Cricket Field Becomes Cricket Hill, Uptown Chicago

From reader Bill Matteson:

CRICKET HILL

Some time in the late forties there was a big field we called Cricket Field. How it got that name was always a mystery. There were no crickets and no one played cricket, but Cricket was just as good a name as any name, so it was Cricket Field. In the middle of that field was a jungle of sumac and trees of heaven and a lot of bushes. Also along the streets on each side of the viaducts the "jungles" went for a half block or a full block. They were the "summer homes" for all the bums and perverts in the ares. We never went into the jungle alone. Their nests were all around. A bed of newspaper and empty wine bottles were the tell tale signs.

The perverts would hang outside the jungle near the street and try to entice a kid in. But we were streetwise little punks and when this happened we could always find a cop, tell him what happened. He was there in an instant, arrested the perv, or sometimes just beat him with his nightstick. We never had to make a report or go to the station, all we had to do was point.

Then a few days later the perv or pervs were right back doing the same thing.

One day, me, Jimmy Thomas, and Norman Sobiesk were coming home from the lake and decided to play War. We found empty wine bottles [alongside the jungles], which became hand grenades and we were throwing them around when Jimmy threw one way up and it came down on my head. Knocked me out. When I woke up, they were carrying me down Lawrence Ave with my shirt covering my head and I was real bloody. They got me home and Mom shaved the back of my head and butterflyed it up. I still have a four-inch scar across the back of my head. Mom felt real sorry for me and Dad made me stay in for a few days for being stupid.

The Park District decided to do away with all the jungles and the big jungle in Cricket Field was cut down. They dug a big, deep hole where the jungle was. I think they needed land fill somewhere and a place to put some garbage, so they filled in the hole over the next few years and kept piling on the dirt. Cricket Field was gone forever.

Hello Cricket Hill.

Cricket Hill is between Montrose and Wilson Ave [east of Lake Shore Drive].

Foster Avenue Extension, Uptown and Edgewater, Chicago, 1951

Another view of the extension, this one taken in 1951. At time of writing, the original was available for purchase here: Foster Avenue, 1951

Summer at the Lake Front, Lincoln Park

This image is actually of Lincoln Park, just to the south, but the lake front would have looked much the same. It is available as a reproduction art print from here: Lake Shore.

Espana Cafe, 4600 Lake Shore Drive, Wilson and Clarendon

Image courtesy John Chuckman.