Famed landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted designed stately Washington Park. It hosts heaps of community festivals and athletic fields for teams playing cricket and 16in softball. The southern expanse is more peaceful, filled with lagoons, willowy trees and the enormous, forlorn Fountain of Time sculpture by Lorado Taft, which has occupied the park's southeast corner for almost a century. The DuSable Museum of African American History is also here.
Unfurling next to the Fountain of Time to the east is the Midway Plaisance, a mile-long strip of green space that connects Washington Park to its lakefront sibling Jackson Park. It all makes for a delightful stroll.