Exploring the 606

What happens when an abandoned railroad from yesteryear is transformed into a community hub for the modern era?

You get The 606: a strip of parks, art, businesses and historical sites bordering a biking/hiking trail on the Northwest Side. Located 16 feet above Bloomingdale Street (1800 N), The 606 runs between Ashland (1600 W) and Ridgeway (3750 W). It links Wicker Park, Bucktown, Humboldt Park and Logan Square.

Unlike a stationary park, The 606 is 2.7 miles of action, artwork, all kinds of people – and varied experiences. It’s what you would expect from anything named after the Chicago ZIP code.

Most people start at the eastern end, at Walsh Park (1), which has a curved on-ramp, in keeping with the The 606’s universal accessibility. The park includes a spider web and climbing center, as well as two small dog areas with fountains.

Jessie was a nanny who was enjoying the park for the first time. “I like that it’s in the most random location ever and that it has so many options for the kids. I love that there are grassy spots, too, if we wanted to come and picnic.”

On the trail, you’ll find walkers, bicyclists, in-line skaters and skateboarders – but no electric scooters. The 18-inch rubbery blue strip at the sides is reserved for single-file walkers and the center median for bicyclists, who tend to politely weave in and out when pairs of walkers stray into the bike lane.

One of the first landmarks is St. Mary of the Angels Church and School (2), on the north side of the trail. Seen from the Kennedy Expressway, the church is an offshoot of St. Stanislaus Kostka, Chicago’s first Roman Catholic Church for Polish immigrants, which is also visible from the Kennedy, further south near Division Street.

St. Mary’s School, right alongside The 606, was built in 1899, replete with Polish Baroque gabled roof and towers. “In an archdiocese dominated by the Irish, it was to be a bold statement on behalf of the growing Polish community,” according to the website of the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

However, the church, built just to the north between 1911 and 1920, lost many of its distinctive Polish features and instead resembles St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Archbishop George Mundelein, who came to Chicago during World War I, no longer encouraged ethnic parishes, but rather, Americanization.

At its peak in the 1920s, St. Mary’s had 1,600 households and nearly 1,200 children in its parish school. There were also two building and loan associations, a day nursery and a home for working girls. Its Saturday night dances in the 1930s earned it the name “Polish Aragon," after the Uptown ballroom.

However, as people became Americanized, successive generations moved to the suburbs. The Kennedy Expressway also required the demolition of houses throughout the parish.

Coming around a curve, you pass Churchill Park (3&4), another doggie meet-up spot, and then, Damen Arts Plaza, a wide concrete space on the south side of the trail.

On a hot day, the sun beats down on the cement, but grasses and sedges along the walls provide year-round texture, and gingko (5) and oak trees show promise of a natural canopy in the future. Coral-colored, trumpet-like blooms (6) complement the brick walls of nearby buildings. Amanchelier, also known as serviceberry, which is part of the rose family, illustrates the “cooler-by-the-lake effect,” because those planted farther east bloom later than those at the west end.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. won an award for urban design from the American Association of Landscape Architects in 2020 on behalf of its clients, the Chicago Park District and its non-profit partner, The Trust for Public Land.

Walking this part of the trail, peering into windows and onto patios, is a bit like reading Architectural Digest.

Gentrification had begun in the area in the 2000’s, but The 606 accelerated the trend, according to Alessandro Rigolon, professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois and University of Colorado urban and regional planning professor Jeremy Nemeth in a paper for the journal Cities. Within a year of the park’s opening, the median monthly rent for census tracts bordering the trail increased by $201, nearly double the average increase for the city of Chicago. The non-Hispanic white population grew by 4.83 percent, compared to the citywide 0.56 percent increase. Median household income jumped by $14,682, compared to the citywide average of $3,557.

"A key finding from our interviews is that putting a nonprofit agency that is 'not in the business of housing' in charge of a redevelopment project ultimately created a situation wherein connections between park development and affordable housing were further fissured, and park planning and public health concerns took precedence over the gentrification concerns raised by many neighborhood advocates and local residents," Rigolon said. There was no municipal department to “connect the dots between critical environmental, health and affordability challenges."

Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushed for the trail in a park-poor area as a revenue generator that would attract investors, increase property tax revenues, and create jobs, according to the study.

Meanwhile, the nation’s only elevated, multi-use trail is within a 10-minute walk of 80,000 people, including 20,000 children, according to Van Valkenburgh. More than one million people use it each year, according to a paper written for the Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planting in 2019.

About one-third of the way down The 606, we stopped for an iced honey latte at Ipsento 606 (7) (1813 N. Milwaukee Ave.) and a quick chat with Chloe, the barista. Coming from the Latin roots “ipse” meaning “self” and “sentio” meaning “to discover,” this modern-industrial coffee shop has communal tables, which encourage conversation.

“We have a lot of people that come straight from The 606 to grab water or buy a latte; sit in [the Park 567] or sit in here.” The Con Agra Brands mural by Jeff Zimmermann (8) is on the outside of the Ipsento building, facing the park and the trail.

The Trailhead is a set of public restrooms, with bicycle air pumps and water fountains for people and dogs. It’s privately maintained by an apartment building at Western Avenue (9), nearly the half-way point on The 606.

Water seems to be especially welcome to dogs. The trail is full of them: some pulling their owners on roller blades, others trailing behind, their tongues hanging out.

Heavy breathing bearing down on us from behind, for example, turned out to be a pug dog.

“Yarningdale,” (10) ahead at Kedzie, offers a variety of DIY folk art. A large textured squirrel jumps out of “Renewal 2022,” for example, which tells the story of buried acorns from oak trees in the artist’s yard that will lead to new oak trees. Weathered wood benches overlook the western edge of Humboldt Park.

Julia de Burgos Park (11), at the intersection with Albany, is a small gem with a butterfly-shaped climbing wall and spider web sculpture. It’s hard for an adult to climb through the holes in the spider sculpture and plop down on its bouncy surface, but it’s worth the view of the clouds.

Bordering the trail at 1757 N. Kimball Ave. is the Kimball Arts Center (12), with Scandinavian-influenced coffee and beer options. Food and Wine called Dayglow Coffee “not only the most notable shop in the city right now, but perhaps the middle of the country.” Tohm Ifergan, who also has a Dayglow in Silver Lake, CA., favors Nordic style, lighter roasted coffees in a minimalist atmosphere.

Jonny Ifergan, Tohm’s brother, opened Orkenoy Brewery (named for an early 17th century Scandinavian ship) in the same building in partnership with Ryan Sanders. Inspired by the beers of Norway, Ifergan prefers malts over hops – the trend toward India Pale Ales notwithstanding. He offers farmhouse ales, raw ales and smoked lagers, some of them named after friends’ dogs. The kitchen is also Nordic-inspired, with offerings like Vegan Kale Caesar, Pastrami Lox, Potato Pancakes and Smoked Roe, and more. There’s also a grab-and-go market, open noon-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

Across the trail from the Kimball Arts Center is land for a proposed park, following environmental remediation over the next one to two years. The City of Chicago bought the nearly half-acre plot through a foreclosure and won a U.S Environmental Protection Agency brownfields cleanup grant, which it will augment with $220,000, part of it the required 20 percent match. The land was previously used for a lumberyard, manufacturing of laundry machines and fluorescent fixtures, including painting, warehousing and machine shop operations. A high concentration of trichloroethene (TCE), a solvent used in degreasing, was found in deep soil in the eastern edge of the site.

This part of the trail feels less urban, and also offers activist art. The first example hangs from the walls of trail at Kimball. "Reservation mathematics" focuses on whether individuals have enough bloodline to inherit tribal assets – regardless of their sentiments (13).

Michael Irvine and Leah Nelson, for example, are a couple who live on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, home to the Salish and Kootenai tribes. Irvine is 7/16th Salish and Kootenai, while Nelson is ¾ Navajo. Their child, Nizhoni Irvine, born in 2019, will not be at least ¼ Salish and Kootenai, so she will be enrolled with the Navajo – whose land is more than 1,000 miles away.

Between Kimball Avenue and St. Louis Street, Jenny Kendler’s “Birds Watching 2018” (14) is a colorful, 40-foot wide reflective film on stainless steel sculpture of the eyes of 100 bird species endangered by climate change.

We, Women’s “The Power of We” photo project (15), at the St. Louis overlook, claims to be the largest social impact photography project by women and gender non-conforming artists in the U.S. Its genesis was the frustration over the nation’s deep divides on issues such as race, gender, economics and more after the 2016 election. Every urgent issue in the U.S. impacts women, according to We, Women. In Illinois, these issues are segregation, inequality and race; in Alabama, it’s maternal healthcare; in Alaska, climate change; and in New York, migrant workers.

In its last half-mile, the trail feels particularly primitive, as you pass tall poplars, then segue down a sand trail through aspen.

Winding down to the western trailhead at Ridgeway, the trail spirals to a mini-summit, the Exelon Observatory (16). Just like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, its inspiration is the Thirteen Towers solar observatory in Chanhillo, Peru. Rectangular notches in the stainless steel frame line up with the sunset on the first day of each season: the summer and winter solstice and the vernal and autumnal equinox. Dropin astronomy days are on the second Fridays of the month, when the Chicago Park District brings telescopes for stargazing.

Except for the Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing ghost mural (17) on an apartment building at 1733 N. Paulina, there’s little trace of the historic factories that used the railroad spur. Felt & Tarrant made comptometers, or adding machines, from 1889 until 1961, when the plant relocated to the United Kingdom.

Ludwig Drums, (which was at 1728 N. Damen Ave.) in Wicker Park, had both Buddy Rich and Ringo Starr of the Beatles as customers. However, fear of Asian competition made the factory relocate to North Carolina in 1984, according to the madeinchicagomuseum website. Colonial Chair Co. (1798 N. Maplewood Ave.), was the largest producer of colonialstyle seating furniture in the early 1900s.

Tyke Bikes and Lincoln Logs were made at Playskool, 1750 N. Lawndale, in Humboldt Park, although, later on, the building was just a storage facility. Playskool was a subsidiary of Milton Bradley, which was acquired by Hasbro in 1984 and shut down — even though the company had received a $1 million industrial revenue bond from the city to create more jobs, according to the Made In Chicago website. Stringed instruments like guitars, ukuleles, violins and banjos were made at Harmony Co. (1786 N. Lawndale Ave.).

Development of the area began after the devastating Chicago Fire in 1871. Efforts to rebuild the city included train spurs to ship manufactured goods. The population was booming and accidents between rail and residents were dangerously frequent. In response, the Chicago City Council mandated railroads to elevate their tracks in 1893. The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company was the last to do so, raising the Bloomingdale line in 1913, which continued to serve local manufacturers through the mid-1990s.

Nature reclaimed the trail, but not for long. The abandoned rail line was listed in the city’s plan for bike paths in the late 1990s and Chicago Department of Planning and Development began to hold public meetings on the space in 2003. Ground was broken in August 2013 and the first phase opened in June 2015. The overall cost was $95 million, including $50 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation, $36 million in private donations and $5 million from the City of Chicago.

Brad is a local rollerblader who enjoys his rides through The 606. “It’s beautiful and also such a creative, useful repurposing of something that was already existing,” he said.

GET ON THE 606

ACCESS POINTS:

Western Trailhead (Ridgeway 3750W/Lawndale 3700W)

Drake (3532W) Spaulding (3350W)

Julia de Burgos Park (Albany 3100W/Whipple 3050W)

Humboldt (3000W) California (2800W)

Rockwell (2600W) Western (2400W)

Park No. 567 (Milwaukee/Leavitt 2200W)

Churchill Field Park (Damen 2000W)

Wood (1800W)

Walsh Park (1632W/Ashland 1600W)

NEARBY DIVVY STATIONS FROM EAST TO WEST:

Walsh Park

Damen Ave. & Cortland St.

Milwaukee Ave. & Wabansia Ave.

Western Ave. & Winnebago Ave.

Francisco Ave. & Bloomingdale Ave. (ebikes only)

Albany Ave. & Bloomingdale Ave.

Central Park Ave. & Bloomingdale Ave.