Entries Tagged as 'rahm emanuel'

Bucktown Bloomingdale Trail Access Point

October 7th, 2011 · No Comments


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I read this article yesterday about how Mayor Rahm is handing over a chunk of land in Bucktown to the park district and how it will be developed into a public access point to the Bloomingdale Trail. The Bloomingdale Trail is an abandoned railroad that is going to be developed into a park, kind of like how the High Line was done in New York. (Highline before, Highline after.)

Last night I walked past this parcel of land and took the photo above. It’s very lush and green. There were people throwing balls and letting their dogs run. Nice improvement. As I recall, the land before this improvement was just a busted up vacant area. Here’s a screen grab from Google Maps that shows how this area used to look.

Quite an improvement, huh? This is the second park that has been created to serve the Bloomingdale Trail. The first is Albany-Whipple Park in Humboldt Park (some say Logan Square, but I consider this Humboldt – south of Armitage and west of Humboldt?). A few years ago this was just an empty lot:


via Google Maps

In 2009, I took this photo of the park as it was being developed:

bloomingdale_trail

The Bucktown park looks a lot like Albany Whipple Park did in 2009. Grass. A fence. I need to get back over to this Albany Whipple Park because they’ve since added a playground and have developed the park more.

Anyway, I’m excited for the Bloomingdale Trail to be developed. I can’t wait til they start work on the trail itself! Read more on the Bloomingdale Trail.

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CTA’s Renew Crew is at the California Blue Line

September 22nd, 2011 · 3 Comments

A couple days ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CTA President Forrest Claypool announced a new “Station Renewal Initiative.” Since the day of the announcement, crews have been in the station that I use daily, the California Blue Line.

I’ve noticed they’ve been painting a lot of the metal rails in the station. The CTA Station Renewal web page says they’ll also be power washing walls, floors, stairs and ceilings; repainting painted surfaces; making lighting improvements; removing graffiti; cleaning gutters and drains; replacing outdated or damaged signage and replacing windbreaks. The California Blue Line station has been open since 1895 and honestly, it looks like it. It’s not falling to pieces, there’s not a lot of graffiti, but it definitely could use some TLC.

I hope they take some before and after photos like they did for the Logan Square Blue Line clean up, one stop north of the California station.

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Kinzie Bike Lane

July 31st, 2011 · 2 Comments

Sometimes at night when it’s nice out and I want to get a bit of air and exercise I’ll walk across Kinzie and up Milwaukee for a while before catching the train or bus home. There are many many many bikers on Milwaukee Avenue. Probably more than I’ve seen on any other street. Well, maybe Lincoln has as many. It’s a toss up. Anyway, a lot of these bikers commute on Milwaukee Avenue as far as they can to downtown and then cut across on the Kinzie Street.

The awesome thing is that Kinzie now has Chicago’s first protected bike lane. The bike lane is next to the curb and next to it is a buffer area and sometimes an additional row of parking and then the car lane. All together there is up to 12 feet between bikers and car traffic. This lane on Kinzie only goes for about a half mile, but Mayor Emanuel has promised to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes in Chicago over the course of his 4-year term.

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There’s a New Mayor in Town

May 17th, 2011 · No Comments


(Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune / May 16, 2011)

Yesterday Rahm Emanuel became Chicago’s 46th mayor, replacing Richard M. Daley, who served the city for 22 years (6 terms!). I love this photo from the Chicago Tribune that shows the changing over of the Chicago Skyway sign.

In early January I shook Rahm’s hand when he was out campaigning at the California Blue Line station. Actually, I was so focused on getting the inbound train that was pulling up that I didn’t really get what happened until a few seconds later, after I dashed up the stairs to the platform. My impression was that he was short (he is 5’5″). Also, someone asked me if I could feel his missing finger when he shook my hand, but it was so fast and I had gloves on, so I don’t remember.

I did not vote for or against Rahm Emanuel. It was something that got screwed up in our wedding planning. We were in Hawaii during the vote. Some of my friends were smart enough to arrange their voting before they left, but it was something that just blew by me. He’s in now. Guess we’ll see how it goes!

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