Ping Tom Park | The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago with Geoffrey Baer
Ping Tom Park
After visiting China for the first time in my life in the 1990s…this was really inspirational to me to see that classical Chinese architecture and to embody that within this park as part of embracing this community.— Ernie Wong, landscape architect
Geoffrey Baer tours Ping Tom Park with landscape architect Ernie Wong.
Named for a well-known business leader in Chicago’s Chinatown, Ping Tom Park has brought green space to a community that had none for decades. According to the Chicago Park District, two generations of kids in Chinatown grew up without a park or other recreational space. That all changed in the 1990s, when the park district acquired an abandoned rail yard and transformed it into a colorful green space at the river’s edge. Landscape architect Ernie Wong of the site design group designed the park, bringing in elements inspired by the nearby neighborhood. A pagoda-style pavilion is the centerpiece of the park. Wong told Geoffrey Baer that it was a trip to a pair of garden cities in China in the 1990s that helped inspire his vision for the park. The community, said Wong, “wanted a flavor of Chinese culture within a park that they could call their own.”
