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Proposed Haymarket Park

• This park is shaped in a large eight commemorating the deaths that occurred

• The park allows two central spaces within its pathways one holds a stage for performance and the other houses a small park

• Where the two circles meet the 5 monuments that we have proposed stand

There is a series of five monuments, the central core commemorates the the martyrs

•The four smaller monuments commemorate the people who died as well as the police officers who died

•These Monuments have room on them to hang plaques from various people and groups

Looking back at Haymarket Square in Chicago, it was an open area, but now days there are buildings and parking lots. Our monument proposal will begin with the removal of the parking lot on the block between Randolph and Union, and Jefferson and Desplaines. Once removed, the lot will be landscaped and rid of the cold look of the environment’s cemented block atmosphere. The monument will be descending cobblestone circular steps that create a venn diagram. People will be able to sit and stand anywhere within this cobblestone venn construction. The stones will also spill out beyond the circles to symbolize invitation to viewers and the blood that was shed in history. Each circle presents the two sides, one of the workers fighting for the 8-hour workday and the other for the policeman. At the intersection of the circles a plaque will be placed to provide information and to commemorate the lives that were lost.

Our idea for the Haymarket event is to design a park (we don’t mean like a park with trees, flowers and such). The park will be a circle about 5‐yards in diameter with the outer edge at street level. It will have 8 steps leading to the ground (not like a swimming pool or spa, but it might look like one), and 64 inches deep (8 inches for each step). On each step, there will be inscription explaining the event. We also want to use the disc that the policeman was placed on top of and place it at the bottom of the monument. Our concept behind this was to incorporate the history of the old monument into our concept because we think it is very valuable to this monument, as it is connected to this event (like an artifact). Our intention is to design a monument that recesses into the earth, which represents the bomb that exploded at Haymarket Square and cut into the ground and left the mark at that place. Our other intention is to deal with the environment, which includes the seasons and weather in Chicago. As we all know, during the winter, the snow will cover the whole place, which implicates that the people will be forget it for a while, and the history is being kept safely underneath the earth, covered by snow. Around May, which is the early summer, the snow will melt completely, which will reveal the whole monument, that is when a lot of people will be outdoors and visit the monument. Another idea was, In March/April, when the snow is melting, each step will be slowly revealed the inscription of each step unLl all of the snow is gone. Eventually, all of the steps will successively be revealed. Another idea was the visitor can stand on the disc (from the old policeman monument) in the center, one by one, which we want them to be their own monument that represents working class people and be part of this history; from that point/ perspective they’ll be able to read the history of Haymarket on the step as they rotate around 360 degree clockwise, which we also want to suggest time.

The spirit of the labor struggle is represented by a monument using a participatory element of a hand-cranked conveyor belt combined with historical text. The eight men who were accused of the Haymarket bombing (the “Haymarket Martyrs”) wrote “statements of the accused” to read before their public hangings. Selected segments of this text are imprinted on metal plaques and attached to the revolving belt, which, when combined with the viewers labor, allow for the statements to be read, analyzed and reflected upon.