Community Area #25 - Austin

Austin is a community area on the far west side of Chicago. Unfortunately, it has more than its share of crime and poverty, both of which were evident on my ride through the area yesterday. Despite all that, I saw some really nice things in Austin.

The anchor of the southern portion of Austin is Columbus Park, named for Christopher Columbus and designed by the famous landscape architect Jens Jensen in 1916. On my visit, I was to meet my friends at the Columbus Park fieldhouse. I got there early and was waiting for my friends to arrive when some youngsters started throwing rocks at me. I decided I was a pretty easy target and figured I'd better leave. I'm glad I did. It gave me a chance to explore the park, find the ballfield and the golf course, ride around the lagoon a few times and snap a couple photos of a family of Canadian geese out for a swim.

After having been through Humboldt Park and Garfield Park several times, including earlier that same day, it's easy to see why Columbus Park was Jensen's favorite. The curving paths make you constantly feel like you're in an isolated part of the park. The rest of the park is always around the next turn.

Outside of Columbus park, my group went for a ride around Austin and saw some nice residential architecture representing almost all of the typical Chicago styles. The northern areas of Austin, known as Galewood and Montclare, were better maintained than the rest of Austin.

The nicest thing we saw was the M&M Mars candy factory where they make Snickers bars, among other delicacies. This block of Oak Park Ave has an honorary street name: Milky Way. The building is awesome and the smell of the chocolate was in the air, even on a Sunday afternoon. We had thought that the plant was closed down, but there's no denying that there was some chocolate cooking yesterday.