WEST ROGERS PARK — A 1.6-acre park on Kedzie Avenue got $24,000 from the city to install new lights as a neighborhood group continues its quest to rename the park.
The City Council approved the funding on Wednesday, which would be taken from a city fund created by fees that are collected from developers to create more park space in the city.
Morrine Sweer, the president of the area's neighborhood group, North Boundary Home Owners League, said for decades the city had owned the property and her group had taken care of it at great expense. In 2011, she said, the Chicago Park District took over the land, calling it Park No. 557.
Now her group wants to name it North Boundary Park.
"That’s our neighborhood," she said, adding that she and her neighbors had sent a letter to the park district with their request.
The park — in the 7300 block of North Kedzie Avenue — had garnered attention last year after an Australian diplomat vied to name the park after American-Australian architect Marion Mahony Griffin, who lived in Rogers Park from 1939 to 1961.
Chicago Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner said the bid to rename the park for Griffin — who, with her husband, received much acclaim down under for designing the Aussie capital city, Canberra, a century ago — has been abandoned.
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