It’s been almost eight years since Chicago Mayor Richard Daley took matters into his own hands and closed down the lakefront airport Miegs Field.
But the 91-acre space known as Northerly Island has remained active, with an open-air concert venue and prairie.

The area might get a bit busier: Park District officials Thursday unveiled plans to redevelop the land as a public park, complete with a harbor, wetlands, a reef and a lagoon with a sunken ship.

One of the plan’s designer’s, architect Jeanne Gang, says it’s almost like a Millennium Park of nature.

To learn more “Eight Forty-Eight” spoke to an expert, Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin.