



by BRIAN NADIG

An outdoor ice skating rink at a local park and improvements to area viaducts were among the recommendations residents made at a community needs assessment workshop that the North Mayfair Improvement Association held on Jan. 18.

About 50 people attended the 2-hour workshop. “It was a decent cross section of people there,” association police and community affairs vice president Matthew Robertson said. “We saw seniors and young families, including parents with kids.”

Robertson said that the association will seek additional opinions before its board of directors decides which recommendations to pursue. The association planned to distribute a needs assessment survey at a recent event at the Irish American Heritage Center, and it will seek additional suggestions at its meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5, at the Gompers Park fieldhouse, 4222 W. Foster Ave.

The possibility of creating an ice rink at Gompers was very popular among those at the workshop, Robertson said. Concerns that a rink would be expensive and would damage the grass have been expressed at meetings on the creation of a long-range improvement plan for the park that the Chicago Park District is preparing.

Robertson said that another popular recommendation at the meeting calls for the installation of a traffic signal at Foster and Kilbourn avenues, at an entrance to the Hernandez Picnic Grove in La Bagh Woods.

Residents also recommended beautification improvements, including murals at viaducts and native plantings at public spaces, and called for the revitalization of Lawrence Avenue, including expanding the Mayfair Library and recruiting new businesses, Robertson said.

Robertson said that the association’s Web site has a section for posting neighborhood events and links to other community groups. The site can be reached at www.northmayfair.org.



