2016 Postmortem: Whither Washington Park?

By Marcus Gilmer in Miscellaneous on Oct 27, 2009 2:00PM

As the city moves on from the 2016 Olympic loss, one group of citizens is hoping that as the Olympic dream fades, the attention focused on their neighborhood doesn't. Residents of Washington Park found themselves in the spotlight as Chicago's plans for the 2016 Olympics put them squarely in the middle of it all as the proposed location for the main Olympic Stadium. Residents now hope the neighborhood can stay in the spotlight even as the Olympic plans are tossed on the scrap pile.

WBEZ's Natalie Moore paid a visit to Washington Park and found several neighborhood leaders were motivated by the attention the neighborhood received. Community activist Brandon Johnson claimed the attention broke the North Side vs South Side schism, telling Moore, "So with the Olympics they treated us like we were the North Side for a couple of months and it was nice. I think it did a lot for us in terms of revealing to ourselves our own potential as well." Ald. Willie Cochran (20) indicated there would be some growth soon in the area, claiming, "a major grocery store [is] to be developed along the 61st to 63rd and State." There are also somewhat murky hopes of implementing a TIF sometime next year along 55th Street. But with so many plans, the neighborhood will rely on both support from the city - support that could wane in the wake of the 2016 failure - and support from residents without splintering due to a bevy of different plans for the neighborhood's future being discussed.