Monty and Rose now live on in limestone, their instantly recognizable images carved into a block of rock along the lakefront. The plovers join the thousands of modern-day lakefront “petroglyphs” that date back to at least the 1930s.
Monty and Rose, memorialized in limestone rock along Chicago's lakefront.
By mid-September, Di Sante, primarily a portrait painter who’d never carved rock before, had traded in the hammer and chisel he’d used to roughly sculpt Monty and Rose’s shapes for a file to add detail. For reference, he consulted a sketch he’d drawn — Rose positioned in nesting mode and Monty flapping his wings in the fierce protective stance plover monitors came to know and love. But the limestone wouldn’t always cooperate.
“I love being here, just being able to work in this environment,” he said. “To look up and look at the lake, the sand, the bird sanctuary behind me.” What he could have said: There already are carvings up and down the lakefront, hiding in plain sight. Thousands of them, like modern-day petroglyphs or cave drawings, dating back to at least the 1930s.
He was struck by the sheer breadth of what he came to think of as a “folk sculpture,” all using the limestone rocks as canvas. There were horses, footprints and Old Style beer logos, some crudely done, some elegant and complex, like a moon landing scene carved with “adept capability,” Packer said. “That’s someone who knew their way around a chisel and hammer.”
But he became positively evangelical about the carvings during the course of an Army Corps of Engineers project to rebuild the lakefront revetments, a process that involved tearing out miles of the limestone blocks and replacing them with concrete. “It’s this self-made monument to summers by the lake. It’s this legacy, these traces of people’s identity, back to the 1930s,” Swislow said. “It gives these six miles of limestone blocks a human texture. Almost all of Chicago’s lakefront is engineered — this looksThere’s the steelworker who just wanted to try his hand at self-portrait in the 1950s. The lifeguards at Rainbow Beach in the 1960s who etched their initials as a rite of passage.
With the Army Corps of Engineers having recently announced plans to begin a study of future lakefront protections, Swislow is deeply worried that the remaining miles of limestone — largely along the south lakefront — are in danger of going the way of rocks at Belmont, Fullerton and Montrose.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Arizona Just Reinstated a Near-Total Abortion Ban Law From 1864The 19th century law makes abortion illegal in nearly all cases, even rape and incest.
Read more »
Daily News high school football rankings, Sept. 26West Ranch stays unbeaten; Thousand Oaks rises; Oak Park drops in the latest top 15 rankings.
Read more »
In Alex Jones trial, parents testify of pain inflicted by Sandy Hook deniersIan Hockley, who lost his autistic son Dylan in the shooting, testified that he became the target of conspiracy theorists because he smiled during what he found as an uplifting memorial service.
Read more »
South Chicago Mexican Patriotic Club helps keep traditions alive while providing scholarshipsIt's one of the oldest Mexican Independence Day celebrations in the state, but the South Chicago Mexican Patriotic Club does much more than organize a parade.
Read more »
Mom remembers toddler killed in City Heights hit-and-run crashA memorial is growing at a scene in San Diego's City Heights neighborhood where a one-year-old girl was killed in a hit-and-run crash this past weekend.
Read more »