Tour of East and West Garfield Park

Details

Time: June 19, 2010 from 1pm to 5pm
Location: Garfield Park
Street: 100 N. Central Park Ave.
City/Town: Chicago, IL
Website or Map: http://www.bigshouldersrealty…
Phone: 773-255-6347
Event Type: architectural, social, historical, tour
Organized By: Lee Diamond
Latest Activity: Jun 21, 2010

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Description

West Garfield Park is community area #26, sitting 5 miles west of The Loop. It's eastern neighbor East Garfield Park is community area #25, and sits a mile closer from eastern border to downtown Chicago. This is an area with a storied past, and many brilliant examples of amazing residential architecture. Garfield Park itself, formerly the Central Park of the West Chicago Parks Commission three major parks, features brilliant landscaping by Jens Jensen and William Le Baron Jenney, a gilded-domed fieldhouse, formerly serving as district headquarters, and a brilliant Conservatory, which Jens Jensen designed and filled with exotic plant specimins, very different from his prairie-native planting design philosophy.

West of the park lay what was for a time, one of the hottest night-life sections of Chicago, the Madison-Crawford Distrtict. The booms were as magnificent, as the busts were difficult. A confluence of events sent the area spiralling into a economic tailspin that began with the construction of the Congress (Eisenhower) Expressway in the 1950s, and culminated in racial discrimination, industrial abandonment, and urban decay that saw a population decline of two-thirds in fifty years.

There is a lot to see, and a lot to contemplate riding through these streets. I have learned much about the city doing these tours, and barring some better course of action than that I have pursued to this point, this looks to be the last of them. I hope you'll join me one more time..

There are also four research rides if you would dig seeing more of the area and seeing how we figure out the tours.

Wednesday June 2 - 4PM to 7PM
Saturday June 5 - 11AM to 2PM
Sunday June 13 - 11AM to 2PM
Thursday June 17 - 5PM to 8PM

The actual ride is on Saturday June 19 at 1:00 PM.

All of the above will leave from Garfield Park Fieldhouse at 100 North Central Park

Cheers and I hope to see you out there.

Best Regards - Lee

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Comment by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on June 19, 2010 at 10:12am: hey all....i am not going to the ride, although i am going to try to meet up after the tour at Janik's.

Comment by J M on June 19, 2010 at 10:00am: I'm riding from Lincoln Square area west to California(south)>Augusta(west)>Central Park(south) to the Field House. YJ and Laura we can meet at Welles Park @ 11:30? Corner or Lincoln and Montrose? Anyone else who is interested please join :-)

Comment by yellow jello on June 19, 2010 at 9:51am: Me too. Riding south that is.

Thinking Damen south to Washington west.

Comment by Laura on June 19, 2010 at 9:23am: Im heading down from north too. I plan on taking Damen. where should we meet?

Comment by Jamais716 on June 18, 2010 at 8:39pm: Washington's a pretty quiet one-way street heading west into the park and it has a bike lane.

Sacramento/Humboldt Blvd is usually a good north-south street. And the route is prettier than Kedzie. I'd be wary of taking a north-south street between Ashland and Western and from Lake to Chicago cause they're re-paving a few of the east-west streets that stretch. I hit three torn up streets yesterday before finally getting a flat.

Comment by Lee Diamond on June 18, 2010 at 11:12am: For what it is worth, from my office in Jefferson Park (northwest side of Chicago), I tend to take Milwaukee south to Central Park, south to the park.

From my house in Evanston, I usually take the Skokie trail along the sanitary canal, connecting at Lincoln to the Chicago River trail which spits you out on Francisco before Lawrence. Lawrence is bike lane-esque, and usually I shoot straight to my office in it, but to Garfield Park, you can bike west to either Kedzie or Kimball, which are equally bad, but far better than most other north-south streets around there that have no interuptions due to trains, highways and such. Anytime after Addison, Central Park is just due west of there and is a straight shot down.

That's my north side two cents.

Comment by J M on June 18, 2010 at 10:47am: I was thinking of leaving around Noon to head down from the Northside Ryan. Anyone else interested?

Comment by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on June 17, 2010 at 1:12pm: Is anyone organizing a ride down to the start point?

Comment by Lee Diamond on June 16, 2010 at 1:09pm: Post ride gathering will be at Janik's Cafe. A great little place at 2011 W Division, about three and a half miles from the end of the tour at 100 N Central Park. They were incredibly nice to us at the end of West Town and it is priced right too! Hope to see some of you at the ride, but feel free to join us at Janik's for drinks if you are Tweeding or doing whatever before hand. Cheers!

Comment by Laura Blake on June 6, 2010 at 8:00pm: I'm so bummed that I have to miss this!! I'll be in Michigan that weekend at a wedding...grumble grumble. drat! and double drat! However, I'm keeping hopeful that these rides will still live on someway, somehow...