UNIVERSAL BULLETIN, NO. 123, AUG. 1914, PG. 144


The concrete embankment for the Bloomingdale Line being poured in 1914. Before that, the line ran along the street, but it was elevated by public demand after numerous accidents. Once an important artery of commerce, the old railway line will become a vital part of Chicago’s open space network.


repaired as needed, but it won’t look brand new. “The plan is to consider the walls more like a ruin; a remnant of our industrial past,” she says. This is good news to Jacob Kaplan, a preservationist


and the editor-in-chief of Forgotten Chicago, a history website that has published about the Bloomingdale Line. “Preserva- tion of the 1915 concrete embankment is essential,” he says. “Without it, the visible history of the railroad’s elevation


FUNDING THE BLOOMINGDALE The Bloomingdale park and trail, a project that will improve the lives of millions, is being managed by a public-private partnership. Public funding to date has come from the U.S. Department of Transporta- tion and the Chicago Park District. Private funding, through The Trust for Public Land, includes major donations from Chicago-based corporations Exelon ($5M), Boeing ($1M), and CNA Financial ($1M).


24 LAND&PEOPLE Fall/Winter 2012


for safety and traffic, evidence of connections to former industrial sites, and the historic context of the structure’s relationship to the neighborhoods it runs through would be lost.” The art and cultural enhancements are part of Phase


Two of the $91 million project, but TPL’s Beth White is confident the project will get done completely. “This is America’s next great park,” White says. “In


Chicago people are willing to think big. We have this legacy to live up to, and The Bloomingdale is this generation’s contribution to that legacy.”


Lee Bey writes about and photographs architecture for Chicago Public Radio station WBEZ and is a writer, lecturer, and critic specializing in urban design and the role played by politics in the creation of the built environment. Bey is also executive director of the Chicago Central Area Committee, a civic group devoted to improving the architecture, transportation, cultural life, and urban design of downtown Chicago.


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