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Lincoln Park's 'Hidden Gem' Lily Pool Now Open

By Paul Biasco | April 17, 2015 3:22pm | Updated on April 20, 2015 8:46am
 The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool opens Saturday.
The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool opens Saturday.
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DNAinfo/Paul Biasco

LINCOLN PARK — One of the neighborhood's favorite signs of spring is here: the opening of the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool.

The pool, which was originally part of a Victorian garden built in 1889, opened Saturday morning for the season.

The hard-to-spot entryway off Fullerton Parkway, just west of the entrance to the Lincoln Park Zoo parking lot, will open at 7:30 a.m.

The hidden garden in the neighborhood was created by Alfred Caldwell, who is considered the last great prairie-style landscape architect in 1936.

The pool is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The landscape is meant to mimic a creek running through a Midwestern prairie and includes a waterfall and a path through native trees and shrubs surrounding the pool.

Ducks, fish, turtles and frogs can be spotted on a good day.

Its storied history includes a stint as "The Rookery" for the Lincoln Park Zoo in the '50s for bird breeding, which lasted until the area degraded into a swamp-like mess.

The Lincoln Park Conservancy and Chicago Park District began an effort to restore the area to Caldwell's original design in 1997, and $2.4 million later, the space was once again an oasis in the middle of the city when it reopened in 2002.

The lily pool will be open through mid-November.

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