Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Top 11 Sloopin Stories of 2011: #11 - Ping Tom Park Expands

It's that time of year and like many other websites, tv stations, newspapers and blogs, we're going to take a look back at some of the most important and biggest stories of 2011.

#11 - Ping Tom Park Expands North
Often overlooked, Ping Tom Park continues to get rave reviews. Back in September we posted about the new addition to the park just North of 18th street. While many forget about this spot (since it's on the fringe of what many consider the South Loop), it truly is a special public space that offers serene places to relax and some amazing views of the city.
(Image from Curbed Chicago)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah i especially love the rotting iron and cement gang-tagged cracked out warehouses that sit 100 yards from this.

I'd rather play in a field of power lines

South Loop Savage said...

I enjoy this park.

Broomy said...

I love the park, It's beautiful. This how you start getting rid of those old warehouses and other eysores, It doesn't happen overnight. My only complaint about the park is access. How are you supposed to enjoy the riverwalk, the kayak launch and anything else in there, when you cant walk "through" the park. As far as I could tell there is one entrance and exit.

Anonymous said...

Where exactly is the entrance to this park? Is there a place to park my car?

South Loop Savage said...

You might call it a rotting iron and cement gang-tagged cracked out warehouse; I call it a job-creator.

Anonymous said...

you may call it a job-creator, I call you a fruit

Anonymous said...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Boom. Roasted.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the access issue. Currently you need to find the entrance by winding through the residential development south of eighteenth street. The new part of the park requires you to cross a railroad track and then cross back under the eighteenth street bridge. Ideally the would put a pedestrian bridge from the sports fields north of eigteenth over the train tracks to make it one large and continuous park. Not that there is money for it.
It also seems wasteful to be lighting the new part of the park. I understand the rationale is to prevent vandalism and theft, but it's so isolated (and deserted at night) that I don't think it's doing anything but wasting energy.
Case in point: my favorite part is how the new park abuts a shack on the edge of the river, whose owner took it upon himself to rip the new fence down for ingress and egress.