Splash pads at the pool:
Forest Park’s park district keeps investing in the park. And we’re supporters.
Last week in one of those always lame groundbreaking ceremonies — OK, the kids from the day camp were cool — the parks started work on three new splash pads at the periphery of the Aquatic Center. We had seen them as sort of stand-alone additions to the fun but district officials pointed to the $1.9 million project as essentially a first step in the gradual remaking of the entire pool complex.
Forest Park was a municipal pioneer when it first added water slides and other more engaging attractions to the plain old pool a generation back. But such features wear out, get old or stale and need to be refreshed. The new “Candyland”-themed splash pads are a reflection of that effort.
Can’t wait till next summer when the kids get to have new fun at the pool.
New mission for the rec board:
It has been gratifying watching in recent years as a rejuvenated Forest Park Recreation Board brought some life to the long-ignored pocket parks around town. Somewhere in its efforts, the rec board played a hand in finally shaking the small parks loose from an indifferent village hall and placing them into the more activist hands of the park district.
Down side? It sort of left the rec board without a cause. So what does any determined group of volunteers do? It is finding a new way to offer help in town. Initial plans, and subject to what we assume will be welcome approval from the village council, are to become a volunteer hub for the entire village and to also be involved directly in some local events.
Maybe some of those events could be held in a pocket park.
Kribi Coffee grows:
Forest Park’s distinctive coffee destination has long talked about plans to grow beyond Madison and Circle. Today we report Jacques Shalo and his family business will open a second location in one of Oak Park’s lesser-known historic buildings. It is the Boulevard Arcade building on South Boulevard near Marion Street. Now occupied by the Cross Fit shared working space, Kribi will have multiple audiences, including the shared-space office dwellers, neighbors in Oak Park’s new skyline buildings, and commuters (when there are more commuters again) heading to the Green Line or Metra.
Cool to see a Forest Park icon spreading its wings.
Welcome, Rev. Timothy Hein:
Forest Park Baptist Church has gone two years without a permanent pastor. That ended this month with the arrival of the very interesting Rev. Hein. Drawn to the Harlem Avenue church partly for the diversity of its congregation, Hein and his family felt a kinship with the aspirations of this longtime Forest Park church.
We offer our welcome as well.
