Plan of Chicago 1909 and Plan of Winnetka 1921

Exhibit :

The “big dreams” in the Burnham/Bennett Plan of 1909 have shaped the Chicago metropolitan area today. Years later, Edward Bennett and the Winnetka Plan Commission created a similar document for the development of our village.

We will examine the plan put forward by Bennett and the Commission and show how it has been carried out to shape the village as we know it today. While many of the Plan’s concepts were adopted, some were not – why not?

Through photographs, documents and excerpts from the plan itself, we will explore the lowering of the railroad tracks below street level, the preservation of the Skokie Marsh as open land, and the centralized business district and public buildings proposed in the Winnetka Plan of 1921.