Mayor Emanuel Sounds Off on Bloomingdale Trail in New Video

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office debuted a new video Wednesday detailing the official groundbreaking for the city’s new Bloomingdale Trail.

“After a century, we’re taking an old rail track and reinventing it,” Emanuel said. “A rail track that once divided neighborhoods that will now unite them.” 

The Bloomingdale Trail, a nearly three-mile long elevated trail, will be linked to five ground-level neighborhood parks, as well as an observatory, wheel-friendly event plaza, various art installations and other amenities, to form the park and trail system known as The 606. The name is an homage to the 606 zip code prefix all Chicagoans share.

The first phase of the project, including the Bloomingdale Trail, will open to the public in the fall of 2014.

The 606, with its multiple parks and other facilities in addition to the trail, serves as both an urban oasis and a community connector for the Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square, and Humboldt Park neighborhoods, turning the physical barrier of old railroad embankments into a unifying park and trail system.