on the bloomingdale line

[geeper]

So I went to this exhibit/lecture/review tonight at the Northwest Arts Center. Purdue University's Landscape program were having a sort of presentation, as their semester's project was about the revitilization of the Bloomingdale line - an abandoned arm close to the Blue Line that runs along Bloomindale (blvd?) Right now it's overgrone, some of the

Comments

PRETENTIOUS AND UNINFORMED! (part 1)

[anonymous]

I was just informed about this blog today; hence the late reply. I also was at the presentation, and in fact was a presenter. Let me begin by saying that I respect your right to have your own opinion; no matter how uninformed and disrespectfully pretentious.

As stated in one of the other comments, there were hundreds of hours of research and analysis that did not get presented for the sake of time.
If you had been aware of the additional research (not that you would have been able to force yourself to read it all, seeing as you are a much higher being than all of the rest of us in the design world), you would have realized that EVERY solution that you proposed, after being informed about this project for less than 2 hours, was not only completely inappropriate but also not in the least bit financially feasible (which I believe was one of your most pressing complaints).

I would also like to comment on the unprogrammed space, as it was in our concept. The theory behind unprogrammed space is its inherent flexibility and adaptability. Judging by your portfolio, I would assume that you are not mature enough in your architectural career to know anything about that. Designs that are heavily programmed are inflexible and tend to die over time as the communities in which they are located evolve and move on without them.

I am curious though, about your solutions. How do you propose storing floodwater in an elevated right of way? That doesn't make sense; in any way..."the city is flooding lets pump all of the water into the Logan Square community!" I will let that be your quote, not mine. Let's say that we rip out the Bloomingdale 2_75 and turn it into a storm-water basin. Not only would it be an eyesore (surrounded by fences required by city code, stabilized with that highway white stone, overgrown by weeds, and sunken into the ground) it wouldn't hold enough water to be useful anyway.

We could put salt up there...but the salt storage facilities are owned and operated by the City of Chicago, who also owns the trail; thus no funds would ever be generated by such a venture.