Abbott Park 49 E. 95th St.
Update:
I got a hard-core reality check from my amazing high school photography teacher after sending him a link to the pool pictures:
He writes:
Those images you shot on the South side are right where I grew up.
Harlan High School (where I attended) is the next structure south of Abbott Park. I lived three blocks from that park on Calumet Avenue...a stones throw from Chicago State on King Drive. Chicago State is occupying an area that use to be a train yard.
When my parents move over there I was three years old and we were the only blacks in the neighborhood. We had to endure the cross burnings in our front lawn and our garage being burned down. But we stayed and my parents lived there for over thirty years.
Indeed, I have spoken with many older people in the neighborhoods and many lament the changes that have taken place over the years. This email was a reminder of not only the struggles of our parents (and our parents' parents) but of the cyclical nature of urban environments. Buildings, pools and parks being the constant, while the populations move in, have children, grow old, move out or dies, and then...it begins again.
More pictures on my Flickr.
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