NORTH LAWNDALE — Chicago finally has a permanent shrine to the Grateful Dead, but it's not there for tourists. It's for children on the West Side.
About 100 kids from Douglas Park's day camp joined park officials and Ald. Michael Scott, Jr. (24th) in the park Thursday to dedicate the city's first entirely music-themed playground.
The lot was named Sunshine Daydream Playground, in honor of the Grateful Dead song.
At the ribbon-cutting event, kids bopped on toy drums, tapped a xylophone and swung on an upright bass, all built into the purple plastic structure of the playground.
Others darted through an interactive fountain, which gushed water from bears sculpted in stone.
Those elements make it "unlike any other park in the city," said Arthur Richardson, the central region manager for the Chicago Park District.
"Music is a universal language, whether it's the Grateful Dead or 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,'" Richardson said. "I think anything that we can introduce these kids to something that expands the horizons of their imagination is a good thing."
The structure is the 327th new playground to be built or refurbished since 2011 under Mayor Rahm Emanuel's "Chicago Plays" initiative, Richardson added.
The playground was funded in part by a $150,000 donation from rental service AirBnB. The company reached out to park officials around the time of the band's farewell concert at Soldier Field in July 2015, according to Alex Ward, AirBnB's host of community operations.
The concert "was celebrating the legacy of a band that for 50 years had built this incredible community, where people really felt like they belong," Ward said. "So we wanted to build something in a neighborhood that kids and families can meet, where they can feel like they belong."
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