Navy Pier is a
pier on the
Chicago shoreline of
Lake Michigan. It is located in the
Streeterville neighborhood of the
Near North Side community area. The pier was built in 1916 at a cost of $4.5 million. It was a part of the
Plan of Chicago developed by architect and city planner
Daniel Burnham and his associates. As
Municipal Pier #2 (Municipal Pier #1 was never built), Navy Pier was planned and built to serve as a mixed-purpose piece of public infrastructure. Its primary purpose was as a cargo facility for
lake freighters, and
warehouses were built up and down the Pier. However, the Pier was also designed to provide docking space for passenger excursion steamers, and in the pre–
air conditioning era parts of the Pier, especially its outermost tip, were designed to serve as cool places for public gathering and entertainment. The Pier even had its own
tram. Today, the pier is one of the most visited attractions in the entire Midwestern United States and is Chicago's number one tourist attraction.