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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, several boat harbors, two botanic conservatories, a zoo, and 11 museums. The Chicago Park District also has more than over 230 field houses, 78 public pools, and dozens of sports and recreational facilities, with year-round programming. The district is an independent taxing authority as defined by Illinois State Statute and is considered a separate (or "sister") agency of the City of Chicago. The district's headquarters are located in the Time-Life Building in the Streeterville neighborhood. Jurisdiction The Chicago Park District oversees more than 600 parks with over of municipal parkland as well as 27 beaches, 78 pools, 11 museums, two world-class conservatories, 16 historic lagoons and 10 bird and wildlife gardens that are found within the city limits. A number of these are tou ...
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Government Of Chicago
The government of the City of Chicago, Illinois, United States is divided into executive and legislative branches. The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. In addition to the mayor, Chicago's two other citywide elected officials are the City Clerk and the treasurer. The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions and approves the city budget. Government priorities and activities are established in a budget ordinance usually adopted each November. Organization Generally speaking, the mayor and city departments comprise the executive branch of the city government, and the city council comprises the legislative branch. However, the mayor does have some formal legis ...
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Columbus Park (Chicago)
Columbus Park is a park located on the far West Side of Chicago, Illinois in the Austin neighborhood. It is considered the finest work by landscape architect Jens Jensen and was consequently named a National Historic Landmark in 2003. History The concept of Columbus Park was first pitched in 1912 by the West Park Commission as a way to develop recreational facilities for densely populated neighborhoods. At the time, the West Side of Chicago had a population of nearly 900,000, but only two small playgrounds. The commission had acquired the property a year earlier from the Catholic church for $560,000; the church had recently abandoned plans to build a seminary on the site. It was the first large park conceived by the commission since 1869. Jens Jensen was a Danish immigrant who joined the commission in the 1880s as a laborer and rose to the rank of chief landscape artist and general superintendent of the system by 1905. Columbus Park was Jensen's first large park, and he began desi ...
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Ignace Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (;  – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. A favorite of concert audiences around the world, his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media, as possibly did his status as a freemason, and charitable work of his second wife, Helena Paderewska. During World War I, Paderewski advocated an independent Poland, including by touring the United States, where he met with President Woodrow Wilson, who came to support the creation of an independent Poland in his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which led to the Treaty of Versailles.Hanna Marczewska-Zagdanska, and Janina Dorosz, "Wilson – Paderewski – Masaryk: Their Visions of Independence and Conceptions of how to Organize Europe," ''Acta Poloniae Historica'' (1996), Issue 73, ...
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Chicago's Puerto Rican Community
Puerto Ricans in Chicago are people living in Chicago who have ancestral connections to the island of Puerto Rico. They have contributed to the economic, social and cultural well-being of Chicago for more than seventy years. History The Puerto Rican community in Chicago has a history that stretches more than 70 years back. The first migration in the 1930s to Chicago was not from the island of Puerto Rico itself, but from New York City. Many settled on State Street just south of the downtown hotels. There was only a small number of people joined this migration. The first large wave of migration to Chicago came in the late 1940s, where many settled in the "La Clark" neighborhood around Dearborn, La Salle and Clark Street just north of downtown Chicago. Starting in 1946, many people were recruited by Castle Barton Associates and other companies as low-wage, non-union foundry workers and domestic workers in hotels and private homes. As soon as they were established in Chicago, ...
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Humboldt Park (Chicago Park)
Humboldt Park is a park located at 1400 North Sacramento Avenue on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. The park was named for Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist and botanist. History William Le Baron Jenney began developing the park in the 1870s, molding a flat prairie landscape into a "pleasure ground" with horse trails and a pair of lagoons. Originally named "North Park", it opened to the public in 1877, but landscape architects such as Jens Jensen made significant additions to the park over the next few decades. Between 1905 and 1920, Jensen connected the two lagoons with a river, planted a rose garden, and built a fieldhouse, boathouse, and music pavilion. In 2018, thChicago Park DistrictanChicago Parks Foundationpartnered witthe Garden Conservancyto improve the Jens Jensen Formal Garden. They rehabilitated the natural landscape and repaired deteriorating infrastructure, winning the 2018 Jens Jensen Award from thIL chapterof the American Society of Landscape Arc ...
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Lollapolooza
Lollapalooza (Lolla) is an annual American four-day music festival held in Grant Park in Chicago. It originally started as a touring event in 1991 but several years later made Chicago the permanent location for the annual music festival. Music genres include but are not limited to alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock, hip hop, and electronic dance music. Lollapalooza has also featured visual arts, nonprofit organizations, and political organizations. The festival, held in Grant Park, hosts an estimated 400,000 people each July and sells out annually. Lollapalooza is one of the largest and most iconic music festivals in the world and one of the longest-running in the United States. Lollapalooza was conceived and created in 1991 as a farewell tour by Perry Farrell, singer of the group Jane's Addiction. The first Lollapalooza tour had a diverse collection of bands and was a commercial success. It stopped in more than twenty cities in North America. In 2020, ''Spin'' rated ...
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Chicago Jazz Festival
The Chicago Jazz Festival is an admission-free, four-day annual jazz festival in Chicago's Millennium Park. It is run by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and programmed with the assistance of Jazz Institute of Chicago during Labor Day weekend, integrating international and local artists playing many forms of jazz music. Inaugural event Shortly after Duke Ellington's death in 1974, a festival was organized to honor him in Grant Park. More than 10,000 jazz fans attended, and it became an annual event, attracting crowds of up to 30,000. In 1978, another group organized a Grant Park festival to honor John Coltrane. When, in 1979, the Jazz Institute of Chicago began preparations for its own Grant Park Festival, which would have resulted in three separate jazz festivals being held in Grant Park at the end of August, the Mayor's Office of Special Events stepped in and joined the three different festivals together into the Chicago Jazz Festival, which would present ...
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Chicago Blues Festival
The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in June, that features three days of performances by top-tier blues musicians, both old favorites and the up-and-coming. It is hosted by the Chicago, Illinois, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (formerly the Mayor's Office of Special Events), and always occurs in early June. Until 2017, the event always took place at and around Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park, adjacent to the Lake Michigan waterfront east of the Chicago Loop, Loop in Chicago, Illinois, Chicago. In 2017, the festival was moved to the nearby Millennium Park. History of the festival Chicago has a storied Blues#1950s, history with blues that goes back generations stemming from the Great Migration (African American), Great Migration from the Southern United States, South and particularly the Mississippi Delta region in pursuit of advancement and better career possibilities for musicians. Created by Commis ...
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Taste Of Chicago
The Taste of Chicago (also known locally as The Taste) is the world's largest food festival, held for five days in July in Chicago, Illinois in Grant Park. The event is also the largest festival in Chicago. Non-food-related events include live music on multiple stages, including the Petrillo Music Shell, pavilions, and performances. Musical acts vary from nationally known artists like Carlos Santana, Moby, Kenny Rogers, or Robert Plant to name just a few, to local artists. Since 2008, The Chicago Country Music Festival was held simultaneously with the Taste of Chicago but now has its own two-day festival, typically held in the fall. The Taste of Chicago also has rides present which may include a Ferris wheel and the ''Jump to Be Fit'' among others. History Arnie Morton, creator of the Taste, decided to line up Chicago restaurants to participate and persuaded then-Chicago mayor Jane Byrne and Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Lois Weisberg to block off Michigan Avenue for the ...
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Buckingham Fountain
Buckingham Fountain is a Chicago Landmark in the center of Grant Park, between Queen's Landing and Ida B. Wells Drive. Dedicated in 1927 and donated to the city by philanthropist Kate S. Buckingham, it is one of the largest fountains in the world. Built in a rococo wedding cake style and inspired by the Latona Fountain at the Palace of Versailles, its design allegorically represents nearby Lake Michigan. The fountain operates from May to mid-October, with regular water shows and evening colored-light shows. During the winter, the fountain is decorated with festival lights. History The fountain area is considered Chicago's front door, since it is located in the center of Grant Park, the city's front yard near the intersection of Columbus Drive and Ida B. Wells Drive. The fountain itself represents Lake Michigan, with four sets of sea horses (two per set) symbolizing the four states—Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana—that border the lake. The fountain was d ...
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Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park is a large urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Located within the city's central business district, the park's features include Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Campus. Originally known as Lake Park, and dating from the city's founding, it was renamed in 1901 to honor US President Ulysses S. Grant. The park's area has been expanded several times through land reclamation, and was the focus of several disputes in the late 19th century and early 20th century over open space use. It is bordered on the north by Randolph Street, on the south by Roosevelt Road and McFetridge Drive, on the west by Michigan Avenue and on the east by Lake Michigan. The park contains performance venues, gardens, art work, sporting, and harbor facilities. It hosts public gatherings and several large annual events. Grant Park is popularly referred to as "Chicago's front yard". It is governed by the Chicago Park District. ...
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Garfield Park (Chicago Park)
Garfield Park is a urban park located in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. It was designed as a pleasure ground by William LeBaron Jenney and is the oldest of the three large original Chicago West Side parks ( Humboldt Park, Garfield, and Douglass Park). It is home to the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest plant conservatories in the United States. It is also the park furthest west in the Chicago park and boulevard system. Park history The first segment of Garfield Park was formally opened to the public in August 1874. Originally known as Central Park, it was conceived as the centerpiece of the West Park System. Jenney, now best known as the father of skyscrapers, was influenced by the French parks and boulevards he had seen and studied while living in Paris. That influence is reflected in his design of these West side parks and the connecting boulevards. The park was renamed in 1881 in honor of slain President James A. Garfield. ...
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