Chicago Community Area #23 - Humboldt Park

Tonight I rode to Humboldt Park - the neighborhood. Officially, Humboldt Park - the park - is in the West Town community neighborhood, not Humboldt Park. And after seeing the two communities, I can understand why. The park, it seems to me, is more closely connected to the neighborhoods and the people to the east.

I visited the site of Our Lady of the Angels school (corner of Avers and Iowa), where a tragic fire in 1958 claimed the lives of 92 children and 3 nuns. The school is now leased to the Galapagos Charter School, but a memorial to the lives of those who perished in the fire stands in the yard of the church which is just east of the school on Iowa.

I also ventured further west on Chicago Avenue and found that the home of Swiss Valley dairy is just across the street from Becker's Milk and Ice Cream company at Chicago and Tripp. Just across Tripp is a large truck parking lot which is full of Kemp's dairy trucks. So there's a small dairy industry along the Chicago Avenue industrial corridor in the middle of Chicago!