Humboldt Park

Named for the park that was named for German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, the Humboldt Parkneighborhood has gone through numerous cultural shifts since it's founding in 1869. The area, which was originally home to a large Scandinavian population, followed by a sizable German community in the early 1900s, and then by Poles, Italian Americans and Russian Jews in the beginning in the 1920s, saw an influx of Puerto Ricans in the '60s. 

Today, residents of Puerto Rican descent make up about a quarter of Humboldt Park's population. The community, which is the only officially recognized Puerto Rican neighborhood in the nation, hosts the annual Puerto Rican People's Parade, and the "Paseo Boricua," the stretch of Division Street, between Western and California, is home to the Fiesta Boricua, which draws an estimated 65,000 attendees each summer. The Paseo Boricua is also home to both of Humboldt Park's iconic and massive metal Puerto Rican flags. Weighing 45 tons and measuring 59 feet tall, the flags stretch across the street at each end of the strip signaling your entrance into the heart of Chicago's Puerto Rican community.