Ashland Baby Park

Ashland Baby Park Soundex Code A245

Ashland Baby Park was one of four city "baby playgrounds" created in 1934 and 1935, and financed by the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission. Initially known as Ashland Baby Park for its location along Ashland Avenue in the Rogers Park neighborhood, the shaded greenspace featured a small, sheltered sandbox for young children, and benches for the comfort of their mothers. The city's Bureau of Parks and Recreation maintained the privately-owned site until 1968, when the Chicago Park District purchased the tiny triangle with funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 1974, the Park District renamed the property Dubkin Playlot in honor of Leonard Dubkin (1904--), a local community organizer and strong proponent of the park. His friends and neighbors who frequented the park knew him as a "sidewalk naturalist." He was in fact a well-known nature writer, who authored My Secret Places: One Man's Love Affair with Nature in the City in 1972. For many years, Dubkin also wrote a column called "The Birds and Bees" for the local Lerner Newspaper.