Humboldt Park, Chicago
Encyclopedia
Humboldt Park is one of 77 officially designated community areas
located on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois. The Humboldt Park neighborhood
is widely known for its large Puerto Rican presence. Humboldt Park is also the name of a 207-acre (0.8 km²) park
adjacent to the community area.
In conventional use, the neighborhood's borders include Western Avenue
to the east, Pulaski Road
to the west, Armitage Avenue to the North, and Chicago Avenue to the south. However, the Humboldt Park Community Area
, the official demographic entity, is west of that area: its borders are the Belt Railway
on the west, just east of Cicero Avenue; the Union Pacific tracks to the south, along Kinzie Street; Bloomingdale Avenue
on the north; and Humboldt Boulevard, Humboldt Park, and Sacramento Boulevard on the east. The railyards southeast of Grand and Sacramento are also part of the Community Area.
, a German naturalist and geographer famed for his five-volume work Cosmos: Draft of a Physical Description of the World. His single visit to the United States did not include Chicago. The creation of Humboldt and several other Westside parks provided beauty, linked together via Chicago's historic boulevard
system. The park is flanked by large graystone homes.
Chicago annexed most of the neighborhood in 1869, the year the park was laid out. Because the area lay just beyond the city's fire code jurisdiction, as set out after the 1871 fire
, this made low cost construction possible.
As early as the 1950s, Puerto Ricans settled in Humboldt Park. Many came directly from Puerto Rico as migration was averaging over ten thousand Puerto Ricans per year in the 1950s and '60s, throughout the United States. Others came from the local neighborhoods of Old Town and Lincoln Park where a large prime real estate area of Chicago, near Lake Michigan and downtown, gentrified and Puerto Ricans were displaced. The infamous Division Street Riots
resulted in the start of organizations for Puerto Rican rights in 1966. Organizations like the L.A.D.O.(Latin American Defense Organization), S.A.C.C.(Spanish Action Committee of Chicago) and the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de Maria, helped to slow down the riot caused by a police shooting of an unarmed youth. At another smaller riot in 1969, the Young Lords worked with criminal gangs like the Latin Kings, the Spanish Cobras, the Latin Disciples and the above mentioned community organizations to build unity and to redirect youth energies toward empowerment strategies. There were several solidarity marches from Lincoln Park to Humboldt Park and to City Hall; demanding social services, an end to police brutality and an end to neighborhood displacement.
But in 1995, Division Street found new life when city officials and Latino leaders offered a symbolic gesture to recognize the neighborhood and the residents' roots. They christened it "Paseo Boricua" and installed two metal Puerto Rican flags—each weighing 45 tons, measuring 59 feet (18 m) vertically and stretching across the street—at each end of the strip.
Under the flags, the struggling neighborhood transformed into one of the most vibrant Latino neighborhoods in Chicago, uniting the once fragmented Puerto Rican community. Since the community banded, the occupancy rate of the neighborhood rose to about 90 percent, home prices stabilized and Chicago's 115,000 Puerto Ricans have a place they call their own.
Over time, Paseo Boricua became a place where Puerto Ricans could go to learn about their heritage. A culture center was established, and the offices of local Puerto Rican politicians relocated their offices to Division Street. Recently, the City of Chicago has set aside money for Paseo Boricua property owners who want to restore their buildings' facades.
Visitors can hear salsa
, reggaeton
, bomba
, plena
, and merengue
music pulsating through the streets and smell the mouth-watering carne guisada puertorriqueña. A couple of grocers have set up shop to help buyers find those hard-to-acquire products from home, such as gandules verde, sazón, and naranja agria.
The area is visually stunning, having many colorful and historically important murals as well as two affordable housing buildings with facades and colors mimicking the Spanish colonial styles of Old San Juan. A tile mosaic of Puerto Rican baseball
slugger Roberto Clemente
greets visitors at one end of the street, near the high school that bears his name.
Several times a year, Paseo Boricua is fashioned in gala to celebrate important Puerto Rican holidays, such as the Three Kings Day, the Puerto Rican People's Parade, Haunted Paseo Boricua, and Fiesta Boricua with an estimated 65,000 attendees.
It is the only officially recognized Puerto Rican neighborhood in the nation. New York
, with its vast Puerto Rican population
, does not have an officially designated Puerto Rican neighborhood.
Today Paseo Boricua
is the first location outside the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to be granted the right to fly an official “Municipal Flag of Puerto Rico.
The Puerto Rican resurgence
is also being viewed as an important step in teaching the next generation of Chicago Puerto Ricans about the area's past. With the support of the community, Puerto Rican leaders in Chicago leased the historic Humboldt Park stables near Paseo Boricua that house the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, its the only musseum in the nation that is completely dedicated to the history of Puerto Rican culture and the Puerto Rican diaspora. About $3.4 million was spent to renovate the exterior of the building and another $3.2 million for the interior.
occurred at the Our Lady of Angels School
on December 1, 1958 in the Humboldt Park area. The school, which was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
, lost 92 students and three nuns in five classrooms on the second floor.
The 1970s saw troubled times for Humboldt Park. Gang activity, crime, and violence predominated the area. The neighborhood continues to be economically depressed, with housing values below the city-wide average. Overcrowding remains a serious problem. However, the neighborhood's Puerto Rican population, remains insistent on keeping and expanding a community through many housing, political, social, and economic initiatives like the Paseo Boricua
business corridor on Division St between Western and California avenues where two 59 foot steel gateway-like Puerto Rican flags are planted.
serves the area.
Rowe Clark Math & Science Academy, a CPS high school, is in Humboldt Park. "3645 W Chicago Ave
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
Our Lady of the Angels Catholic School
was located in Humboldt Park.
Humboldt Park has also been featured in film
.
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
located on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois. The Humboldt Park neighborhood
Neighborhoods in Chicago
Cartographers distinguish between over 200 neighborhoods and 77 community areas in the City of Chicago . A semi-official by the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development was created in the 1970s by researchers who went from door-to-door in Chicago, asking "What neighborhood is this?"...
is widely known for its large Puerto Rican presence. Humboldt Park is also the name of a 207-acre (0.8 km²) park
Humboldt Park (Chicago park)
Humboldt Park is a park located on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois at 1400 North Sacramento Avenue.The park was named for Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist. William Le Baron Jenney began developing the park in the 1870s, molding a flat prairie landscape into a "pleasure ground"...
adjacent to the community area.
In conventional use, the neighborhood's borders include Western Avenue
Western Avenue (Chicago)
Western Avenue is the longest continuous street within the city of Chicago at in length. Western Avenue extends south as a continuous road to the Dixie Highway at Sibley Boulevard in Dixmoor, giving the road a total length of . However, Western Avenue extends intermittently through the...
to the east, Pulaski Road
Pulaski Road (Chicago)
Pulaski Road is a major north-south thoroughfare in the city of Chicago, at 4000 W., or exactly five miles west of State Street. It is named after revolutionary war hero Casimir Pulaski...
to the west, Armitage Avenue to the North, and Chicago Avenue to the south. However, the Humboldt Park Community Area
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
, the official demographic entity, is west of that area: its borders are the Belt Railway
Belt Railway of Chicago
The Belt Railway of Chicago , headquartered in Chicago, is the largest switching terminal railroad in the United States. It is co-owned by six Class I railroads — BNSF Railway, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway, and Union...
on the west, just east of Cicero Avenue; the Union Pacific tracks to the south, along Kinzie Street; Bloomingdale Avenue
Bloomingdale Line
The Bloomingdale Line is a elevated railroad running east-west on the northwest side of Chicago that the city of Chicago has proposed to convert into a greenway...
on the north; and Humboldt Boulevard, Humboldt Park, and Sacramento Boulevard on the east. The railyards southeast of Grand and Sacramento are also part of the Community Area.
Early history
The park was named for Alexander von HumboldtAlexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
, a German naturalist and geographer famed for his five-volume work Cosmos: Draft of a Physical Description of the World. His single visit to the United States did not include Chicago. The creation of Humboldt and several other Westside parks provided beauty, linked together via Chicago's historic boulevard
Boulevard
A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...
system. The park is flanked by large graystone homes.
Chicago annexed most of the neighborhood in 1869, the year the park was laid out. Because the area lay just beyond the city's fire code jurisdiction, as set out after the 1871 fire
Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S...
, this made low cost construction possible.
Puerto Rican influx
Division Street Riots
The Division Street Riots were episodes of rioting and civil unrest, which occurred between June 12 and June 14, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois in the United States.-History and cause:...
resulted in the start of organizations for Puerto Rican rights in 1966. Organizations like the L.A.D.O.(Latin American Defense Organization), S.A.C.C.(Spanish Action Committee of Chicago) and the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de Maria, helped to slow down the riot caused by a police shooting of an unarmed youth. At another smaller riot in 1969, the Young Lords worked with criminal gangs like the Latin Kings, the Spanish Cobras, the Latin Disciples and the above mentioned community organizations to build unity and to redirect youth energies toward empowerment strategies. There were several solidarity marches from Lincoln Park to Humboldt Park and to City Hall; demanding social services, an end to police brutality and an end to neighborhood displacement.
But in 1995, Division Street found new life when city officials and Latino leaders offered a symbolic gesture to recognize the neighborhood and the residents' roots. They christened it "Paseo Boricua" and installed two metal Puerto Rican flags—each weighing 45 tons, measuring 59 feet (18 m) vertically and stretching across the street—at each end of the strip.
Under the flags, the struggling neighborhood transformed into one of the most vibrant Latino neighborhoods in Chicago, uniting the once fragmented Puerto Rican community. Since the community banded, the occupancy rate of the neighborhood rose to about 90 percent, home prices stabilized and Chicago's 115,000 Puerto Ricans have a place they call their own.
Over time, Paseo Boricua became a place where Puerto Ricans could go to learn about their heritage. A culture center was established, and the offices of local Puerto Rican politicians relocated their offices to Division Street. Recently, the City of Chicago has set aside money for Paseo Boricua property owners who want to restore their buildings' facades.
Visitors can hear salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
, reggaeton
Reggaeton
Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...
, bomba
Bomba
Bomba is one of the traditional musical styles of Puerto Rico. it is a largely African-derived music. The rhythm and beat are played by a set of floor drums, cuá and a maraca. Dance is an integral part of the music: the dancers move their bodies to every beat of the drum, making bomba a very...
, plena
Plena
Plena is a folkloric genre native to Puerto Rico. Its creation was influenced by African and Spanish music.-History:The music is generally folkloric. The music's beat and rhythm are usually played using hand drums called panderetas, but also known as panderos or pleneras. The music is accompanied...
, and merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
music pulsating through the streets and smell the mouth-watering carne guisada puertorriqueña. A couple of grocers have set up shop to help buyers find those hard-to-acquire products from home, such as gandules verde, sazón, and naranja agria.
The area is visually stunning, having many colorful and historically important murals as well as two affordable housing buildings with facades and colors mimicking the Spanish colonial styles of Old San Juan. A tile mosaic of Puerto Rican baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
slugger Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente Walker was a Puerto Rican Major League Baseball right fielder. He was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the youngest of seven children. Clemente played his entire 18-year baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates . He was awarded the National League's Most Valuable Player Award in...
greets visitors at one end of the street, near the high school that bears his name.
Several times a year, Paseo Boricua is fashioned in gala to celebrate important Puerto Rican holidays, such as the Three Kings Day, the Puerto Rican People's Parade, Haunted Paseo Boricua, and Fiesta Boricua with an estimated 65,000 attendees.
It is the only officially recognized Puerto Rican neighborhood in the nation. New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, with its vast Puerto Rican population
Puerto Rican migration to New York
Puerto Ricans have both immigrated and migrated to New York. The first group of Puerto Ricans moved to New York in the mid-19th century when Puerto Rico was a Spanish Colony and its people Spanish subjects and therefore they were immigrants. The following wave of Puerto Ricans to move to New York...
, does not have an officially designated Puerto Rican neighborhood.
Today Paseo Boricua
Paseo Boricua
Paseo Boricua is a street section in the West Side of Chicago. It is located on Division Street, between Western Avenue and California Avenue, in the neighborhood of Humboldt Park, more commonly known as little Puerto Rico...
is the first location outside the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to be granted the right to fly an official “Municipal Flag of Puerto Rico.
Institute of Puerto Rican arts and culture
Resurgence
Resurgence is a British bi-monthly magazine which has been described as the artistic and spiritual voice of the green movement in Great Britain. Resurgence was founded in the 1960s by John Papworth....
is also being viewed as an important step in teaching the next generation of Chicago Puerto Ricans about the area's past. With the support of the community, Puerto Rican leaders in Chicago leased the historic Humboldt Park stables near Paseo Boricua that house the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, its the only musseum in the nation that is completely dedicated to the history of Puerto Rican culture and the Puerto Rican diaspora. About $3.4 million was spent to renovate the exterior of the building and another $3.2 million for the interior.
Other history and trends
Our Lady of the Angels School FireOur Lady of the Angels School Fire
The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire broke out shortly before classes were to be dismissed on December 1, 1958, at the foot of a stairway in the Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago, Illinois. The elementary school was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago...
occurred at the Our Lady of Angels School
Our Lady of the Angels School (Illinois)
Our Lady of the Angels School was a Roman Catholic elementary and middle school located in the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, Illinois, United States...
on December 1, 1958 in the Humboldt Park area. The school, which was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
The Archdiocese of Chicago was established as a diocese in 1843 and as an Archdiocese in 1880. It serves more than 2.3 million Catholics in Cook and Lake counties in Northeastern Illinois, a geographic area of 1,411 square miles. The Archdiocese is divided into six vicariates and 31 deaneries...
, lost 92 students and three nuns in five classrooms on the second floor.
The 1970s saw troubled times for Humboldt Park. Gang activity, crime, and violence predominated the area. The neighborhood continues to be economically depressed, with housing values below the city-wide average. Overcrowding remains a serious problem. However, the neighborhood's Puerto Rican population, remains insistent on keeping and expanding a community through many housing, political, social, and economic initiatives like the Paseo Boricua
Paseo Boricua
Paseo Boricua is a street section in the West Side of Chicago. It is located on Division Street, between Western Avenue and California Avenue, in the neighborhood of Humboldt Park, more commonly known as little Puerto Rico...
business corridor on Division St between Western and California avenues where two 59 foot steel gateway-like Puerto Rican flags are planted.
Education
Chicago Public SchoolsChicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools, commonly abbreviated as CPS by local residents and politicians and officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, is a large school district that manages over 600 public elementary and high schools in Chicago, Illinois...
serves the area.
Rowe Clark Math & Science Academy, a CPS high school, is in Humboldt Park. "3645 W Chicago Ave
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago
The Archdiocese of Chicago was established as a diocese in 1843 and as an Archdiocese in 1880. It serves more than 2.3 million Catholics in Cook and Lake counties in Northeastern Illinois, a geographic area of 1,411 square miles. The Archdiocese is divided into six vicariates and 31 deaneries...
Our Lady of the Angels Catholic School
Our Lady of the Angels School (Illinois)
Our Lady of the Angels School was a Roman Catholic elementary and middle school located in the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, Illinois, United States...
was located in Humboldt Park.
Cultural references to the community
Humboldt Park figures prominently in the literary works that chronicled Chicago's blue collar life in the 1950s and 60's.- Saul BellowSaul BellowSaul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
's Adventures of Augie March charts the long drifting life of a Jewish Chicagoan and his myriad eccentric acquaintances throughout the early 20th century: growing up in the then Polish neighborhoodPoles in ChicagoChicago Polonia, refers to both immigrant Poles and Americans of Polish heritage living in Chicago, Illinois. They are a part of worldwide Polonia, the proper term for the Polish Diaspora outside of Poland. Poles in Chicago have contributed to the economic, social and cultural well-being of Chicago...
of Humboldt Park, he ends up cavorting with heiresses on the Gold Coast, studying at the University of ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, fleeing union thugs in the LoopChicago LoopThe Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...
, and taking the odd detour to hang out with Trotsky in Mexico while eagle-hunting giant iguanas on horseback.
- John GuzlowskiJohn Guzlowski-Personal life:John Guzlowski was born the son of parents who met in a slave labor camp in Nazi Germany. His mother Tekla Hanczarek came from a small community west of Lviv in what was then Poland where her father was a forest warden. His father Jan was born in a farming community north of Poznań...
's Lightning and Ashes chronicles the author's experiences growing up in the immigrant and DP neighborhoods around Humboldt Park in Chicago, in the context of Jewish hardware store clerks with Auschwitz tattoos on their wrists, Polish CavalryPolish cavalryThe Polish cavalry can trace its origins back to the days of Medieval mounted knights. Poland had always been a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment...
officers who still mourned for their dead horses, and women who walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians.
Humboldt Park has also been featured in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
.
- The Horn Blows at Midnight, a 1945 film starring Jack BennyJack BennyJack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
, Margaret DumontMargaret DumontMargaret Dumont was an American comedic actress. She is remembered mostly for being the comic foil to Groucho Marx in seven of the Marx Brothers films...
, and Alexis Smith, also features Humboldt Park. Benny portrays an angel sent from heaven to blow his horn at an appointed time and destroy the world. However, because the angel hasn't lived on Earth for several centuries, he becomes totally lost in modern Chicago. He floats from one misadventure to the next, including a visit to Humboldt ParkHumboldt Park (Chicago park)Humboldt Park is a park located on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois at 1400 North Sacramento Avenue.The park was named for Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist. William Le Baron Jenney began developing the park in the 1870s, molding a flat prairie landscape into a "pleasure ground"...
during an ethnic German picnic, where he encounters Germans in traditional garb enjoying traditional German food and music. Ultimately the angel refuses to blow his horn, arguing to God that the kindness and goodness displayed by the Chicagoans he met warrants saving the world, not destroying it. God agrees.
- Nothing Like the Holidays, starring Freddy RodriguezFreddy RodriguezFreddy Rodriguez is an American actor known for playing the characters Hector Federico "Rico" Diaz on HBO's Six Feet Under and El Wray in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror...
, John LeguizamoJohn LeguizamoJonathan Alberto "John" Leguizamo is an Colombian-American actor, producer, voice artist, and comedian.-Early life:...
, Debra MessingDebra MessingDebra Lynn Messing is an American actress, voice artist, and comedienne. She is perhaps best known for her role as Grace Adler in the NBC sitcom Will & Grace and as Molly Kagan in the mini-series The Starter Wife....
, Alfred MolinaAlfred MolinaAlfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...
, Jay HernandezJay HernandezJavier Manuel "Jay" Hernandez, Jr. is an American actor.-Early life and career:Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, the son of Isis , a secretary and accountant, and Javier Hernandez, Sr., a mechanic. He has a younger sister, Amelia, and two older brothers, Michael and Gabriel. Hernandez...
, Ramses Jimenez, Luis GuzmanLuis GuzmánLuis Guzmán is an actor from Puerto Rico. He is known for his character work. For much of his career, he has played roles largely as sidekicks, thugs, or policemen....
, Melonie DiazMelonie DiazMelonie Diaz is an American actress who has been appeared in many independent films, including four shown at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.-Biography:...
, Vanessa FerlitoVanessa Ferlito-Personal life:An Italian American, Ferlito was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father died when she was three. Her mother and stepfather own a hair salon in Brooklyn...
and Elizabeth PenaElizabeth PeñaElizabeth Peña is an American actress and the daughter of a theater-company co-founder, who has also compiled experience as a television director in her own right.-Early life:...
, follows three siblings returning to their parents' home in Humboldt Park for the holidays.