Park


T


here is a piano—a functioning Kohler & Campbell upright—atop the disused Bloomingdale Line railroad embankment, where freight trains used


to run. Someone apparently hauled it up a dirt path here in Chicago’s trendy Bucktown neighborhood, for who knows what reason. Maybe for kicks. Maybe to serve as a prop in an independent music video. “We get that a lot,” says Ben Helphand, executive director of NeighborSpace,


a nonprofit that promotes community-managed open spaces in the city. On a sunny July morning, I was touring the old railroad embankment with Helphand, a friendly, forthright community activist who is also president of the Friends of Bloomingdale Trail, a community group working to turn the old freight line into a linear park.


DAVID SCHALLIOLFeature Title Growing Their Own 17


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