I have a good friend who lives in the Oriole Park/Edison Park area of Chicago. Over the last several years, Oriole Park has undergone numerous upgrades and several major improvements. For starters, the basketball courts were resurfaced and everything looks great! All the hoops/nets were also replaced. These are always occupied by older teens and/or college kids. These hoops are put to good use especially during the Summer. Some of the extra parking spaces were taken away from the park when they built a brand-new, albeit, small Chicago Public Library (CPL) across from the park. The park has a large lime green water sprinkler with whimsical dragon faces shooting water out of their mouths and 20 feet into the air. This is used mostly by kids under the age of 10 who always appear to be having a great time running around in circles getting cooled off on a humid, warm Chicago day. There is a thick rubberized-cushioned royal blue flooring (almost like a thick yoga mat, but it is not) surrounding the water sprinkler, which serves as protection should a child slip and fall. Across from the dragon water sprinkler is a playground with all kinds of cool equipment. There are benches situated under shady trees for moms and dads to sit and watch the kids or socialize with other parents. The water sprinkler is officially turned on Memorial Day weekend.
They improved the baseball diamonds. I was impressed how many baseball diamond fields this park has, but it is an area where lots of Chicago policemen and firemen and paramedics live, so maybe this is why they have socked tons of $$$ into this park. There are bleachers, but not all of them are located in a shaded area. I noticed some parents bring their own chairs and sit under trees. There are tons of trees at this park, but none are located close to the baseball fields. I came in the Fall of 2014 and the trees were displaying their golden Fall colors (from deep reds to bright orange and yellow). The old playground equipment was replaced in the late Fall of 2014 (although the equipment was not broken or out of date).
This park is very clean. They also have a Vienna hot dog cart on the park grounds, which does brisk business at times especially when there are baseball games or football games in the park. This park is located in an area of the city that is residential, filled with cookie-cutter ranch style homes, and a few newly constructed homes that appear misplaced. There are lots of city workers living in this area, so maybe this explains why the park has undergone a major renovation in the last 10 to 15 years. It is immaculate, well-maintained, and it continues to have "improvements" done. Other parks in the city don't have this much work done, so I guess it is Chicago politics at its best! read more