This place is a unique kind of urban infrastructure. Van Vlissingen Park has been owned by the Chicago Park District since 2011. When we first started visiting, it was an overgrown, impenetrable, Phragmites-filled mess, like many public lands around Chicago in the 80s through early 2000s.

And the “habitat restoration” isn’t back to some pre-colonial time; this is no remnant habitat here. It’s a spontaneous ecosystem that moved in on a bed of slag and construction waste and has been strengthened and structured by the Park District.

This is how urban restoration works.

Some of the waste continues to erupt from layers of soil; bricks and building materials form vignettes highlighting the ever present human input into these urban ecosystems.

Now that it’s Marian R. Byrnes Natural Area, the beautiful slag barrens – prairie and wetland – are showcased with a boardwalk, alongside a luxurious woodland path through cottonwoods and young oaks, and an overlook at the far north side.