Clark Street Beach — Attraction in Evanston

Extremely clean & extremely well maintained facility. Including showers outside, and clean bathrooms. In addition, they ensure that the sand is clean and has barely any litter. The only downside, which is the only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5, is that they don't get some of the bigger waves. Something I wish our lake would provide anyway, in general. To be clear, I'm not talking about the choppy waves out further where the boats travel. I'm referring to ocean-like waves that are large, yet smooth consistent, and "lulling" in many ways. Like they do get out on the other side. Michigan. That being said, this beach does not even get the Chicago waves, when the waves are really big, in the Chicago area. Unlike Michigan, most beaches close down in Chicago anyway, because the life guards are not trained to save, and perform their duties for others, the way it is in a ocean like scenario. Therefore, this particular breach has two "bars"/"breakers", creating the prevention of large waves, of any kind, in general. Therefore they are rarely closed. Unless it's a danger in some other way. Unclean water, Lightning, etc etc etc. Otherwise, it's one of the few beaches that rarely ever closes throughout the summer. In addition, the space is fairly large on the beach. The water perimeter where you are allowed to swim appears to be a bit smaller than the beaches down the block. I could be wrong about that though. It might just be an illusion, one of those things where you see something and it appears a certain way, while it is actually different in reality.

Anyway, you can clearly see that I am a huge fan of the Evanston beaches in general, and this one in particular is...

This is a beautiful, well kept beach. It costs $8 for one day at the beach, but they do have season passes available. I did have to wait in a long line to pay and enter the beach, but it was mid day and mid summer... So you should expect that. The staff was courteous and vigilant. They have two lifeguards who both survey the water (some rules are no getting on one another's shoulders and swim in the bouy boundaries) and make sure people do not come on to the beach from Northwestern campus. The beach was clean and there are showers and restrooms available. They also have several volleyball courts.

The water is shallow. At the farthest spot you can swim from the beach, at the edge of the bouy line, it is only a little above waist deep. I was there mid July, the water was a very comfortable cool temperature. The floor of the water was covered in sand, but it did have some weeds and series floating on top of and in the water. It was not objectionable.

I enjoyed this lake beach and would recommend it if you would like to...

Let's take the beach in of itself without thinking of Covid-19 for a minute.

It is clean, you can see the work that was done overnight to clean it for the morning when the beach first opens. The water opens at 10:30am but the sandy beach can still be accessed earlier (they come around to check tickets or tokens a bit after the water opens).

It is a wide beach but the swimming area is restricted to the area between floating buoys. So a lot of area is for wading, not swimming. The lifeguards on duty are very vigilant and call out those that are swimming beyond the specified area.

The sand is good, there are volleyball courts set up. It is close to Northwestern University but a lot of families and kids.

Covid-19 restrictions are loose. There is no enforced social distancing, and no mask requirement (except while waiting in line to enter and while exiting the beach). The beach was very busy towards the center (the swim area) and a bit less so towards each end...