Chicago Riverwalk & Vietnam Veterans Memorial: The Reclaimed River

Why is it significant?

Step down to the water's edge along the wide concrete promenade of the Chicago Riverwalk and listen to the gentle lap of the river against the timber fenders.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step down to the water's edge along the wide concrete promenade of the Chicago Riverwalk and listen to the gentle lap of the river against the timber fenders. You are walking along what city planners once called a foul open sewer, now transformed into one of the most breathtaking urban waterfronts in the world.

In nineteen hundred, Chicago performed one of the greatest civil engineering feats in human history: engineers permanently reversed the flow of the entire Chicago River! By constructing the sanitary canal, they made the river flow backward away from Lake Michigan toward the Mississippi River basin, protecting the city's drinking water from deadly typhoid and cholera epidemics.

Pause at the semicircular granite plaza of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: inscribed with the names of nearly three thousand Illinois servicemen who lost their lives in Southeast Asia, the terraced waterfall provides a serene sanctuary amid the echoing city canyons.

Look across the river at the iconic twin circular towers of Marina City.