HUMBOLDT PARK

A Jensen Restoration Project Yields Modern Urban Insights

By Larissa Larsen

 

Many may regard landscape preservation as a specialized field of landscape architecture isolated from the realities of modern life.  During a recent lagoon restoration project in a portion of Humboldt Park in Chicago, the challenges of today’s urban life were clearly presented and provided all participants with unexpected sociological insights.

 The development of Humboldt Park was initiated in 1870 under the direction of William Le Baron Jenney, then Chief Engineer of the West Park District of Chicago.  Challenged by a flat site with poorly draining soils, Jenney graded the site to create a large lagoon in the center of the park.  The romantic style of the pleasure ground, initiated by Jenney, was enhanced with successor Oscar Dubuis’ reconfiguration of the lagoon’s edge to increase its naturalistic appearance.  Jens Jensen assumed the position of Superintendent of Humboldt Park in 1896 and proceeded to express his interest in the prairie landscape by narrowing a portion of the lagoon to create a “prairie river” and using native prairie species to express the indigenous natural Midwest landscape in the urban park (R. E. Grese, (1992) Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press).  

 
Since Jensen’s implementation of the prairie landscape, much has changed within the park and within the surrounding neighborhood.  In Jensen’s time, German, Polish, and Scandinavian immigrants occupied the neighborhood around the park.  Historic photographs depict young children in small sailing vessels crossing the lagoon and formally attired ladies and gentlemen enjoying Sunday strolls around the lagoon’s undulating edge.

 Today, Humboldt Park is the heart of Chicago’s Puerto Rican neighborhood.  Although now dressed in informal attire, the large numbers of users confirm the park’s continuing importance as a green respite.  While the Chicago Park District no longer operates small boats, it stocks the lagoon with fish as part of Mayor Daley’s Urban Fishing Program. 

In 1998, the Chicago Park District recognized the deteriorating conditions of the lagoon and undertook a project to restore portions of the shoreline and improve water quality.  Restoration efforts employed bioengineering techniques to maintain the naturalistic appearance of the shoreline and replace aggressive non-native, non-historic species with native alternatives.  As one member of the hired team of consultants, I had the opportunity to participate in the restoration project’s planning and assist in the overseeing of the project’s implementation.  Interested in the park’s history, I began increasingly fascinated in how modern behavior was impacting the original design and our restoration project.

 Efforts to reach the water’s edge by avid anglers had increased shoreline compaction and compaction had reduced the amount of vegetative cover that helped protect the shore from erosion.  The best fishing locations were physically marked 
In this early aerial view, the lagoon’s importance as the focus of the park is evident.  Jensen’s prairie river is the narrowed portion of the lagoon on the right side of the road.  This project was focused on the portion of the lagoon on the left side of the road and adjacent to the Boathouse.  Photo courtesy of the Chicago Park District  
by barren areas along the shoreline surrounded with tangles of discarded fishing line.   Large pieces of limestone were set at these key locations to reduce soil compaction and direct foot traffic away from the emergent plants.  Dubuis and Jensen had both incorporated stones to enhance the naturalistic edge of the lagoon and this protective measure was selected as the least visibly intrusive.  

   Today’s users of Humboldt Park love to fish and efforts to phase access to the shore during the installation of the limestone access pads and establishment of native emergent and upland plants around the pads were unsuccessful.  All fencing efforts failed.  Immediately after installation of the limestone pad, access was required.  This resulted in maze of snow fence that directed users to the limestone pad and protected plantings on either side of the walk.

Beyond the issue of compaction and the need for uninterrupted shoreline access, fishing was contributing to shoreline deterioration in another unexpected manner.  Near to the water’s edge, areas of varying size appeared to be gouged 
In this photograph from the 1910’s, Jensen’s naturalistic plantings flourish along the edge the lagoon. Photo courtesy of the Chicago Park District.


  away as if small animals had begun to burrow and then departed before completing their task.  A weekend visit to the park explained the strange phenomena.  Residents from the urban neighborhood dug into the shoreline seeking worms for bait.  This task was not isolated to one individual with a small hand spade.  Families worked industriously digging at the shoreline to find worms. 

 To address the problem of urban fishermen in need of worms, two “worm boxes” were created.  The intention of the worm boxes was to provide a source of bait that would discourage the destructive act of digging up the shoreline.  Although constructed, the “worm boxes” have yet to be stocked and signed and therefore their effectiveness untested. 
A family engages in the search for worms in a grassy area adjacent to the lagoon. (Photo by author)  
As in many urban parks, the variety of activities occurring in Humboldt Park range from the expected to the illicit.  One of the two islands was not formally connected to the shore and the overgrown vegetation prohibited surveillance from the nearby shore. The lagoon restoration effort required pruning and thinning the trees and shrubs to allow light to penetrate the understory, raking shade tolerant native plant seed into the soil, and staking coir fascine around the island’s perimeter to reduce the damage from wave action.  Our work on the small island revealed the darker side of activity in Humboldt Park.   

Despite the weekly efforts of park maintenance staff, a makeshift bridge of garbage and milk crates regularly appeared connecting the shore with the small island.  Closer inspection revealed that the densely vegetated island was littered with hypodermic needles.  Our surprise was not in discovering evidence of drug use but in discovering 
Compaction from foot traffic and disturbance due to worm digging threatened the stability of the lagoon’s shoreline. (Photo by author )
the extent of the activities.  The small island was covered with so many needles that the landscape construction crew refused to continue work until the needles were safely removed.  A professional biohazard team, hired by the park district, removed approximately 1000 needles. 

 After the needle clean-up had occurred and the landscape construction work had resumed, another dimension of the island’s use was revealed.  Landscape construction workers reported their alarm at being verbally reprimanded for their work by disgruntled prostitutes.  Prostitutes were dismayed that shoreline restoration efforts were removing the island’s privacy screen of overgrown vegetation.
While Jensen may not have anticipated these current illicit park activities, his belief in the importance of nature in the urban environment was also confirmed by our observations.  At dusk on one hot Sunday evening, three boys, around eleven years of age, proudly showed me a styrofoam cup containing tadpoles.  In a neighborhood now challenged by the urban realities of poverty and crime, the fun of catching tadpoles connected us with users from throughout the park’s history.  

The construction of the lagoon restoration project was finished this past season.  The bioengineering strategies of regrading the shoreline, creating a littoral shelf protected from wave action by coir fascine and planted with native emergent plants, drilling a new well, thinning and pruning the woody plants and supplementing lost plant masses with native species have been completed.  Although a good start, much of the project’s success is contingent upon 
Having removed the makeshift bridge of debris, landscape contractors wade back from the small island. Photo by the author
maintenance activities.  While this project presented an opportunity to research Humboldt Park and Jensen’s vision, many of our lasting memories will focus on the unexpected insights into human behavior acquired through on-site observation.
 

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