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''Paseo Boricua'' (loosely translated as "Boricua (Puerto Rican) Promenade") is a section of Division Street in the Humboldt Park community of the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is located on Division Street, between Western and California avenues, in the neighborhood of Humboldt Park, more commonly known as 'little Puerto Rico.' Paseo Boricua is a microcosm of the Puerto Rican community.〔(Paseo Boricua: Un Pedacito de Patria en Chicago )〕〔(Paseo Boricua, Chicago ), ''Lonely Planet''.〕 This section is flanked at each end by a public art project installed in 1995; fifty-nine-foot tall Puerto Rican flags made of steel, gateways to Paseo Boricua.〔(Paseo Boricua ), ''Hispanic Magazine'', May 2003.〕 This street is dedicated to Puerto Rican pride and has a walk of fame with the names of many outstanding Puerto Ricans. Many businesses are named after Puerto Rican towns. The façades of some buildings have been designed to look as if they come from old San Juan with Spanish Colonial architecture. The Humboldt Park Paseo Boricua neighborhood is the flagship of all Puerto Rican enclaves. This neighborhood is the economic political and cultural capital of the Puerto Rican community in the Midwest. == History == Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, Humboldt Park was considered an economic dead zone by city planners and developers. Poverty and social problems contributed to the emergence of street criminal organizations that negatively affected the community. Although there was also a vital community of families, property owners, and businesses, many people from inside and outside the neighborhood saw little opportunity. But in 1995, Division Street found new life when city officials and Latino leaders decided on a public art project to recognize the neighborhood and the residents' roots. They christened it ''"Paseo Boricua"'' and installed two metal Puerto Rican flags—each weighing 45 tons, measuring vertically and stretching across the street—at each end of the strip. Between the flags, the struggling neighborhood has collected itself and developed as one of the most vibrant Latino neighborhoods in Chicago, uniting the once fragmented Puerto Rican community. Since the community banded, the occupancy rate of the neighborhood rose to about 90 percent, home prices stabilized, and Chicago's 650,000 Puerto Ricans have a place they call their own. Over time, Paseo Boricua became a place where Puerto Ricans could go to learn about their heritage. A culture center was established, and the offices of local Puerto Rican politicians relocated their offices to Division Street. Recently, the City of Chicago has set aside money for Paseo Boricua property owners who want to restore their buildings' facades. Visitors can hear salsa, reggaeton, bomba, plena, and merengue music pulsating through the streets and smell the mouth-watering carne guisada puertorriqueña. A couple of grocers have set up shop to help buyers find those hard-to-acquire products from home, such as gandules verde, sazón, and naranja agria. The area is visually stunning, having many colorful and historically important murals as well as two affordable housing buildings with facades and colors mimicking the Spanish colonial styles of Old San Juan. A tile mosaic of Puerto Rican baseball slugger Roberto Clemente greets visitors at one end of the street, near the high school that bears his name. Several times a year, Paseo Boricua is fashioned in gala to celebrate important Puerto Rican holidays, such as the Three Kings Day, the Puerto Rican People's Parade, Haunted Paseo Boricua, and Fiesta Boricua with an estimated 650,000 attendees. It is the only officially recognized Puerto Rican neighborhood in the nation. New York, with its vast Puerto Rican population, does not have an officially designated Puerto Rican neighborhood. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Paseo Boricua」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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