Two days after assuring South Side residents that a Tiger Woods-designed golf course in Jackson Park was not yet a sure thing, Chicago park officials Wednesday awarded a $1.1 million contract to begin site planning and engineering work.

The pact with SmithGroup JJR — the park board’s first public action on a project that has been shaping up privately for months — comes as park neighbors and activists are pushing to have a voice on the project, which is queued up for groundbreaking this spring…..

Read more

Arguing that the $30 million project is being “shoved down the community’s throat,” Friends of the Parks is urging the Chicago Park District board to put off Wednesday’s vote on a $1.1 million contract to design and engineer merger of the Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses.

Friends of the Parks Executive Director Juanita Irizarry’s opposition….

Read more

Jackson Park Advisory Council (JPAC) held its first monthly meeting of the year Monday evening, Jan. 9, at the Jackson Park Fieldhouse, 6401 S. Stony Island Ave.

Last night, there was standing room only as residents of Hyde Park and South Shore packed the room to voice their sentiments and issues involving the upcoming South Shore Golf Complex project. Chicago Park District CEO Michael Kelly was on hand to answer questions…

Read more

JACKSON PARK — Chicago Park District Supt. Mike Kelly started selling the idea of remaking two South Side golf courses to a packed crowd Monday night.

More than 150 people packed into a room designed for 100 Monday night at the Jackson Park field house….

Read more….https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170110/south-shore/jackson-park-golf-course-south-shore-cultural-center-tiger-woods-barack-obama-michael-kelly

In just four months, Chicago plans to break ground on an audacious project — the refashioning of two sleepy golf courses on the South Side into a high-caliber course that borders two struggling neighborhoods plagued by unemployment and violence…..

Read more….

WASHINGTON — At 1:59 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 6, Mayor Rahm Emanuel used his iPhone to send an email from his private account to Marty Nesbitt, the chair of the Barack Obama Foundation.

“Golf memo for Potus,” Emanuel wrote, using the acronym for President of the United States.

It was just about a week….

Read more….

On October 17, Yoko Ono unveiled her permanent public sculpture “Sky Landing” in Jackson Park. The installation, composed of twelve twelve-foot-tall steel lotus flower petals rising from the ground…..

Read more

Written by Charles Birnbaum, president of The Cultural Landscape Foundation

A family stretches out a blanket at a city park, pulls out the potato salad and watermelon and takes in the quiet rustle of a lake breeze through the willows and lindens around them, the chatter of warblers overhead.

Then suddenly, the thunk-thunk-thunk of a drum kit in 4/4 time. A bass line pounds……

Read more…..