Kucinski-Murphy Park
History In 1926, Chicago's Bureau of Parks and Recreation established Kucinski-Murphy Park on city land in the McKinley Park neighborhood. Within a few years, the bureau had improved the property with an office building/shelter house and a playing field that could be flooded for skating in winter. Playground equipment was later installed, and the original recreation building was replaced in 1947. In 1959, the city transferred the park to the Chicago Park District, along with more than 250 other properties. The park district constructed a new spray pool and paved the gravel-surfaced playground in the late 1960s. A soft surface playground was added in 1990. For decades, the park was officially named 33rd Place Playground, for the adjacent street. In 1999, the park district officially designated the site Kucinski-Murphy Park in deference to the wishes of local residents. Neighbors had known the playground as the Vicki M. Kucinski and Rosebeth Murphy Playlot Park since the tragic death of those two neighborhood girls in the late 1980s.
