Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park | |
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Type | Urban park |
Location | Chicago |
Coordinates | 41°56′24″N 87°38′06″W / 41.94000°N 87.63500°W |
Area | 1,200 acres (490 ha) |
Created | 1843 |
Operated by | Chicago Park District |
Lincoln Park is a 1,208-acre (489-hectare) park along
The park's recreational facilities include baseball/softball fields, basketball courts, beach volleyball courts, cricket pitches, football/soccer fields, a golf course, lacrosse fields, rugby pitches, tennis courts, volleyball courts, field houses, a target archery field, a skate park, and a driving range.
The park also features several harbors with boating facilities, as well as
History
In 1860, Lake Park (earlier, Cemetery Park), the precursor of today's park, was established by the city on the lands just to the north of the city's burial ground.[5] Five years later, on June 12, 1865, the park was renamed to honor the recently assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
Added to the
Throughout the late 1850s, there was discussion of closing the cemetery or abandoning it because of health concerns. In fall 1858, Dr. John H. Rauch MD suggested that the burial grounds were a health risk, which "might serve extremely well for plantations of grove and forest trees" that would be "useful and ornamental to the city." The idea was dropped during the Civil War, but revived by Dr. Rauch after the war ended.[9]
By 1864, the city council had decided to add all the 120-acre (0.49 km2) cemetery lands north of North Avenue to the park by relocating the graves. The cemetery sections south of North Avenue were also relocated but this land was left for residential development. An estimated 35,000 people total were buried in the cemetery sections of the park, and the plan required the removal of these graves to other newly opened cemeteries further from the city and lake.[10] To this day, the Couch mausoleum can still be seen as the most visible reminder of the history as a cemetery, standing amidst trees, behind the Chicago History Museum. Ira Couch, who is interred in the tomb, was one of Chicago's earliest innkeepers, opening the Tremont House in 1835. Couch is believed to not be the only person interred in the old burial ground in Lincoln Park. A plaque placed nearby states that "the remains of six Couch family members and one family friend are in the tomb."[11] Partially due to the destruction of the Chicago Fire of wooden burial markers, it was difficult to identify many of the remains. As recently as 1998, construction in the park revealed more bodies left over in the nineteenth century burial ground.[12]
Another large and notable group of graves relocated from the site of today's Lincoln Park were those of approximately 4,000 Confederate prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas. Many prisoners perished between 1862 and 1865 as a result of the poor condition they were in when taken on the battlefield, or of disease and privation existing at the Federal prison. Although the camp was located south of downtown Chicago, near the stockyards, the remains were originally interred at the site of today's Lincoln Park. Today, their gravesites may be found at Oak Woods Cemetery in the southern part of Chicago. A one-acre (4,000 m2) mass grave and a monument erected by Southerners and Chicago friends in 1895 memorializes these Southerners whose earthly remnants remain in the North. Author George Levy believes that remains of many of the Confederate prisoners are still to be found beneath what are currently baseball fields, the former site of the potter's field.[13]
From the 1860s through the 1950s the park expanded south and then north along seven miles (11 km) of Chicago's Lakefront. (See reference notes 1, 2 and 3). The establishment of public parkland along all of Chicago's Lakefront was a central tenet of the 1909
Another aspect of park history were the Young Lords Lincoln Park neighborhood sit ins and take-overs of institutions under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez, protesting the displacement of Latinos by Mayor Richard J. Daley's urban renewal policies.
It was also the scene of
I pointed out that it was in the best interests of the City to have us in Lincoln Park ten miles (16 km) away from the Convention hall. I said we had no intention of marching on the Convention hall, that I didn't particularly think that politics in America could be changed by marches and rallies, that what we were presenting was an alternative life style, and we hoped that people of Chicago would come up, and mingle in Lincoln Park and see what we were about.
—Chicago 7trial
Zoo, conservatory and museums
Zoo
Lincoln Park is well known for the Lincoln Park Zoo, a free
Conservatory
The Lincoln Park Conservatory offers year-round displays of plants from many different climates around the world.[15] Today's conservatory was built in stages from 1890 to 1895. It consists of a vestibule, four display halls and fifteen propagating and growing houses. The vestibule and Palm House were built and opened to the public in 1892 and contain giant palms and rubber trees, including a 15 m (50 ft) fiddle-leaf rubber tree planted in 1891. In the Palm House, one can also find Garden Figure, a sculpture by Frederick Hibbard. The Fern Room or Fernery was opened in 1895. It contains plants of the forest floor, primarily a vast collection of ferns. The Tropical Room was originally called the stove house. Opened in 1895, it contained an assortment of tropical plants suspended from bark-covered walls. It is now called the Orchid Room and has a collection of approximately 25,000 natural species. The Display House is used for seasonal flower and plant exhibits. A docent program run by the Chicago Park District and Lincoln Park Conservancy provides free tours of the Conservatory and its outdoor gardens from 1–4 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and from 9 to Noon on Saturdays.
Lily Pool
Located on Fullerton Parkway between Stockton and Cannon Drives, the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool is an historic example of Prairie School landscape architecture. The Lily Pool was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark on February 17, 2006.[16] The Lily Pool had originally been built to cultivate tropical water lilies in 1889.[17] In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration hired landscape architect Alfred Caldwell to redesign the pool in the Prairie School style.[18] From 1998 to 2002, the Lily Pool underwent an extensive restoration by the Lincoln Park Conservancy and the Chicago Park District, which earned the site its historic designations, and renamed the site after Alfred Caldwell. The Lily Pool is open seasonally from mid-April to mid-November from 7:30 a.m. to the earlier of dusk or 7:30 p.m. every day. A docent program run by the Chicago Park District and Lincoln Park Conservancy offers free tours from 1–4 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and from 9 – Noon on Saturdays during operating season.
Nature Museum
First established in 1857, the Chicago Academy of Sciences opened its most recent facility, the Nature Museum, in 1999. The Academy's previous museum building, the Matthew Laflin Memorial Building, was the Park District's first museum in the parks. The museum's exhibits include displays about the ecological history of the Illinois region, a live butterfly house, and a green home demonstration.[19] The butterfly house features over 200 species of exotic butterflies. The museum also offers educational programs for adults and children.[20]
History Museum
Located at Clark Street and North Avenue, the Chicago History Museum (formerly the Chicago Historical Society) is dedicated to Chicago's human history. Perhaps among its most well-known possessions are
Recreational areas
Facilities
Lincoln Park runs from north to south through five Chicago community areas:
Beaches
There are seven public beaches for swimming, sunbathing, and beach volleyball along the park's 7-mile shoreline that are guarded during the summer months. The beaches from north to south are, Thorndale, Hollywood, and Foster in Edgewater; Montrose in Uptown; North Avenue in Lincoln Park; and Oak Street and Ohio in Near North. The first City of Chicago public beach, North Avenue Beach, opened in Lincoln Park in 1895.
Golf
The Waveland Avenue Golf Course (now Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course) in the
Boating
There are three harbors in the Park providing marina and docking facilities for boaters: north to south, they are Montrose in
Chicago Lakefront Trail
The
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People in Lincoln Park in 1973
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A playground in Lincoln Park in 1973
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Children playing in Lincoln Park during a2011 snowstorm
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Montrose Harbor and other harbors in the park provide marina and docking facilities
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First tee at Waveland Golf Course
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Oak Street Beach
Wildlife
North Pond
The North Pond Nature Sanctuary (41°55′42″N 87°38′15″W / 41.92833°N 87.63750°W), located between Fullerton, Diversey, Stockton and Cannon, is a ten-acre pond that has become an important wildlife area. Historically the site was a dune, then a dumping ground, and an ornamental pond; it was converted in 1999–2000 into a natural area with a
Restoration with native plants has drawn a great diversity of wildlife to this urban pond including many species of birds, turtles, frogs, and even a few beavers.[30][31] Great blue herons, black-crowned night herons, green herons, mallards, wood ducks, song sparrows and woodpeckers can regularly be spotted at the North Pond Nature Sanctuary.
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Green Heron
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Beaver
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North Pond Beaver Lodge
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Snapping Turtle
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Wood Ducks
Animal sanctuaries
Further north in the park, in the
In the
Public art
Lincoln Park is known for its statuary,
The only other person memorialized in statue in both Grant and Lincoln parks is Alexander Hamilton; the statue of Hamilton was sculpted by John Angel. Just as there is an Abraham Lincoln statue in Grant Park, there is a large memorial to Ulysses S. Grant in Lincoln Park overlooking Cannon Drive. The sculpture was created in 1891 by Louis Rebisso.
The statue of
At Addison Street stands a 40-foot (12-meter) totem pole depicting Kwanusila the Thunderbird. A statue of John Peter Altgeld (1915), the nineteenth-century Illinois Governor who pardoned the men convicted in the Haymarket affair bombing, can be seen just south of Diversey. This statue was created by Gutzon Borglum and unveiled on September 6 (Labor Day), 1915.[39]
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Dream Lady, Eugene Field Memorial
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Ulysses S. Grant Monument (Photochrom of the ca. 1901)
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Standing Lincolnafter Lincoln Park Conservancy restoration
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Statue of William Shakespeare in the Lincoln Park Conservatory's Grandmother's Garden
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Jose Rizal
In media
The 1980 film My Bodyguard contains several scenes filmed in Lincoln Park.[citation needed]
Phil Ochs' song "William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park and Escapes Unscathed", featured on his 1969
Other
In 2004 the Lincoln Park Lagooners were inducted into the
References
- ^ Ohio Street Beach Archived June 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Lincoln Park History". Parks & Facilities. Chicago Park District. Archived from the original on June 8, 2009. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
- ^ Osterman Beach Archived June 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "City Park Facts" (PDF). The Trust for Public Land, Center for City Park Excellence. June 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 31, 2010. Retrieved January 3, 2011. p. 25.
- ^ "Hidden Truth:Chicago City Cemetery". Northwestern University. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ "National Register of Historic Places – Illinois (IL), Cook County". Retrieved August 14, 2009.
- ^ Bannos, Pamela (2012). "Hidden truths: Visualizing the City Cemetery". The Chicago Cemetery & Lincoln Park. Northwestern University. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
- ^ Kestenbaum, Lawrence (1996–2010). "Cook County, Illinois". The Political Graveyard. Archived from the original on March 26, 2011. Retrieved January 25, 2011.
- ^ William K. Beatty (1991) "John H. Rauch - Public Health, Parks and Politics" Proceedings of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago Vol. 44 pp. 97–118
- ^ Amer, Robin (November 10, 2012). "The secret history of Lincoln Park's cemetery". WBEZ. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
- ^ Bannos, Pamela. "Hidden Truths: Couch Tomb". Northwestern University. Retrieved September 23, 2011.
- ^ "Hidden Truth: The Chicago City Cemetery and Lincoln Park". Northwestern University. Retrieved July 7, 2009.
- ^ "Hidden Truth: Potter's Field". Retrieved July 7, 2009.
- ^ "Lincoln Park Zoo Timeline". lpzoo.org. Archived from the original on December 20, 2015. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- ^ "Lincoln Park Conservatory". Chicago Park District. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
- ^ "Lincoln Park Lily Pool". National Park Service. Archived from the original on January 3, 2008. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
- ^ "Lincoln Park Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool". Chicago Park District. 2006. Archived from the original on May 5, 2007. Retrieved May 10, 2007.
- ^ Mark Rosenthal, et al., Ark in the Park (University of Illinois, 2003) p. 66.
- ^ Donna Vickroy. "Notebaert Nature Museum evolves". Daily Southtown. October 1, 2004.
- ^ "Peggy Notabeart Nature Museum". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ Ted Knutson. "Believe it or not, museum collections tell a story". Chicago Tribune. July 27, 1984. LF16.
- ^ "The Bloody Evidence". Chicago History Museum. Archived from the original on October 28, 2010. Retrieved October 14, 2010.
- ^ "Golf Courses: Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course". Chicago Park District. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- ^ "Home - Chicago Harbors". Chicago Harbors. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- ^ "Montrose Harbor Information". Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
- ^ Belmont Harbor Information Archived September 4, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Diversey Harbor Information Archived August 3, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Chicago Park District Lakefront Trail Map Archived July 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Chicago Park District (February 2002). "Nature Areas: Lincoln Park Pond". Archived from the original on December 8, 2004. Retrieved December 6, 2009.
- ^ Boehm, Kiersten (January 15, 2010). "Save the Lincoln Park beaver!". Lincoln Park Now. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
- ISBN 0-924772-25-5.
- ^ "Lincoln Park Addison Migratory Bird Sanctuary". Chicago Park District. Archived from the original on March 20, 2006. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ a b "Sustainable Development" (PDF). Publications. City of Chicago. 2005.
- ^ a b "Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary ("The Magic Hedge")". Chicago Park District. Archived from the original on March 20, 2006. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ "Bird Watching". Chicago Magazine. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ "Birding Montrose Point Bird Watching Sanctuary Magic Hedge Chicago Illinois". Audubon Society, Lake Cook Chapter.
- ^ Bean, Andrew (December 1995). "The Statues of Chicago's Lincoln Park". Illinois History. Archived from the original on June 16, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
- ^ Schmidt, John R. (November 9, 2012). "The Oglesby statue". WBEZ. Chicago Public Media. Retrieved September 28, 2020.
- ^ "John Peter Altgeld Monument" (PDF). Chicago Public Art. September 9, 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 30, 2015.
- ^ "Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame". glhalloffame.org. Archived from the original on October 17, 2015. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
External links
- Chicago Park District—Lincoln Park
- Lincoln Park Conservancy
- Hidden Truths: Chicago City Cemetery and Lincoln Park – Then and Now
- Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. IL-155, "Passerelle in Lincoln Park"
- Puerto Ricans in Lincoln Park