Allie Klawitter Photography

Prospects for the Future

Within this series of works, there is a conversation between documentation, relics, and fossils of an urban landscape that serves as a natural place for a community to gather and celebrate greenery, active space, design, history and the arts. There is a large “metropolitan-area-push” for conservation in urban communities across the country and in Chicago. The 606 Bloomingdale Trail provides an example of this kind of human and environmental interaction within an urban setting. This public trail is a repurposed abandoned railroad track that demonstrates this “push”. The idea of this series was to illuminate the great work done by The Trust for Public Land, a non profit national organization that helps communities raise funds, conduct research and planning, acquire and protect land, and design and renovate parks, playgrounds, trails, and gardens.  It uses its expertise in conservation, creating urban parks, and community collaboration, in order to promote this type of interaction. While this is but one example of what is happening in many places, I hope that a light shining on this exciting Chicago attraction will inspire similar projects to be considered throughout the country.