Eckhart Park

1330 W. Chicago Ave. Chicago IL 60642

Hours: Park: 6am - 11pm

M-F 7am - 9pm, Sa 9am - 5:30pm, Su 9am-5pm

Park Supervisor:
Melody Mitchell

(312) 746-5490

Description

Located in the West Town Community, Eckhart Park totals 8.12 acres and features indoor swimming pool, meeting rooms, fitness center, and boxing center. Outdoors, the park offers baseball diamonds, athletic field for football and soccer, a playground and garden.

Young park-goers can play seasonal sports at the facility. In the summer, youth attend day camp, and year ‘round Therapeutic Recreation programs.

Adults participate in a range of activities, aquatic classes and seasonal sports. Parents gather at Eckhart Park with their preschoolers for moms, pops and tots.

In addition to programs, Eckhart Park hosts fun special events for the whole family, such as Movies in the Park.

3/26/2013
Park District Youth Duke It Out in Citywide Boxing Championships March 26 and 28
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SPRING PROGRAMS:
Register online or in-person for spring programs now. Spring programs run the week of April 1 through the week of June 3.

SUMMER PROGRAMS:
Online registration for our park’s summer programs begins Tuesday, April 16 at 9 am, and in-person registration begins Saturday, April 20. The standard 6-week summer camp program runs July 1 through August 9. Most other summer programs run the week of June 17 through the week of August 19.

FACILITIES

FACILITY TYPE	ADDRESS	DESCRIPTOR	QTY	NOTES
Baseball Field	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		3
Basketball Court - Outdoor	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1
Boxing Gym	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1
Community Gardens	1330 W. Chicago Ave.	Ornamental	1	Community Garden
Fieldhouse	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1
Fitness Centers	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1	M-F 7am-8pm Sat 9am-4pm ADA Accessible Equipment Sign up for a membership
Football / Soccer - Grass	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1
Gymnasiums	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		2	2 Large
Meeting/Event Space	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		5
Playgrounds	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1
Swimming Pools - Indoor	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1	Spring Post-Season Pool Schedule Accessibility feature: Lift
Water Spray Features	1330 W. Chicago Ave.		1

History

The West Park Commission created Eckhart Park in 1907 to provide breathing space and social services for one of the overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods the commission served. Two years earlier, a revolutionary system of ten neighborhood parks had opened on the city’s South Side.Designed by the Olmsted Brothers and D.H. Burnham & Co., these innovative parks not only provided landscape amenities, but also public bathing, branches of the Chicago Public Library, classes and vocational training, inexpensive hot meals, health care, and a variety of recreational programs. Eckhart Park was among the first in a system of small West Side parks authorized by state legislation in 1905. The park takes its name from Bernard A. Eckhart (1852-1931), who played a prominent role in the neighborhood parks movement. Eckhart, president of the West Park Commission from 1905 through 1908, hired landscape architect Jens Jensen as General Superintendent for the West Park System. Jensen went on to become known as the Dean of the Prairie style of landscape architecture. In 1907, Jensen began designing Eckhart Park as one of the first three small parks planned by the West Chicago Park Commissioners to provide breathing space and social services for the congested tenement districts within their jurisdiction. Eckhart Park’s 8-acre site presented Jensen with a major challenge. His initial plan of 1907 illustrates that he began with a rigid and formal layout in order to incorporate all of the ambitious program components. He later modified the plan to provide a looser organization of space, with activities integrated throughout. Eckhart Park’s final plan included a playground, open-air gymnasiums, a swimming Pool with a Prairie style bridge separating the deep and shallow ends, and community gardens where children could learn to plant and tend their plots. It also included a handsome brick field house and natatorium designed by William Carbys Zimmerman who then served as the State Architect for Illinois.