The Wicker Park Community Garden at Schiller and Damen is one of the original community gardens in Chicago's North Side, operating since the 1970s when the neighbourhood was considerably more distressed than it is today. The garden has been maintained through the neighbourhood's transformation and now operates as a community resource for residents of the surrounding condominium buildings.
The garden's presence — modest, functional, genuinely community-run — is a grounding reminder of what Wicker Park looked like before the boutiques arrived. The farmers market on Saturday mornings in Wicker Park proper (the small triangular park at Damen and North) is a good source of local produce and prepared food for a Saturday morning in the neighbourhood.