Paseo Boricua

[2][3] This section is flanked at each end by a public art project installed in 1995; fifty-nine-foot-tall (18-metre) Puerto Rican flags made of steel, gateways to Paseo Boricua.

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 59 feet (18 m) vertically and stretching across the street—at each end of the strip.

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.

Recently, the City of Chicago has set aside money for Paseo Boricua property owners who want to restore their buildings' façades.

In June 2024, the part of the Humboldt Park neighborhood in Chicago known as Puerto Rico Town or Paseo Boricua officially changed its name to Barrio Borikén.

Gentrification in Lincoln Park which would begin in the late 1960s displace its Puerto Rican populace, forcing people to move to the west.

The uprising happened at precisely the point when the Chicago Police Department began taking "precautionary measures" to head off potential riots of the type that had already occurred in Harlem, Watts and Philadelphia by the Black masses.

On June 12, 1966, Aracelis Cruz was shot on the corner of Damen Avenue and Division Street after an officer said he was carrying a gun.

The shooting set off a series of confrontations between Puerto Ricans and police officers; many people said that resentment had been festering for years due to poor housing conditions, educational opportunities, alleged racism, and feelings of neglect.

The 1966 Division Street Riots marked the beginning of a Puerto Rican political consciousness in Humboldt Park and Chicago.

Many social, political, economic, and educational institutions were founded after the riots, including the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School, The Young Lords, and Aspira, among many others.

[7] Following the shooting deaths of Julio Osorio, 26 and Rafael Cruz, 25, a riot broke out in Humboldt Park, pitting the Chicago Police Department against the Puerto Ricans of the Division Street area.