Description
Located in the South Shore community, Rosenblum Park is 10.32 acres and it features a gymnasium, swimming pool, an artificial turf field, basketball courts, a playground, and tennis courts. Rosenblum Park is adjacent to South Shore International College Preparatory High School.
History
Rosenblum Park was one of many parks created as part of a ten-year plan to provide additional recreational space for post-World War II Chicago. For the well-established South Shore neighborhood, the park district chose a three-block site bisected by a railroad right-of-way and occupied by a coal company, a gas station, a ball field, and a number of homes. The process of land acquisition began in 1946, but obtaining the property proved somewhat difficult, and the process was not complete until 1953. Demolition began the same year. Though the rail line still divided the property in two, the city agreed to vacate South Bennett and South Euclid Streets, which had further carved up the parkland. The park district soon added a small recreational building and tennis and shuffleboard courts to supplement the existing softball field, and planted numerous red oaks and other new trees. For several decades, the park district and the Chicago Board of Education jointly operated the 9-acre park along with adjacent board-owned property. In 1965, the park district sold a small portion of its land to the Board of Education for an addition to South Shore High School. The two agencies terminated their cooperative agreement in 1980. Three years later, the park district expanded the park by acquiring the railroad right-of-way that still cut through the park. During its early years, the park was known as South Shore Park for the surrounding community. In 1965, however, the park district renamed the site Rosenblum Park in honor of J. Leslie Rosenblum , a long-time South Shore resident. Rosenblum, a local pharmacist, was an active participant in the South Shore Chamber of Commerce and the area Lions Club. A strong supporter of the Neighborhood Boys' Club, he left his estate to the organization upon his death.