Home Care In Sheridan Park, ON

Biddle Memorial Park in Sheridan, Indiana, is the go-to park for local residents and visitors alike. Located at the northernmost end of the Monon Trail in Hamilton County, this park is easy to get to by bike or by foot, and offers outdoor activities and community fun. This busy, vibrant park offers something for everyone — kids and adults alike!

The playground at Biddle Memorial Park is fun for all ages. You’ll find some “vintage” playground equipment here, including metal monkey bars, a geodome climber, and a metal twisty slide.

You’ll also find some more modern pieces on the playground, including a structure that has slides, a bridge and places to climb for younger kids.

The 27-mile Monon Trail extends from downtown Indianapolis and ends at Biddle Memorial Park in Sheridan. There’s a parking lot at Biddle park, right at the entrance of the trail head, making this park a great place to start or end your journey on the trail.

Skate Park

At Biddle Park, you’ll also find a small, public skatepark, with a skating area of about 50 feet by 80 feet. This skatepark has a few ramps and rails, as well as two round flat bars, several kickers, quarter pipes and banks.

The disc golf course has been a part of Biddle Memorial Park Since 2011, and it’s free and open to the public. This beginner course is located along flat ground in an area with shady trees and lots of space to play.

All around the park, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to play pickup sports. There’s a volleyball court, two baseball fields, basketball courts, two tennis courts, and lots of open area to set up your own lawn games.

All around the park, you’ll find lots of places to sit and enjoy being outdoors among the mature trees in Biddle Park. There are sheltered picnic tables, as well as different areas with swinging seats to relax in.

Biddle Memorial Park is the home of the Sheridan Farmers’ & Artisans’ Market, which typically runs bi-weekly from early May through August.

Products at the market include a variety of baked goods such as breads, rolls, cakes, and pies. Guests will also find vendors selling seasonal produce, honey, eggs, maple syrup, and other goods. This is also a good place to find art and craft items made by local artists and artisans, including pottery, jewelry, candles, paper goods, wood crafts, and more.

Biddle Memorial Park is located at 608 E 10th Street in Sheridan. It’s open from dawn to dusk. For more information, visit the Sheridan parks website.

To the delight of birders, a flame-colored tanager was sighted in late April in Sheridan Park in Milwaukee. It's the first time the tropical species has been recorded in Wisconsin.

CUDAHY – Twenty people clustered at noon Sunday on the edge of the Lake Michigan cliff at Sheridan Park.

There, perched 50 feet above the shoreline, they had a commanding view of the inland sea.

But their cameras and binoculars were trained on a 1-ounce feathered visitor feasting in foliage between the bluff and beach.

It was a flash mob, birder style.

"Oh, there she is!" said Sue Kulinski of Racine, raising her camera to her eye. "Hello, beautiful."

Kulinski and the others gathered to view a flame-colored tanager.

It was no ordinary birding outing – it was the first sighting of the species in Wisconsin, according to records of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology.

The bird, native to Mexico and Central America, has been spotted in only two other states, Arizona and Texas, according to eBird, a bird recording system operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

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Husband-and-wife Doug and Jessica Crofton of St. Francis first spotted and photographed the bird at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Avid birders, they had been at Warnimont Park and stopped by Sheridan Park "on a whim," Doug Crofton said.

The female flame-colored tanager showed itself near the top of the bluff. Initially Crofton thought it might be a pine warbler, one of the many species of songbirds migrating through southeastern Wisconsin in recent days.

Birders reach out for help with identification, and then the word spread

But when the couple got home and looked at photos they had collected, they knew it was different from anything they had seen locally. They then entered images on Merlin ID, a digital bird identification system, which suggested the bird was a western tanager.

"I was excited about that," Crofton said.

He, and the regional birding community, was about to get even more excited.

Crofton reached out late Saturday to Mark Korducki of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology and Jacob Collison, a local bird expert and photographer, for help with the bird's identification.

Within hours both agreed it wasn't a western tanager, which would have been rare enough for Wisconsin.

Instead they said it was the rarest of all sightings in the Badger State: a flame-colored tanager, the first in state history.

By early Sunday word of the unprecedented find spread through the Wisconsin Birding Network email list and various social media accounts.

About 6 a.m. Sunday it was relocated in the same area of Sheridan Park, a slim band of vegetation growing in the margin below the cliff.

Jeff and Lori Sundberg traveled to Cudahy from their home in Grayslake, Illinois, to try to see the rarity.

"I looked for it 12 years ago in Arizona and didn't find it," Jeff Sundberg said. "And here it is."

Flame-colored tanager usually lives in forested mountains in its native range

The bird, a female, seemed undaunted by the attention. It flitted among emerging leaves, flowers and catkins and fed on midges and other insects.

The flame-colored tanager is about 8 inches long, has a 12-inch wingspan and weighs slightly more than 1 ounce, according to the Sibley Guide to Birds. It's named after the bright orange feathers on the male's head, throat and chest.

It belongs to the family of birds including the cardinals, grosbeaks and buntings.

The species spends most of its time in pine-oak forests in mountains in its native range.

"It's a ways off," said Jeff Kingery of Mukwonago, who with his wife, Becky Alsup Kingery, came to see the tanager. "But the reason it's right here is habitat."

Sheridan Park is part of the Milwaukee County Parks System.

Much of the property is kept in turf grass for playing fields. But the strip of foliage along the Lake Michigan shore provides critical stopover habitat for all sorts of migrating birds, typical and otherwise.

In intermittent drizzle Sunday it was alive with birds jumping and feeding from branch to branch. Species included black-and-white, black-throated green and yellow-rumped warblers as well as black-capped chickadee and gray catbird. An Iceland gull, seldom seen in Wisconsin, was spotted flying over the beach.

But the lion's share of attention was focused on the flame-colored tanager.

For almost all, it was a "lifer."

The site arguably provided the best of both worlds: the birders could get relatively close looks as the tanager hunted and fed, often 30- to 45-feet away; and the bluff provided the bird protection from potential harassment. When it needed to it could fly down the slope or away from the crowd with only green space and Lake Michigan to the east.

About 100 people came throughout the day to view the bird, according to Crofton, who returned to the park Sunday.

"This is a great bird," Crofton said. "And one I didn't even know existed before this weekend. I'm so happy people are able to see it and I hope it fares well for as long as it's here and wherever it goes next."

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — The City Council on Monday gave final approval to a proposal for a four-story residential development at the corner of Sheridan Road and Park Avenue in Highland Park.

Plans for the Park Sheridan project call for the demolition of the two existing commercial buildings at 1950 and 1964 Sheridan Road and their replacement with 20 residential units, two of which would be designated as affordable housing.

Fulton Developers, the local firm behind the proposal, is the same company that built Laurel Court Town Homes in 2008, Laurel Apartments in 2016 and Laurel Residences in 2019. It is currently completing a project at 1560 Oakwood Avenue called One Highland Park, according to the developer.

Mark Muller, president of Fulton Developers, said the site of the proposed development — 0.95-acres at the northwest corner of Sheridan and Park — is located in zoning district that permits a five-story building with 62 market-rate units.

But the plan calls for significantly fewer to allow for more open space, more natural light in the units and more outdoor living spaces, Muller said in a project narrative presented to the Plan and Design Commission in May.

Find out what's happening in Highland Parkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Just like with the previous developments that we have done in Highland Park," Muller said, "we are confident that the proposed project at Sheridan Road and Park Avenue will satisfy the market’s demand for this type of condominiums, bring more residents to our downtown as well as beautify the neighborhood and help raise property values."

The replacement of the two buildings and parking lot with a single building will reduce the amount of impervious surface by about 10,000 square feet, replacing pavement with trees, landscaping and a park, the developer said.

The project was reviewed by the Plan and Design Commission at three meetings this spring, concluding with a 6-0 vote on May 17 to recommend its approval. Last month, the City Council voted unanimously to direct city staff to draft the approval documents on Monday's agenda.

Highland Park's inclusionary housing ordinance calls for the project to include 3.4 affordable units, 1.4 more than is included in the proposal. In exchange, the developer will pay a $200,000 payment-in-lieu fee, according to Muller.

Public benefits included as conditions of the development's approval include a $7,500 contribution to the downtown streetscape amenity project, the construction and maintenance of a 5-foot-by-5-foot concrete pad to display art installations, placement of a 12-foot high red bronze sculpture by Mac Whitney currently owned by the Art Center of Highland Park, the addition of curb and gutter between the property and the alleyway, sidewalk replacement and five guest parking spaces.

Councilmembers on Monday voted on resolutions approving a development agreement and final subdivision of the development site and ordinances granting a planned development special use permit and an ordinance making the alley between St. Johns Avenue and Sheridan Road a one-way southbound road between Park Avenue and Elm Place.

The building's two-bedroom market rate units will range between 2,180 and 2,846 square feet, its three-bedroom units will be 2,982 to 4,550 square feet, while its two affordable units will be 1,135 and 1,169 square feet, according to a market study conducted for the development in February.

According to the developer, the asking price of the market rate units will range from $1.2 million to $3.8 million for the larger penthouse units.

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About two dozen parents endured frigid weather this past weekend, camping out in 20-degree temperatures at a Chicago park to secure after-school care for their children.

Parent Michelle Gaona arrived at Sheridan Park in the Little Italy neighborhood 18 hours before registration opened for the park’s low-cost after-school care, nabbing the second place in line. Her son goes to a school nearby.

Park District rules force Gaona and lots of other parents across the city to re-register every three months. But at Sheridan and other parks adjacent to schools, the spots are filled as soon as they open up.

“It would be nice if the city and the park district could help a little bit more, and see the struggle. I mean, it’s 23 degrees outside!” Gaona said. “We all pay taxes. I have to live in the city because I work for the city. And it’s sad – I have to freeze outside.”

Near her, a couple families slept in tents. Many went back and forth all night between the camping chairs that held their places in line and the idling cars where they were keeping warm.

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“The practice of camping out overnight to register for park programs is not prohibited but also not recommended,” the Chicago Park District wrote in an email response to WBEZ questions. “One of the benefits of online registration is that it minimizes camping out and long registration lines. Local parks determine the number of online and in-person program slots based on community registration trends,” the email said.

One couple with five children said they’ve been registering for after-school care for 20 years, and they think it’s getting more competitive. “Before, we’d get here at 4:30 a.m., now it’s the day before,” said Tania Simanis.

Many parents camping out said they make too much to qualify for a daycare subsidy. At $40 a month on average, the Park District offers one of the city’s best deals on school-aged childcare. At the nearby school, Galileo Academy, a YMCA after-school program costs $290 a month.

“With two kids, that’s more than a car payment,” said Cori Stankowicz, who has two children at Galileo and slept in a blue tent on the sidewalk (she was number 4 in line).

Back when Stankowicz was searching for a school for her children, the proximity of the park after-school program was a big selling point. A Galileo teacher walks students to the Sheridan Park field house every day, solving a problem faced by lots of working parents in Chicago—what to do with children who are dismissed hours before the normal work day ends.

But kids at the school don’t get priority for the park’s after-school program. And the mad rush at Sheridan happens at other parks too, especially those adjacent to schools.

Stankowicz and other parents describe elaborate efforts to register for after-school care through the Chicago Park District’s online registration system.

Awais Sultan said his family logged onto the site an hour early, and he had his mouse hovering over the registration button. “And right away when it becomes active I clicked the button, and it said, ‘You’re in line.’ And then after a few minutes it was like, ‘You’re on the waiting list. You didn’t get a spot,’” said Sultan. Other families had multiple adults trying to register the same kids.

Families that don’t get a spot through the online system can compete for what’s usually far fewer seats set aside by parks for in-person registration. Hence, the overnight camping.

Another headache for parents: siblings don’t get priority, so parents can get one kid registered and not another. And many parents go through this whole process every three months.

Besides Sheridan, 10 parks saw their childcare slots scooped up as soon as they were available.

“You have to come back every season, like spring, summer, winter—to do the same thing, which is quite a hassle. Once you get your kid in, then they should stay in.”

With about 12,000 children participating in 2017, after-school care is one of the park district’s biggest programs, after swimming lessons and summer camps. That’s a drop in the bucket in terms of the number of kids in the city. It’s just 5 percent of grammar school kids in Chicago Public Schools.

Parent Tavares Biggs said for every parent that gets a slot in the after-school program, many more are turned away. He said he sees how that plays out later, with parents telling their children to wait for them at nearby fast food restaurants, for instance.

“Which is not safe because college kids and anybody could walk in there. In the summertime they just send them to go sit in the park and wait to be picked up.” Another parent said one girl whose family didn’t get a spot has her wait in the park fieldhouse doorway every day.

“As a taxpayer, this is an antiquated system. You mean to tell me this is the best we could do as far as offering services for families?” said Biggs.

Parents say there need to be more slots for more children, especially in parks near schools. And coordination between the parks and the schools should be improved, they say.

Most Chicago public schools offer no consistent after-school care, especially not until 6 p.m.

Park District officials say if a park fills up, they’ll help parents find other open programs. Parents say the point is to have childcare near their kids’ schools.

Linda Lutton is a reporter for WBEZ. You can follow her @LindaLutton.