Talk:Humboldt Park, Chicago
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It's pretty
[edit] fire code jurisdiction
Most of the neighborhood was annexed into the city in 1869, the year the park was laid out. The fact that this area stood just beyond the city's fire code jurisdiction as set out after the 1871 fire made inexpensively built housing possible.
Where exactly are the borders of this? Have they changed over the years? --Kalmia 04:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
- Replied over on Talk:Great Chicago Fire. --Morrand (talk) 04:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Paseo Boricua
Framed by the world’s largest monuments to a flag, Paseo Boricua has become the cultural and economic heartbeat of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community. The two Puerto Rican flags, constructed of steel and weighing 45 tons apiece, reach 56 feet across, 59 feet high and 59 feet into the ground. Truly an engineering and architectural feat, since its dedication on January 6, 1995 - Dia de Los Reyes (Three Kings Day)- the flags have won 7 awards, including the prestigious Building of the Year Award in 1995 by the American Institute of Architecture. The award was presented to DeStefano and Partners, the firm which designed it.
Paseo Boricua, which stretches along Division Street from Western Avenue to Mozart, represents a microcoosm of the Puerto Rican historical and cultural experience. The 50 light poles adorned with laser-etched wrought iron banners, representing images of the three cultural experiences that define the Puerto Rican people (the Taino, Spanish and West African,) the 16 placitas along the walkway; and the variety of businesses with a Puerto Rican accent, all testify to this reality.
Several times a year, Paseo Boricua is dressed in gala, celebrating some of the most important days of the Puerto Rican calendar. These important cultural dates begin with the celebration of Three Kings Day on January 6, when the area’s children are feted with gifts by the Three Wise Men, and parrandas (holiday caroling) are held with traditional aguinaldos. In June, the Annual Puerto Rican Peoples' Parade (Desfile del Pueblo) touches the community while the festivities of the Fiestas Patronales in Humboldt Park overflow into Paseo Boricua.
In Paseo Boricua, one is immediately struck by the bold outlines of the Puerto Rican historical process - a reflection of the cumulative experience of Puerto Rican culture. The Puerto Ricans rooted in their Arawak, Spanish and West African past.
For more than four decades, the Puerto Rican presence has asserted itself in Chicago. It is within the context of rendering homage to those Puerto Rican pioneers to this city that the Puerto Rican sculptural flags in Paseo Boricua were created. As the first major wave of Puerto Rican migration to the city came to work in the steel mills, and the second wave came to work on the pipelines, the flags, in keeping touch with that history, are not only constructed of steel, but of welded pieces of pipeline.
The flag poles supports of the monument project themselves symbolically into the future, as if welcoming the new millennia and the Puerto Ricans contribution to its growth; simultanously, the three red stripes twirl themselves and end up like a ballerina dancing itself into the ground, as if making a claim upon that space. An additional historical statement is made by the day and the date on which the flags were dedicated - January 6, 1995 - on the day of the Three Kings (the most Puerto Rican of holidays) and on the year of the centennial of the adoption of the Puerto Rican flag in New York on December 22, 1895.
Paseo Boricua is indeed a vibrant and dynamic example of the possiblities and the promise of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community.
It is against this backdrop of Paseo Boricua, that one comes to understand the decision made by the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Juan Antonio Corretjer, to move its operations to this “Pedacito de Patria.” Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Alternative Puerto Rican High School, the oldest of the PRCC ’s programs, will initiate its third decade of existence in its totally renovated state of the art building, which will cost nearly two million dollars.
Community Economic Development The Puerto Rican Cultural Center participates actively in the efforts of the Humboldt Park Empowerment Partnership (HPEP), the Division Street Business Development Association (DSBDA), and the Puerto Rican Agenda in developing strategies and formulating plans, programs and designs for the overall redevelopment of the West Town/Humboldt Park community, including the area known as Paseo Boricua. These efforts include the following:
• The beautification of Paseo Boricua; • The development of the Puerto Rican Institute of Art and Culture; • The annual celebration of the WinterFest/Three Kings Day Festivities; • The development of economic and commercial projects including a Puerto Rican- focused restaurant district in Paseo Boricua and commercial strips on North Avenue and Division Street (west of Humboldt Park). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plij (talk • contribs) 21:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
