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Local Landmarks & Heritage

  • Humboldt Park Receptory and Stable (1895)
  • Paseo Boricua flags (1995)
  • National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture
  • The 606 trail connection

Neighborhood History

Humboldt Park takes its name from the 207-acre park at its center, designated in 1869 as part of Chicago's West Park System alongside Douglas and Garfield Parks, and named for German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who never once visited the city. The dedication reflected the neighborhood's earliest residents, German and Scandinavian immigrants who settled here in the following decades, followed by waves of Polish, Italian, and Jewish families through the early 20th century.

Puerto Rican families began arriving in force in the 1950s and '60s after being displaced from Lincoln Park and Wicker Park by urban renewal, and a 1966 confrontation on Division Street during the city's first Puerto Rican Week became a turning point that galvanized the community's civil rights organizing. Two 59-foot steel Puerto Rican flags now mark Paseo Boricua, the stretch of Division Street dedicated in 1995, and the park's 1895 stable building, designed by Frommann and Jebsen, now houses the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, the only museum of its kind in the country.

MY-NHD's Humboldt Park collection is built for the only neighborhood in America officially recognized for its Puerto Rican identity, a community that has never stopped claiming its own ground.

MY-NHD

Humboldt Park - Chicago - Unisex Cotton Tee

Humboldt Park - Chicago - Unisex Cotton Tee

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Humboldt Park is named for its 207-acre park, set aside in 1869 and named for German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Puerto Rican families arrived from the 1950s, and two steel Puerto Rican flags mark Paseo Boricua on Division Street.

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