Harold Washington Park is a small (10 acre) park in the

Chicago Park District The Chicago Park District is one of the oldest and the largest park districts in the United States. As of 2016, there are over 600 parks included in the Chicago Park District as well as 27 beaches, 10 boat docking harbors, two botanic conservat ...

located in the Hyde Park community area on the South Side of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Illinois, United States. In 1992, it was named for

Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st mayor of Chicago. In April 1983, Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city’s mayor at the age of ...

(1922–1987), the first African-American

Chicago Mayor The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and ...

. The Park District officially calls the park Harold Washington Playlot Park with a designated address of 5200 S. Hyde Park Blvd Chicago, IL 60615. It is one of 4

parks named after persons surnamed

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

( Washington Park,

Washington Square Park Washington Square Park is a public park in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is an icon as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. The park is operated by the New York City Department o ...

, Dinah Washington Park). It is one of 40 Chicago Park District parks named after influential African Americans. The Park is bounded by East 53rd Street on the south, South Hyde Park Boulevard on the west, and

Lake Shore Drive Lake Shore Drive (officially Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable Lake Shore Drive; also known as DuSable Lake Shore Drive, the Outer Drive, the Drive, LSD or DLSD) is a semi-limited access Limited-access highway, expressway that runs alongside the sh ...

to the east. Architecturally, it is flanked to the north by

Regents Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically between Marylebone and ...

and The Hampton House to the south. Its southwest corner opposes two

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Properties: Hotel Del Prado and East Park Towers.

History

The park was originally bequeathed to the city in 1906 by

Paul Cornell Paul Douglas Cornell (born 18 July 1967) is a British writer. He has worked in television drama and ''Doctor Who'' fiction, being the creator of one of the Doctor's spin-off companions, Bernice Summerfield. Other British television dramas f ...

as commemorated by the Paul Cornell Stone. It was then called ''East End Park''. In 1919, it was transferred to the South Park Commission. In 1927, it became part of Burnham Park. The park district renamed the site Harold Washington Park in 1992. Until recently () when Park District signs were posted it had been referred to as Cornell Park by many local residents.

Facilities

The park is mostly used by picnicking neighborhood residents and is particularly popular during the summer holidays (

Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May. It i ...

July 4 Events Pre-1600 * 362 BC – Battle of Mantinea: The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans. * 414 – Emperor Theodosius II, age 13, yields power to his older sister Aelia Pulcheria, who reigned as regent and procla ...

Labor Day Labor Day is a Federal holidays in the United States, federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday of September to honor and recognize the Labor history of the United States, American labor movement and the works and con ...

). The park has 8 tennis courts, an elaborate soft surface children's playground, a bathhouse and a boat pond. The park is best known for its

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

monk parakeet The monk parakeet (''Myiopsitta monachus''), also known as the monk parrot or Quaker parrot, is a species of true parrot in the family Psittacidae. It is a small, bright-green parrot with a greyish breast and greenish-yellow abdomen. Its averag ...

nests. At 51st street, there is an overpass leading from the park to the bike path between Lake Shore Drive and

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

Boat Pond

The boat pond is mistakenly referred to as a duck pond by many local residents because it is frequented during the summer by ducks and is rarely used for recreational model boats. However, the pond has no aquatic or plant life forms (excluding weeds protruding through former cracks in the seal) to support ducks. In 2006, the pool was designated for repair and was not filled. Reconstruction began in the fall with the pool being resurfaced. A fountain and sculpture was placed in the center and dedicated in the spring of 2007 and the pool was refilled in late summer 2008.

Parakeet nests

In the 1980s,Stevens, Mike, ''Parakeet Home Topples'',

Hyde Park Herald The ''Hyde Park Herald'' is a weekly newspaper that serves the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Overview The newspaper was founded in 1882. For the ''Heralds first seven years, it was a suburban newspaper covering affairs in an ...

, June 16, 2004 a dozen or so South American

s were released into the park directly across the street from the Hampton House. They settled in a large

ash tree ''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae, and comprises 45–65 species of usually medium-to-large trees, most of which are deciduous trees, although some subtropical species are evergr ...

. By the summer of 1988, bird watchers counted two dozen birds in the original tree. The population has continued to redouble frequently. The flock, known to many as Harold's parakeets (after the former mayor for whom the park is named), has grown to a few hundred birds that nest throughout this park, Burnham Park and Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago. The original tree became infested with

termites Termites are a group of detritophagous eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, and soil humus. They are distinguished by their moniliform antennae and the sof ...

and collapsed on June 12, 2004. Over 50 birds were displaced by the collapse. The nests were replaced in other nearby trees. Birdwatchers come from around the world to see this flock of birds. The birds have been a hotly contested issue pitting the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production ...

against local politicians and the Harold Washington Memorial Parrot Defense Fund. Alternate theories for the original population of birds are * Harold Washington released a dozen or so birds during his local residence. * A small flock of the birds escaped from a commercial shipment. * A small flock of the birds escaped from a residential birdcage. Regardless of their origins, the flock was ably defended by the Mayor who foiled attempts to have them removed from the local park. In 2021, a mural entitled "Harold's Parakeets" was commissioned near the park to commemorate the Mayor and the Parakeets.

Notes

External links