connecting joint on the end of a puzzle piece -- slightly rounded outward at the tip, tapering as it approaches the mainland. Its name, like those so many local features, is reduced to a definite article and the operative noun; "We're going to The Point,""We're riding The [number 6 Jackson Park express] Bus,"etc.
South of the point is the Museum of Science and Industry, and squished between the museum grounds and the point is the swimming beach. Lifeguards row just offshore, marking the edge of the swimming zone. This is unfortunate, since Lake Michigan, at least where it touches Hyde Park, stays waist-deep for a few thousand feet offshore.
In a classic demonstration of principle of economic limits, the overly-stringent lifeguards have created a thriving black market for alternative swimming holes. Our neighborhood has chosen the north side of The Point, and, in a move that mirrors current marijuana policy in the city, the police tend to conveniently forget that the north side of The Point is marked as a "no swimming zone."
Our co-op house, along with its two sister houses, chose the north side of the point for a Fourth of July barbecue. So did most of the neighborhood. The north side, in addition to being the swimming side, allows for a view of the city. The apartment towers of East Hyde Park loom up to the left along Lake Shore Drive, which disappears into the trees. To the right, the end of the point obscures the lake. To the front, due north, far enough that the towers are no taller than a fist or two, held out at arm's length, the Chicago skyline lights up.
Tonight, there were fireworks all over the navigator's spatial clockface. At six o'clock, directly behind us, amateurs set off bottle rockets and shriekers in the field at the center of the point. Every once in a while, they would find a professional-grade rocket in their stash, and the resulting boom convinced all of us that we were about the be obliterated.
At nine o'clock, where The Point meets the shore, more bottle rockets, red and green, went up in rapid succession. At ten and eleven, somewhere between East Hyde Park and Chinatown, the evening's sleeper hit went up: a barrage of spiraling, multi-colored, shimmering rockets whose blasts echoed between the towers and out over the lake.
These fireworks far outshone what we thought would be the big hit of the evening, the Navy Pier fireworks, which stared at 9:30PM, at one o'clock on our clock face. Navy Pier pokes straight into the lake. It is the quintessential tourist trap: expensive chain restaurants, a mini-amusement park, sightseeing boats, and a free trolley to and from the El stop. Tonight, it hung on the surface of the lake like a floating city, its yellow and red lights packed tighter than the reds and greens of the boats navigating the water. The ferris wheel stood up next to the skyline, the last tall object before the long string of flat lights on the water, where the fireworks, distant but beautifully choreographed, elicited oohs and ahhs before the East Hyde Park / Chinatown display overwhelmed them.
Sitting on the grass on the point, smelling the lighter fluid and the lake, seeing that long string of lights on the water, I couldn't think of anything but Gatsby, who stared at the green light at the end of the dock. It symbolizes his longing for Daisy, as I learned in my first real lesson on literary symbolism, but tonight, the lights on the dock, and on the pleasure boats in the water, symbolized money and power and privilege, and our little coterie of co-oppers, though well-educated and well-poised to gain that privilege, seemed a universe away from the Gatsbys and even the Nick Carraways of today. The fireworks reflected on the lake water, illuminating the swimmers and the waders, illuminating the distance between us and the Chicago skyline and the Navy Pier and the pleasure boats, shimmering out on the water.
