Steve Vance featured the Bloomingdale Trail and the past weekend's charrette in a new article on the blog site Grid Chicago. Check it out here.

At 6:00 PM on October 4th, more than 150 residents of the Bloomingdale Trail community and Chicago, City officials, and representatives of Bloomingdale Trail project partners gathered at the McCormick Tribune YMCA in Humboldt Park to discuss the results of a recent four day charrette (design workshop). Attendees heard from representatives of the engineering, architecture, landscaping, and art organizations working on the Bloomingdale Trail Framework Plan, as well as representatives of Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, the City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District, and the Trust for Public Land. A question and answer session followed the presentation, giving community members the opportunity to react to and discuss the outline of the Bloomingdale Trail Framework Plan.

Community input is critical to the Bloomingdale Trail design process. Two public events have been held to date (a public meeting on September 8th, and the charrette on October 1-4), and at least two additional meetings will be held in the months ahead (targeted for December 2011 and March 2012).

Free Spirit Media covered the BT Charrette this past weekend in this new video segment:

Please spread the word:

When: Thursday, September 8, 2011 from 6pm-8pm

Where: Congress Theater (lobby), 2135 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, Illinois 60647

You are invited to the community meeting for the Bloomingdale Trail. Come learn about how this former train track on the northwest side will be converted to an elevated park and trail! Your input will help shape the future of this almost 3-mile long linear park and bike trail that will allow Chicago residents and visitors to walk, run, bike and stroll for miles uninterrupted by traffic.

RSVP: isaac.jones@o-hcommunitypartners.com
Please let us know in your RSVP if you require ADA assistance or Spanish language translation.

Reunión para la Ruta Bloomingdale, “Bloomingdale Trail”

Fecha: Jueves, 8 de septiembre, 2011. De 6pm hasta las 8pm

Lugar: Teatro Congress (el foyer), 2135 N Milwaukee Ave Chicago, Illinois 60647

Le invitamos a la reunión para la Ruta Bloomingdale. ¡Venga y aprenda como la Ruta Bloomingdale, una ruta abandonada de ferrocarril en el noroeste de la ciudad, se convertirá en un parque y ruta elevada! Su aportación ayudará formar el futuro de este parque que extiende por casi tres millas donde ciudadanos y visitantes podrán caminar, correr, pasear o andar en bicicletas sin interrupción de tráfico.

SRC: isaac.jones@o-hcommunitypartners.com
Por favor déjanos saber en su SRC si necesita asistencia de ADA o traducción en Español.

Save the date for Industrial Past, Green Tomorrow.   

WHERE? Harold Washington Library Center - Cindy Pritzker Auditorium 

WHEN? Sun, Nov. 6 1:30 - 2:30 PM

"Throughout the Rust Belt and around the world, remnants of the industrial era are being repurposed to give new vitality to urban spaces. In New York City, the High Line has become one of the city’s most innovative, inviting public spaces. In Chicago, the Trust for Public Land, the Chicago Park District, and Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail are creating an elevated, mixed-use, linear park and trail by repurposing an unused freight rail embankment above Bloomingdale Avenue. University of California–Berkeley professor Walter Hood focuses on the specific cultural, environmental, and physical complexities of city and neighborhood landscapes. In this program, he articulates how the Bloomingdale Trail advocates for a larger movement to reclaim erstwhile industrial space for public use as green space."

Check out The Huffington Post's coverage of the Trail:

"The sun shone on Beth White and Ben Helphand on an August Sunday as they stood on a North Side viaduct, each with their feet planted in the middle of an abandoned railroad track. To the east, the antennas of the Willis Tower poked into the sky. To the west, an industrial smokestack rose, marking the city's still-operating factories. And below them, cars continued down Kimball, oblivious to the planned transformation above them called the Bloomingdale Trail.

For years, Helphand and White, along with dozens of visionaries, project planners, designers and thousands of volunteers, have envisioned the elevated piece of land they were standing on -- a three-mile long strip of century-old railroad track -- as a corridor of green parkway that would run from Logan Square and Humboldt Park to the Chicago River, not only making the space into a greenway but also connecting the communities along it.

"It's much more than just a trail," Helphand, the president of The Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, a group of volunteers (and now a nonprofit) who came together in nearly a decade ago to promote the trail, said. "I see it as a thing with infinite capacity. It connects communities across the Northwest Side..."

The Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail are proud to be a sponsor of: "Bloomingdale Trail Community Discussion" led by 30 After School Matters youth working at the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.

The discussion will take place: Wednesday, August 3rd, from 11am-1pm 
at Our Lady Of Grace, 2446 N. Ridgeway (near Fullerton and Central Park)

The youth have spent the summer researching and surveying residents, focusing on what impacts the trail could have on the community. They would like to share their findings and recommendations with you.

To RSVP or for more inforamation contact Lucy Gomez-Feliciano at 773-384-4370 X43 or lucygomez@sbcglobal.net. 

Join Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail for:

Reframing Ruin: a Prelude to the Bloomingdale Trail

July 29-31, 2011  -- Friday: 4-11pm, Saturday & Sunday: Noon-11pm 

Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival, Logan Square

2644 N Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL

Opening Night Reception: Friday, July 29, 7-11pm 

For nearly a century the Bloomingdale freight line has rolled across and above the City's Northwest side. Today the tracks are aligned to transform it into an elevated, mixed-use, linear park and trail. Reframing Ruin features photographs of the Trail as it is now, while inviting viewers to imagine the impact it will have for all of Chicago. This show is an opportunity to reflect on the ways this railroad has captured the spirit of discovery in so many. Generations of artists have turned the embankment walls into canvases. Youths have explored the accidental nature preserve that grew between the tracks. Walkers, bikers, runners and even skiers have blazed their paths, happily avoiding traffic below. Thanks to Bloomingdale’s views we’ve been able to see the communities along the route, and the Loop in the distance, with fresh eyes. We hope this show will be an inspiration as the process to design and build the Trail unfolds. Let us learn from the special qualities inherent in this ruin and translate them into Chicago’s next great park. – Ben Helphand, President, Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail

Curated by Shannon Bourne. Artists: Philip Bussey, Peyton Chung, Ryan Patrick Clarke, Amanda Curtis, Jodie Fisher, Kate Friedman, Kelley Greenwood, Bill Guy and Amanda Bless, Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee, Joshua Koonce, Lily Mayfield, Sean Mcewan, Sarah Morton, James Nowak, Thomas Plum, Kevin Ponziani, Greg Sandford, Satya, David Schalliol, Eric Schumacher, Bart Shore, Igor Studenkov, Charlie Thomason, The Building Society, Yates Elementary 4th graders

WTTW's Chicago Tonight ran a wonderful piece on the Trail. 

"It's not much now, but find out how the city plans to transform a three-mile long abandoned railway. Paris Schutz takes us for a journey down the Bloomingdale Trail...."