The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives.

Sneak Peek: Ping Tom Memorial Park Expansion

By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 15, 2011 8:40PM

Earlier this year City Council approved a Park District plan to build a field house for Chinatown's Ping Tom Memorial Park. Ping Tom Park was originally dedicated in 1991 after eminent domain used to annex the land where the Dan Ryan expressway now splits through the neighborhood claimed two parks.

The expansion of Ping Tom is centered north of 18th Street on land already owned by the Park District. The expansion plan (which can be viewed here in PDF format) calls for not only a field house, but softball and soccer fields. (The fenced area already serves as an unofficial softball/soccer field.)

Reader Jay Sebastian, who also owns the soon-to-launch food truck Bridgeport Pasty Co., shared with us some photographs of the progress being made with Ping Tom's expansion.