Official Wants 'Million-Dollar Venture' for Telscer Park

On the heels of the School Street Park’s upcoming million-dollar construction plan, local officials have said they'd also like to give Arthur Telscer Memorial Playground a major face-lift.

A park within a park, Telscer sits inside Lincoln Park at 3151 N. Lake Shore Drive, just south of Belmont Avenue. Area Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) said he and representatives from the Chicago Park District are planning to beautify the park, but he’s actually interested in something bigger.

“We are working with the park district on an interim plan at Telscer Park,” he said at a recent North Side meeting. “But eventually I want to do a long-range plan—about a million-dollar venture like up at Margate Park. We were out there three or four weeks ago, and it was pretty impressive.”

Margate Park Fieldhouse is also located within Lincoln Park, but in Uptown a few blocks north of West Lawrence Avenue. And like Tunney said, it’s far more impressive than Telscer.

Sporting amenities including a gymnasium, fitness center, kitchen, dog-friendly areas, community garden and soft-surface playground are featured there—a far cry from Telscer’s old, wooden playground.

But Tunney notes the challenges in funding such a massive redevelopment.

“I’m looking for money anywhere I can get it,” he said. “The problem with the Margate Park is it’s a $1 million investment, at the least. They used impact fees, aldermanic menu money, not to mention the chairman of the parks committee was the alderman of the (48th) Ward (former Ald. Mary Ann Smith).”

In the meantime, Telscer Park will receive a park district update this coming spring.

Crews will slap a fresh coat of paint on the swings, replace rotting wood on the playground equipment, repair benches, refresh the mulch and refill the sandbox, Tunney’s Director of Communications Erin Duffy told DNAinfo Chicago.

It’ll be the first update there since 1988.

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