Dempster Street Beach

I found this beach to be so-​so. After parking on a residential street in Evanston (apparently, you have to pay to get into this beach), I found myself walking alone on a desolate beach with no one around me for at least half a mile. And this was in August. A good thing, maybe, yet I had to wonder what exactly was really going on.
The beach itself is clean, yet there aren’t many places where you can stop at a restroom or even wash the sand off of your feet (at least from what I’ve seen in my area). Plenty of boats, canoes and kayaks around, as well as a sort of community-​type of building that hosts summer camp classes for kids.
Overall, the beach on the lake is not terrible, yet it could be better.

I live in Evanston and pay thousands of dollars in property taxes and I have to pay to use my city’s beaches. So if my brothers family and mine use the beach for one day it cost over 100 dollars. This is typical liberal nanny state government. From life guards to the police all they want to do is harass and fine you. So that the government employees of Evanston can retire with nice pensions at the age of 55. I have put my place up for sale and I am moving. This town sucks worse than Chicago.

Ef this place, charging money to get in? Screeching whistles every few seconds for minor infractions? But the beach had not one piece of garbage anywhere which is why they don’t get 1 star, but I will never be back here, too packed and too much money to be constantly annoyed by the high pitched shrieking whistles which woke up myself and my son and we both cried and ate sand.

Beaches should be free, like in Chicago and most other places in the world. I’m sure we pay enough taxes in Evanston to cover the expenses of beach maintenance. Or at the very least, the fee should not be $ 7 or $ 8 or whatever it is now. (I will never pay this much per person for the beach; that’s nuts.)
A free beach is a benefit to the community. It’s a public resource. It would bring more people to the beach and to the surrounding areas and businesses. Oh wait, sorry; if it’s free it might bring poor people, and we don’t want them, do we, Evanston? What if the poor people come to use our sand.
I can also confirm what other reviews mention: the lifeguards are whistle-​happy. Just walking or running past the beach, you will frequently hear various whistles or megaphones.
That said, it’s a lovely beach during the times when it’s free!

I also found the lifeguards and price gouging at this beach offensive but for a few different reasons. I came to kayak recently and the lifeguards seriously paid me no attention and were all just kind of rude in general. They were in the middle of an argument with some unhappy beachgoer when I arrived.
It costs $ 35 an hour to kayak here. That’s a pretty big jump from the $ 15 an hour it costs to kayak the river. Yeah, the river is gross but the view is awesome. I was shown where the life jackets were and I asked where the wreck of the George Morley was. The guy, in a hurry to get back to his friends, pointed off in the distance. As soon as I sat down in the kayak he shoved it out into the water without ever asking if I knew what I was doing or if I had ever used a kayak. He then ran back up the building. Was he watching me while I was out there? Maybe. I have some doubts.
When I returned to shore and went to pay I got a feeling I could have just walked away without paying and no one would have noticed. After hunting a girl down she said, «Did you even fill out a release?». No, I hadn’t. Ugh. And don’t get me started on the $ 8 beach fee.

This could be a very lovely beach if it weren’t for two things: obnoxious, nanny-​state lifeguards and a high entrance fee. Daily passes (or ‘tokens’) are $ 8. You can purchase season passes as a resident or a non-​resident however they are pricey. I guess this is why there is no diversity on this beach.
The lifeguards are a bit overzealous with those whistles. What you envision as being a nice, relaxing quiet day on the sand, listening to the sound of children frolicking and waves lapping against the shore turns into a nightmare of constant screetching and yelling. The lifeguards seem to take great enjoyment in calling someone out for throwing a large ball, straying anywhere near (i’m talking 10 – 15 feet away) from the buoys, and all sorts of random infractions you never knew existed.
Unfortunately I will not be back. It was actually quite stressful to sit there and listen to the lifeguards micromanage the beach. Obviously the lifeguards have been trained to monitor these things but I think it is more than a bit excessive. And that may also explain why this particular beach was not anywhere near busy on a gorgeous, perfect hot summer day.