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Local Landmarks & Heritage

  • Garfield Park Conservatory (1908)
  • Gold Dome Building (1928)
  • Waller Apartments (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1895)
  • Garfield Park

Neighborhood History

East Garfield Park takes its name from Garfield Park, the 184-acre urban park that anchors its northwest corner, originally called Central Park when the area was annexed to Chicago in 1869, then renamed in 1881 to honor President James Garfield after his assassination. Irish and German railroad and factory workers were the neighborhood's first residents, later joined by Italians and Russian Jews drawn by jobs at the nearby Sears, Roebuck plant just over the North Lawndale border.

The park itself became a showcase of landscape design: William Le Baron Jenney laid it out in the 1870s, and Jens Jensen's 1905 Prairie-style redesign produced the Garfield Park Conservatory, opened in 1908 and still one of the largest conservatories in the country. The Gold Dome Building, a Spanish Baroque Revival fieldhouse built in 1928, remains a neighborhood landmark, and Frank Lloyd Wright's 1895 Waller Apartments, among Chicago's first subsidized housing, still stand on Walnut Street.

MY-NHD's East Garfield Park collection draws on a neighborhood built around one of the city's great public parks, and the architects and craftspeople who shaped it.

MY-NHD

East Garfield Park - Chicago - Unisex Cotton Tee

East Garfield Park - Chicago - Unisex Cotton Tee

Regular price $29.95 CAD
Regular price Sale price $29.95 CAD
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East Garfield Park is named for its 184-acre park, renamed in 1881 for President James Garfield. Jens Jensen’s Garfield Park Conservatory, opened in 1908, and the Gold Dome fieldhouse of 1928 remain neighborhood landmarks.

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