Swimmers hoping to make history and a charitable contribution by taking part in the first open swim in the Chicago River in more than a century will have to keep waiting.
After battles with the city over permits, next month’s Chicago River Swim has been relocated to Lake Michigan at Ohio Street Beach, organizers announced Monday. A boat ride is planned on the Chicago River before the lake swim, and the group hopes the compromise will lay the groundwork for the swim to take place in the river next year.
“We had high hopes of swimming in the river this year, but we quickly learned the challenges involved in organizing a new event of this scale,” Doug McConnell, founder of the nonprofit A Long Swim and the organizer of the swim, said in a news release. “The city has worked with us to find a solution that allows the event to move forward, and we’re using this opportunity to build momentum and refine our approach.”
The swim, still scheduled for Sept. 22, was designed to benefit ALS research, fund swimming lessons for local children, and highlight the strides made in improving the water quality in the river.
The city’s Department of Transportation cited safety concerns in denying the group’s permit application to have 500 people swim in the river.
More than 1,100 people representing 39 states, 12 countries, and 56 of Chicago’s neighborhoods applied to participate in the swim. Swimmers who don’t want to participate in the altered course have the option to defer their registration until next year or drop out and recoup their registration fees, the release said.
John Walsh, a 68-year-old swimmer from Crystal Lake and friend of McConnell, took the group up on the offer to defer.
“I wanted to participate in the uniqueness of swimming in the Chicago River,” Walsh said. “When he was telling me his plans, I said ‘You make it happen, I will be there.’ This isn’t that.”
For years, Walsh swam in the lake at Ohio Street Beach, so the revised location didn’t bring him the same novelty and excitement, he said.
“I didn’t really have much of a problem with erasing that off of the calendar and planning on it for next year,” he said.
Some are still planning to participate but with mixed emotions about the change. They’re glad the event wasn’t canceled altogether, but it’s a far cry from what they had expected to be a historic open water swim in the river, swimmer Tiffany Meier said.
Meier, an administrative assistant who lives in Old Town, said so much of the value of the river swim was its uniqueness and historic value. In hindsight, she said she probably wouldn’t have signed up if she knew she’d end up swimming in the lake.
“It was a little disappointing that we even got to this point,” said Meier, 49. “We were told about a river swim … and it’s not gonna happen. That should have been something that they could have been able to find out before we even got to this point.”
The group compared safety benchmarks to similar events around the world before filing the appeal and ultimately agreed to the alternate route in Lake Michigan, according to Chicago River Swim spokesperson Beth Heller.
Swimmers from west suburban Brookfield and the Ravenswood, and Lakeview neighborhoods enjoy a dip in the Chicago River in 1996.
Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times file
The group cited some of the complications with planning a new event as reasons for changing course. Meier said she’ll think twice next time before signing up for an inaugural event like this.
“I would wait to see what happens,” Meier said. “Kind of like the Chicago Marathon or the Chicago Triathlon, wait until it’s something that’s established before I would register. I would give it a little time to see if it’s something that continues.”
Hundreds of swimmers in the Chicago River would be historic.
Following the reversal of the Chicago River’s flow, the Illinois Athletic Association hosted swims beginning in 1908 that attracted elite swimmers, according to A Long Swim. But by the 1920s, industrial pollutants and street runoff sparked serious environmental concerns and the large-scale open swims were collateral damage.
Since then, any rogue swimming in the river was pretty much left to a few brave souls looking for a thrill or seeking to win a bet.
Walter Grochowski swims across the river in 1962.
In 1962, Walter Grochowski drew lunch-time crowds and made the front page of the Chicago Daily News when he jumped off the Michigan Avenue Bridge to swim back and forth across the river. It was an idea hatched with his buddies in a Near West Side bar. Some said it involved a bet of anywhere from $60 to $200, but Grochowski disputed that.
“Its a lark,” the 31-year-old truck driver told a reporter. “I just wanted to show the boys.”
