JEFFREY MANOR — A popular park for birders and others on the Far Southeast Side is hosting a grand reopening Saturday where the Park District plans to show off new trails and boardwalks and other improvements at what was once a polluted industrial site.

Park Improvements

The ribbon-cutting ceremony kicks off 10 a.m. Saturday at Byrnes Park, which is also known as the Marian R. Byrnes Natural Area, 2200 E. 103rd St. The festivities will include food, arts and crafts, kickball, football, sack races, face-painting, food trucks and a live DJ.

The Park District credits the late Marian Byrnes, a teacher and community organizer who founded the Southeast Environmental Task Force, with helping turn the area into a natural space. Byrnes helped block a plan to turn the site into a CTA bus depot in the late 1970s.

Wildlife and Conservation

Byrnes Park spans 140 acres, making it one of the city’s largest open natural spaces, with marsh, wet prairie, prairie, savanna and woodland habitats that are home to all kinds of wildlife, according to the Park District. Local birders such as Edward Warden, president of the Chicago Ornithological Society, hopes the improvements will make the park more attractive to the city’s birding community.

The project was funded by two grants from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources as well as money from the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, USDA and the city of Chicago.

Original reporting: Block Club Chicago — read the source article.