One of East Garfield Park‘s – and Chicago’s – architectural marvels is the Garfield Park Fieldhouse, a gold-domed building that sits on an open swath of park land at 100 N Central Park Ave. Built in 1928 and designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style by architects Michaelsen and Rognstad, the Fieldhouse served as administrative headquarters for the West Parks Commission, which oversaw an interwoven system of parks and boulevards, when it was headed by renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. The building became the Garfield Park Fieldhouse in 1934 when the commission’s offices moved out.
Today the Fieldhouse retains its grandeur, with a hint of entropy. When we stopped by this weekend, a Chicago cop manned a kiosk in the central foyer, and people were tramping through for meetings. The building’s current uses, listed on pink and yellow flyers stashed near the entrance, are a barometer of the neighborhood’s social and cultural life: a club for senior citizens, a board games group, basketball, boxing, steppers dance, rehearsals for the Najwa Dance Company and practice sessions of the Garfield Park Cheerleading Team, shown on a flyer as a group of grinning middle-school girls in shorts and T shirts. The Peace Museum, housed on the second floor, has works by Joan Baez, John Lennon, Bono and Pete Seeger.