History
In 1980, the westside Ravenswood parkway ran its full width all the way down from Winnemac to Lawrence Avenue! That year the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad sold its headquarters, a brick building at the corner of Ravenswood & Lawrence, to Newark Electric. One of the zoning changes obtained was the installation of angled parking in front of their building, from Lawrence to Ainslie. This was a huge loss of neighborhood green space. Local resident Stephen Christy was concerned that Newark's parking priority would ultimately be extended all the way to Winnemac, so he worked with a local excavator to fill the west side parkway from Ainslie to Winnemac with thousands of tons of earth, thus preventing a conversion of the parkway to angled parking. A contractor graded and seeded the area. Two huge cottonwoods were saved by a local businessman who donated the labor to build the protective retaining walls around them, using large blocks of repurposed concrete donated by the contractor.
Specialties
A Space to Unwind Our Parkway is a green space between Winnemac and Ainslie Streets--hence