Chicago Community Area #1 - Rogers Park

I pass through Rogers Park on my way to the lakefront several times a week. There are many, many great places in Rogers Park. I spend a lot of time there. Here's a list of some of my favorites:

1. Pratt Ave beach and it's hand painted benches - renewed every year.
2. Rogers Avenue - the old Indian Boundary Line
3. Morse Ave L stop painted viaduct
4. The tiny beaches and parks along the lake north of Touhy up to Howard - sometimes more than one per block.
5. The (relatively) new library on Clark
6. The Common Cup - coffee shop at Morse and Greenview
7. Heartland Cafe - cafe/restaurant at Lunt and Glenwood
8. Kilmer Triangle - a tiny park/memorial at Rogers and Ashland and Birchwood
9. Kilmer Elementary School and Sullivan High School - beautiful school buildings. See photos below.

Joyce Kilmer is the author of the famous poem "Trees":

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

As I pass these schools on my bike, I sometimes wonder what I might have grown up to be if I had walked through august doorways like these every day during my youth.

Kilmer Elementary School:











Sullivan High School: