In 2015, the City of Chicago converted the former Bloomingdale railway line to an elevated greenway, which forms the backbone of the 606 trail network.

The rail line was elevated approximately twenty feet in the 1910s as result of a city ordinance aimed at reducing pedestrian fatalities at grade crossings.

The railway was used for both passenger and freight trains and served several local industrial businesses, including a Schwinn Bicycle Company warehouse.

The Bloomingdale Line connected to the former Milwaukee Road tracks east of the North Branch of the Chicago River at C&E Junction located in the middle of Kingsbury Street and just south of Cortland.

Canadian Pacific then used the Bloomingdale Line to store freight cars as well as when switching nearby Newly Weds Foods up through 2012.

A grassroots, non-profit organization, Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail (FBT), was formed in 2003 to be the focal point for advocacy and community involvement in the conversion project.

[10] In response, local alderman passed city ordinances prohibiting replacement of multifamily apartment buildings with single-family detached homes without specific zoning approval[11] and imposing fees on developers who do so.