Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park, also designated as Community Area 7, is one of the North side community areas of Chicago, Illinois, USA. Named after Lincoln Park, a vast stretch of park belonging to the Chicago Park District, the community area is anchored by the Lincoln Park Zoo and DePaul University. Lincoln Park is bordered by the community areas of Lakeview and North Center to the north, Logan Square (Bucktown neighborhood) and West Town to the west, and Near North to the south.

History

The area now known as Lincoln Park in Chicago was primarily forest with stretches of grassland and occasional quicksand until the late 1820s when the Europeans arrived.

In 1824 the United States Army built a small post near today's Clybourn Avenue and Armitage Avenue (formerly Centre Street). Indian settlements existed along Green Bay Trail, now called Clark Street (named after George Rogers Clark), at the current intersection of Halsted Street and Fullerton Avenue. Before Green Bay Trail became Clark Street, it stretched as far as Green Bay, Wisconsin, and was part of what still is Green Bay Avenue in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.

In 1836, land from North to Fullerton and from the lake to Halsted was relatively inexpensive, costing $150 per acre ($0.04 m²). Because the area was considered remote, a small pox hospital and the city cemetery were located in Lincoln Park until the 1860s.

In 1837, Chicago was incorporated as a city, and North Avenue was established as its northern boundary. Settlements increased along Green Bay Trail when (1) the government offered land claims and (2) Green Bay Road was widened.

In the period following the Civil War, the area around St. Josaphat's parish around Southport and Clybourn was home to Chicago's Cassubian community, who although Polish in national orientation, possess their own distinct culture and language marked by the distinct influences of their maritime way of life as well as their German neighbors.

The Biograph Theater on Lincoln avenue and (adjoining businesses) in 2008 redressed to appear as it did in 1934 for the film Public Enemies.

Lincoln Park was home to L. Frank Baum (after whom Oz Park was named), Buckminster Fuller and the controversial outsider artist, Henry Darger, who worked as a janitor at Children's Memorial Hospital.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Lincoln Park was also home to the first Puerto Rican immigrants to Chicago. Jose (Cha-Cha) Jimenez transformed the local Young Lords gang into human rights activists for Latinos and the poor. They mounted sit-ins and takeovers of institutions and churches at Grant Hospital, Armitage Ave. Methodist Church, and McCormick Theological Seminary.

In 1969 a violent confrontation between demonstrators and police took place in Lincoln Park and the streets of Chicago during the week of the Democratic National Convention.

Today, a very small number of Puerto Ricans reside in Lincoln Park. The neighborhood population is primarily made up of young urban professionals, recent college graduates, and young families. The majority of Lincoln Park's families are extremely wealthy, making Lincoln Park the overall second wealthiest neighborhood in Chicago, after the Gold Coast.

Neighborhood

Although boundaries are precisely defined in the city's list of official neighborhoods, the Lincoln Park neighborhood in popular thought has somewhat variable boundaries; it is generally considered to be bordered on the north by Diversey Parkway, on the west by Clybourn Avenue, on the south by North Avenue, and on the east by the public park of the same name.

Lincoln Park is home to Lincoln Park High School, Francis W. Parker School, and DePaul University. Many students who attend these schools now live in this neighborhood.

Lincoln Park is also home to two architecturally significant churches: St. Vincent De Paul and St. Josaphat's, one of the many so-called 'Polish Cathedrals' in Chicago. Visible from throughout the neighborhood, these monumental edifices tower over the neighborhood lending the area much of its charm.

Lincoln Park is home to a large amount of boutiques, retail stores, bookstores, restaurants and coffee shops. Restoration Hardware, lululemon athletica, Rugby Ralph Lauren, Pottery Barn, Barneys New York CO-OP, L'Occitane en Provence, R.E.I., American Apparel, BCBG Max Azria, Abercrombie and Fitch, United Colors of Benetton, Marc Jacobs, and Club Monaco, are just a few of the large number of upscale national retailers and boutiques located in the neighborhood. There are also many bars and clubs in the area, especially along Lincoln Avenue between Wrightwood and Webster.

In 2007, Forbes magazine named the area between Armitage St, Willow St, Burling St, and Orchard St as the most expensive block in Chicago.

Lincoln Park (Chicago Park District)

Lincoln Park, for which the neighborhood was named, stretches along the lakefront from Ardmore Avenue (in Edgewater) south to North Avenue. The park contains a zoo, an outdoor theatre, a rowing canal, the Chicago History Museum, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, ponds, playing fields, and a large statue of General Grant.

Transportation
Train stopped at the Fullerton (CTA) station.

The Lincoln Park neighborhood is accessible via mass transit, including the CTA's Red, Brown, and Purple lines at the Fullerton station, the Purple and Brown lines at Armitage, and Diversey stations, as well as CTA bus service.

Via car, Lincoln Park can be reached by using Lake Shore Drive or Interstate 94.

Education

Lincoln Park High School

Lincoln Park residents are served by Chicago Public Schools, which includes neighborhood and city-wide options for students.

Lincoln Park High School serves as the sole neighborhood secondary education institution and is ranked one of Chicago's best public high schools. Nationally, Lincoln Park High School is ranked as the 90th best high school in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

Additionally, two zoned elementary schools (grades K-8), Abraham Lincoln Elementary School and Oscar Mayer Elementary School are found in the neighborhood. LaSalle Language Academy and the Newberry Science Academy, both magnet schools, serve the neighborhood.

Private schools

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates the Saint Clement School, a K-8 school, in the Lincoln Park area.

Francis W. Parker School, a K-12 school, is in the area.

Due to the fact that many students come from wealthy households, the prestigious Latin School of Chicago and the British School of Chicago receive the majority of their pupils from the Lincoln Park or Gold Coast neighborhoods.

Public libraries

Chicago Public Library operates the Lincoln Park Branch at 1150 West Fullerton Avenue.

Lincoln Park - Chicago Park District

Lincoln Park is a 1,200 acre (4.9 km², 1.875 mi²) park along Chicago, Illinois' lakefront facing Lake Michigan.

The park stretches from North Avenue (1600 N) on the south to Ardmore (5900 N), just north of the Lake Shore Drive terminus at North Hollywood Avenue. It is Chicago's largest public park. It has many recreational facilities including 15 baseball areas, 6 basketball courts, 2 softball courts, 35 tennis courts, 163 volley ball courts, field houses, a golf course, and a popular fitness center.[citation needed] It includes a number of harbours with boating facilities, as well as public beaches. There are landscaped gardens, a zoo, the Lincoln Park Conservatory, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, and a theater on the lake with regular outdoor performances during the summer.


Park History

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, Lincoln Park began its existence as City Cemetery in 1843. In 1852, David Kennison, who is said to have been born in 1736, died and was buried in City Cemetery. Another notable burial in the cemetery was Chicago Mayor James Curtiss, whose body was lost when the cemetery was turned into a park.[citation needed]

In 1864, the city council decided to turn the 120-acre (0.49 km2) cemetery into a park. Permission was received from all descendants to move graves with one major exception.[citation needed] The Couch family, who owned a small mausoleum in the cemetery, refused to give their permission.[citation needed] To this day, the Couch mausoleum can still be seen, 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 not the only person to still be interred in Lincoln Park. As recently as 1998, construction in the park has revealed more bodies left over from the nineteenth century.

Another large and important group of graves relocated from the site of today's Lincoln Park was that of approximately 4,000 Confederate prisoners-of-war who died at Camp Douglas (located south of downtown Chicago near the stockyards). The prisoners held there in 1862-65 died largely as a result of the terrible conditions of hunger, disease and privation existing at that notorious Federal prison. Today their gravesite 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 immortalizes these Southerners whose remains were interred in the North, originally buried at the site of today's Lincoln Park and removed after the American Civil War.

Another aspect of the park were the violent events that took place during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. These events transpired around the convention center, Grant Park, Old Town, and the park adjacent (on Clark Street) called Lincoln Park.

     
Lincoln Park Zoo

Lincoln Park is, perhaps, best known for the Lincoln Park Zoo, a free zoo which is open year-round. Two sections of Lincoln Park Zoo have been set aside for children. The first is the Pritzker Family Children's Zoo. The Children's Zoo contains an indoor structure for children to play in. The second area of the zoo for children in the Farm-in-the-Zoo, presented by John Deere. This small farm contains pigs, cows, horses and other animals which can be found on farms. Children can feed and pet the animals. In addition, the cows are milked in public for children to see.

Near the southern end of Lincoln Park Zoo, one can rent a paddle boat for a spin around the Lincoln Park Lagoon. The Lagoon is surrounded by trees and offers a relaxing time (and, of course, paddling exercise). Kayakers and canoers also take to the lagoon and one can often see scullers as well.

Art
A statue of Shakespeare decorated for winter.
Friedrich Schiller statue near the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

Lincoln Park is known for its statuary. Walking through the zoo and into the park, one sees many of Chicago's great works of art. Just as there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park, there is a memorial to Ulysses S. Grant in Lincoln Park overlooking Cannon Drive at the south end of the zoo. The sculpture was created in 1891 by Louis Rebisso. There is also a statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park, the Standing Lincoln (1887), by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the same sculptor who created the Sitting Lincoln in Grant Park. A standing Lincoln can be seen behind the Chicago History Museum. The only other person who is immortalized by statues in both Grant and Lincoln Parks is Alexander Hamilton, the Lincoln Park statue sculpted by John Angel. John Gelert's Hans Christian Andersen (1896) on Stockton Drive provides a tribute to the Danish storyteller. The Eugene Field Memorial (1922) designed by Edward McCartan remembers the Chicago Daily News columnist and poet who wrote "Little Boy Blue" and "Winken, Blinken, and Nod." William Ordway Partridge's statue of William Shakespeare (1894) provides a third great story-teller in Lincoln Park. This seated Shakespeare provides a lap for children to climb onto. A bust of Sir Georg Solti, the former conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was also situated just west of the zoo until its relocation to Grant Park in October, 2006. Statues of the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller can also be found in Lincoln park. The large Goethe statue is located near Diversey and Stockton. The smaller Schiller statue is located near the western entrance to the zoo. At Addison Street stands a 40-foot (12 m) totem pole depicting Kwanusila the Thunderbird. Finally, a statue of John Peter Altgeld (1915), the nineteenth-century Illinois Governor who pardoned the Haymarket Square rioters, can be seen just south of Diversey. This statue was created by Gutzon Borglum and unveiled on September 6, 1915. Borglum went on to become the sculptor of the Mount Rushmore Monument.

Recreational Areas

Lincoln Park has many specialized spaces for recreational activities. Lincoln Park contains playgrounds, a golf course, tennis courts, boating facilities, playing fields for football, baseball, soccer, and areas for horseback riding.

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