We went to the dedication ceremony for Mary Bartelme Park’s historic marker on Tuesday night, and it was a fine ceremony all around. Plenty of important and illustrious people were on hand to celebrate a year of the park’s existence and commemorate the woman it was named after.

On top of the West Loop’s movers and shakers, there were plenty of judges and lawyers in the house to celebrate the legacy of Bartelme, a little-known female trailblazer in the legal system.

Bartelme was first female judge Cook County, and only the second female judge in the United States. Her most prominent position was as head of the juvenile court, looking over the rights and well-being of minors.

Aside from being well-deserving of the honor for her merits (and by virtue of the fact that she was born a few blocks away at Fulton and Halsted streets), there’s one notable thing about this.

Fioretti’s chief of staff, Andy Pierce, pointed out that while so many of the parks are named after A Guy Who Knows People — a ward boss, an alderman, a committeeman — this is different. This park is named after someone who’s long dead, someone who no one owes a favor to.

Fioretti’s a lawyer, as is his parks liaison Leslie Recht, but it’s notable that they went back so far to pick a name.

Nice park. Nice name. Nice legacy.