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Bloomingdale Bridge Arches Still Not Installed, as Onlookers Wait Patiently

By Alisa Hauser | December 7, 2014 3:01pm
 Dozens of people waited in anticipation for arches to be installed onto a bridge overlooking the Bloomingdale Trail.
Bloomingdale Arches Installation
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BUCKTOWN — Dozens of onlookers braved the cold weather — many for a second day in a row — to get a glimpse of steel arches being hoisted out of a grocery store parking lot and installed onto the Milwaukee Avenue bridge which crosses the elevated Bloomingdale Trail. 

"It's worth the wait for what the park will become. It's going to modernize the area and improve Bucktown," said Cheryl Cohen-Bugner, a Bucktown resident who lives two blocks from the trail and was standing in the parking lot of Aldi, 1767 N. Milwaukee Ave. for at least two hours on Sunday.

The project, first scheduled for Saturday afternoon, was postponed due to dangerously high winds and rescheduled to 8 a.m. Sunday.

Around 1:30 p.m. Sunday, the arches were still not lifted, though workers had affixed ties and chains to the arches in the lot.

"They're still at work to do the first lift. They're being extra careful, so it's proceeding a bit more slowly," organizers said on the 606 Facebook page at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Around 2:50 p.m. Sunday, a crane finally lifted the arches. While officials hoped the work would be complete by 5 p.m. Sunday, the installation was ongoing at 7, and a worker said it might be a few more hours until it is in place.

Milwaukee Avenue was closed to traffic around 3:15 Sunday afternoon.

Scheduled to open next summer, the Bloomingdale Trail is a 2.7-mile elevated walking, jogging and cycling path that was formerly a railroad line and passes through four Chicago neighborhoods: Bucktown, Wicker Park, Logan Square and Humboldt Park.

The trail will serve as the centerpiece of a larger system with six ground-level parks also known as The 606.

Made of steel, the arches weigh 55,000 pounds and are 35-feet-tall and measure nearly 98-feet-long, according to Beth White, a Midwest region executive director for the Trust for Public Land, the city's leading private partner spearheading the estimated $91 million project.

The arches, though they look decorative, are also functional and will stabilize the bridge, which was recently raised by close to 3 feet.

Once the arches are installed, White said that the next step, to take place at a later date, will be removing the bridge's center pier, so that it will easier for trucks, cars, buses and cyclists to pass underneath the bridge.

Work on the bridge at Milwaukee Avenue and Bloomingdale Street, one of three overpass bridges that crosses the trail, began in March.

A nearby park at 1805 N. Milwaukee, called Park 567, opened last September and will serve as one of five ground-level parks where folks can hop on or off of the trail. Just west of the Milwaukee Avenue bridge, another ramp is being built as well.

The trail is named for Bloomingdale Avenue, the street the path runs along between Ashland Avenue to the east in Bucktown and Ridgeway Avenue to the west in Logan Square.

Construction on the project began last fall.

"I continue to be impressed with neighbors, for their passion for the project and their patience living next to the construction," White said.

Scott Novack, a Wicker Park resident, was one of several onlookers.

Novack, who lives about one block south of the trail, said he is "super pumped," for the trail to be complete.

"I bought a condo here in 2005 and they were talking about it then and I've been excited about it ever since," said Novack, who added also came out to watch the Ashland Avenue bridge being moved to Western Avenue in April.

For updates on the project, visit The 606's Facebook page.

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