Spiffying Up Some Local Parks

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Mar 3, 2005 1:18PM

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) with the help of a million bucks from the MetLife Foundation is creating and renovating parks and playgrounds in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Miami, New York City, San Francisco and one other city, not yet selected.

It it TPL's mission that everyone, especially kids, has access to a park, playground or natural area close to where they live. Since it's founding in 1972, TPL has done 425 park projects and added more than 35,000 acres of urban parkland. Just think about that for a second. 35,000 acres is.. A LOT. Chicagoist loves our urban parks, no matter how small they might be. A little green always brightens up a bad day, right?

About $200,000 of the million will be coming to Chicago. The plan is to expand Haas Park in Logan Square by 75%. The park will also get a brand new field house. Also, River North Park will connect an existing park and the River North community to the east bank of the Chicago River. About 4 acres of fenced off empty land that straddles Erie Street is what's going to be cleaned up and park-i-fied. The park service expects this project will be completed sometime in the summer. No word when the Haas Park project will be done.

Image via rivernorthpark.com