Avondale Park

Created by the Irving Park District, Avondale Park takes its name from the surrounding Avondale neighborhood. An early racially-integrated suburb, Avondale became part of Chicago when the city annexed the Town of Jefferson in 1889. European immigrants began settling there and residential construction boomed in the 1920s. In 1929, the Irving Park District board responded by making plans for the five-acre park. Although it took several years to acquire all of the land, improvements began immediately. By the end of the year, the park district had constructed an attractive brick fieldhouse designed by Clarence Hatzfeld. Lawn, shrubbery, trees, and flowers soon graced Avondale Park's landscape. By the early 1930s, the park included a playfield, separate boys' and girls' playgrounds, a wading pool, a sand box, and tennis courts. Avondale Park became part of the Chicago Park District in 1934, when the Great Depression necessitated the consolidation of the city's 22 independent park agencies. Twenty-five years later, the park's size was reduced to just over one acre when its entire northeast portion was taken to make way for the Kennedy Expressway. Eliminating Avondale Park's playfield and tennis courts, the park district redesigned the site to incorporate volleyball and basketball courts and a swimming pool. In the early 1990s, the park district installed a new soft surface playground in Avondale Park, and replanted its landscape.