A City Vegetable Garden

The Children's Vegetable Garden in Dvorak Park. Date unknown. I'm guessing 1910s by the style of clothing (?)

Jens Jensen Was Here

(Harrison Park Community Garden ca. 1921)
I never consciously noticed landscape or gardening until I started my preservation career as an intern in New York City. Whenever I got a chance, I would take the train up to Central Park, walk within its borders and breathe deeper as the cacophony of the city subsided and was replaced by rustling leaves and birds chirping. This reprieve was so refreshing, so peaceful and beautiful it was only then I truly started appreciating the importance of landscape in daily life.

Most people who are interested in landscape know Olstead and Vaux as the designers of Central Park. Jens Jensen is an equally important figure in Midwest, specifically Chicago's landscape history. A Danish immigrant that moved to the United States in 1884, Jensen began his career as a City street-sweeper for the Chicago West Parks District in 1886, later becoming the Superintendent of Union Park. Throughout Jensen's career, he designed what he called "natural parks and gardens," with native plants. Jensen designed landscapes for parks, schools, hospitals and private estates.

"Our native landscape is our home, the little world we live in, where we are born and where we play, where we grow up and finally where we are...laid to eternal rest. It speaks of the distant past and carries our life into the tomorrow. To keep this pure and unadulterated is a sacred heritage, a noble task of the highest cultural value." Jens Jensen to Camillo Schneider, 15 April 1939.

Pilsen's own Harrison Park was designed by Jens Jensen, but it's debatable how much, if any of his design remains. According to the Chicago Park District, Harrison Park was created in 1912 when Pilsen was overcrowded and populated with immigrants who worked in the industrial areas close by. Harrison Park sits on a site which was previously used for lime production (lime is a calcium based material that is used in concrete and mortar, among other things). In 1914, a natatorium was built, with swimming and wading pools. A few years later, a children's garden was created and in 1928, a field house was finally erected. The park's next major expansion was in 1950, when the Chicago Park District acquired the stone quarry to the west of the park. In 1987, the natatorium was converted into the National Museum of Mexican Art and in 1993, the original field house was replaced with the current one.

Though Jensen's influence is no longer pure and unadulterated, his vision and belief that open space in parks like Harrison is the little world we live in, still lives on in the Pilsen we live in today.

Current Field House in Harrison Park