Chicago Parks - Grace Zwiefka Thuis Traditional Cache
Reviewer Smith: Reviewer Smith
Chicago Parks - Grace Zwiefka Thuis
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I used to ride past this park all the time on my way downtown. A few years back it was just a tiny playlot called the Lavergne Playlot Park. Now, after all the development in the area, it's grown all the way up into a very small park.
Lawrence Ave. is a nice east-west bike route in this area, and a good feeder into Elston Ave., which is the best way to get to downtown on a bike from the northwest side. Going a little further east on Lawrence gets you to the North Shore Channel trail.
From the Chicago Park District website:
In 2005 the park was renamed in honor of the memory of Grace Zwiefka Thuis as part of the Park District's program to rename parks after historically significant women.
Grace Zwiefka Thuis(1909-2000)was an exemplary Chicago Park District employee for more than 60 years. Born and raised in Chicago, she began her long tenure with the Chicago Park District in 1933 as a Physical Instructor at Holstein Park. In 1970, she became General Supervisor of Physical Activities, placing her in charge of women’s recreation for the entire city. In 1990, she was inducted into the City of Chicago Senior Citizen’s Hall of Fame, and in 1994 she was named the Chicago Park District Senior Citizen of the Year.
In 1951, the City of Chicago's Bureau of Parks and Recreation developed plans for a new playlot on North Lavergne Avenue in the northwest side Portage Park community. In 1959, the city transferred the site to the Chicago Park District, which rehabilitated the park with a soft surface playground in 1990.
Lavergne Park takes its name from the adjacent street. Lavergne Avenue runs south through Chicago into the western suburb of Berwyn, where the first settlement was known as LaVergne. In 1856, Thomas Baldwin bought 347 acres and began to develop what he hoped would become a prestigious community. Although he subdivided the property into large lots in hopes of enticing affluent neighbors, LaVergne faltered in the Panic of 1873. The area was reborn as Berwyn in the 1890s.
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