Lincoln Park Cultural Center
Park Description
Located in the heart of Lincoln Park, Clark Street at Lincoln Park West, the Chicago Park District's cultural gem, Lincoln ParkCulturalCenter boasts wide variety of cultural and recreational programming throughout the year.
We encourage you to checkout our lapidary and stained glass shop, the ceramics studio, and the full service woodshop. For those with little ones we have an early childhood center filled with fun and exciting programs.Enjoy one of our special events in the auditorium or take a dance lesson in the dance studio.We invite you to visit the program page to view a complete listing of seasonal activities.
Join us for our annual Lincoln Park Art Faire held in September.We feature more than 100 art vendors, an open air studio for kids, plus entertainment and local food vendors.
APA singled out Lincoln Park as one of the 2009 Great Public Spaces in American, for its world class amenities, historic landmarks and buildings, and for the wide range of activities available to park users. Most notably, Lincoln Park is the result of a long-standing commitment by city leaders and citizens to protect 1,200 acres of some of Chicago's most valuable lakefront real estate for the public's use and benefit.
History
Lincoln Park began as a small public cemetery on the northernmost boundary of Chicago where victims of cholera and small pox were buried in shallow lakeside graves. Aware of the public health threat, citizens began demanding the cemetery's conversion to parkland in the 1850s. In 1860, the city reserved a 60-acre unused section, naming it Lake Park. Shortly after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th President of the United States, the park was renamed in his honor. The city allocated $10,000 for improvements, and nurseryman Swain Nelson created and implemented the park's first plan. An early donation of mute swans marked the beginnings of the Lincoln Park Zoo.
Citizens argued for the removal of the remaining burial ground. This contributed to a larger parks movement, and in 1869, the state legislature created three park districts: the South, West, and Lincoln Park Commissions, each responsible for the parks and boulevards in its region. Under the direction of the Lincoln Park Commission, bodies were exhumed and relocated to other cemeteries, and the park was expanded south to North Avenue and north to Diversey Parkway. Severe winter storms in 1885 resulted in the construction of a breakwater system which included the first of many landfill projects extending Lincoln Park's boundaries.
The independent park commissions were consolidated into the Chicago Park District in 1934, and Lincoln Park was expanded north to Foster Avenue. A final expansion in the 1950s brought the park to its current size of 1,208 acres. Throughout Lincoln Park's history, renowned artists, landscape designers, and architects contributed to its development. These included sculptor Augustus-Saint Gaudens, landscape designers Ossian Cole Simonds and Alfred Caldwell, and architects Joseph Lyman Silsbee and Dwight H. Perkins.
