Peterson Park

5801 N. Pulaski Rd. Chicago IL 60646

Hours: Park: 6am - 11pm

Fieldhouse: M - F 9am - 6pm, Sa - Su Closed

Park Supervisor:
Kiala Moore

(312) 742-7584

Description

The scenic, naturally wooded 24 acres of Peterson Park create the perfect setting for community members to enjoy the outdoors. Outside, Peterson Park’s two soccer fields are constantly filled with young players. The park also features four tennis courts, two playgrounds, two softball fields, a walking path and six basketball standards

At the park field house, youth can enjoy Kids Fitness, Arts & Crafts, Fun & Games, and a game room that includes ping pong, air hockey, foosball, bumper pool and a Wii system. Peterson Park has many early childhood programs that include Mom, Pops, Tots, Play Group, Arts & ABC’s, Music & Movement and many more. Peterson Park offers yoga/pilates for adults as well as a fitness center. The senior social club thrives at Peterson Park, meeting weekly and scheduling trips to exciting destinations across the city.

Peterson Park is even more known for its state-of-the-art gymnastics center, which offers quality instruction for beginners to advanced competitors year-round. The gymnastic center and park fieldhouse sit within the city’s North Park Village, just off of Peterson and Pulaski Avenues

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JUL

Night Out: Movies in the Parks at Peterson

Event's details

July 19, 2013

Time:08:30 PM - 10:03 PM
Location: Peterson Park, Chicago, IL -

(08:30 PM - 10:03 PM)

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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 Monday, April 15 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	QTY	NOTES
Baseball Field	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	2
Basketball Court - Outdoor	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	2
Fieldhouse	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	1
Fitness Centers	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	1	M-F, 9-6pm; Sa-Su, Closed Sign up for a membership
Football / Soccer - Grass	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	2
Meeting/Event Space	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	4
Picnic Groves	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	1
Playgrounds	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	2
Tennis Courts	5801 N. Pulaski Rd.	4

History

Peterson Park honors Pehr Samuel Peterson (1830-1903), a pioneer nurseryman and early inhabitant of the Swedish community known as Peterson Woods, in what is now the North Park neighborhood. Arriving in the United States in 1850, Peterson came west to Chicago four years later and started a landscape nursery northwest of the city, eventually acquiring over 500 acres of land. Peterson developed an innovative technique for transplanting large trees from his nursery. Peterson's trees soon shaded many Chicago parks and boulevards, including Jackson Park, which was made lush and green for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Peterson also was active in Swedish-American civic and religious groups. The King of Sweden knighted him for his accomplishments. Several years after Peterson's death in 1903, his family donated 160 acres of land to the City of Chicago for a municipal tuberculosis sanitarium. When the sanitarium opened in 1915, TB was the Western World's leading killer, but by mid-century, improved public hygiene and the advent of vaccines and antimicrobial drugs had drastically reduced the incidence of the disease. In the 1970s, the city decided to redevelop the under-used sanitarium property as North Park Village, a campus for city programs and social services. The redevelopment plan called for transforming the original hospital and grounds into senior citizen housing, a school for the developmentally disabled, and a wooded, 46-acre nature preserve. In addition, nearly 24 acres were developed as parkland. The Chicago Park District began leasing the site in 1977, and soon improved it with playgrounds, basketball and volleyball courts, and athletic fields. An existing building provided space for indoor recreation. Improvements made in the 1990s included the addition of two soft surface playgrounds and the creation of a gymnastics center in another of the old sanitarium buildings.