Friday, September 27, 2019

Green Briar Park



Chicago has some wonderful large parks, Lincoln Park, Washington Park, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park. Big green places that you can get lost in. However, peppered throughout the neighborhoods are these little postage stamp parks. Some very tiny, others a block or two square. We are lucky to live just a half block from two of those. To the west is Mather Park, always full of high school kids and soccer matches, and to the north is Green Briar Park. For three years I have been driving past Green Briar Park and have never set foot inside it, until today. That's because it was across Peterson Avenue, a four lane very busy street. The only reason I ever walk across Peterson is to get a hot dog at Wolfy's. All I knew about Green Briar was that in the late afternoon and early evening hours you could hear the screams and laughter of children wafting across the busy street. I also knew that it is where I would vote if I didn't early vote or vote by mail. 





This is the Green Briar Park field house. Most of Chicago parks have these structures that were built for many uses. My older brother got his health care at one of these field houses when he was a baby. Back when many tenements didn't have showers or bathtubs, you could get a shower at the fieldhouse. Here is an excerpt from a WTTW article. "J. Frank Foster took the job of superintendent of Chicago’s Park System in 1891. Foster had a much more progressive idea for what a park could be. And he executed that vision in a system of smaller neighborhood parks that impacted the lives of Chicago’s working class for the better. These innovative parks were just the beginning in bringing amenities such as swimming pools, branch libraries, gymnasiums, ball fields, and fieldhouses offering a wide variety of programs and services." (From WTTW Channel 11)









Friday, October 6, 2017

A Misty Day in October on Fairfield Avenue



Chandler on the hunt for squirrels.




Scout wants to chase the bunnies, but a squirrel will do.


I don't know what this is, but it stays bright green most of the year.

The ice cream man has put his truck away for the season. He lives across the street from us.


Saturday, February 18, 2017

West Ridge Nature Preserve



On a beautiful, sunny, sixty seven degree February day, Mark and I took a walk around the West Ridge Nature Preserve. It isn't a gigantic park, but it is quite nice considering it is wedged in between Rosehill Cemetery and the Arcadia Terrace neighborhood. Being that it is the middle of winter, there wasn't much greenery to speak of. Mostly shades of brown and grey. Still, it is a pleasant sanctuary with ducks, Canadian geese, and other wild life roaming through the shrubbery. Other than the occasional aroma of bus fumes wafting through the trees, you wouldn't even know that you're in the city. Just another part of our diverse neighborhood.






Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Fog

Fog



 
The fog comes
on little cat feet.



It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.