Chicago's highly anticipated elevated trail and park system known as The 606, otherwise referred to as the Bloomingdale Trail or the "Chicago High Line", finally celebrated its grand opening this past Saturday on the appropriate date of June 6 (6/06). The centerpiece of the $95 million project — which had its first phase designed by ARUP, Carol Ross Barney, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Burns & McDonnell, and the Chicago Public Art Group — is a 2.7 mile elevated trail that replaces the defunct Bloomingdale rail line. The trail will connect the Wicker Park, Bucktown, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square neighborhoods and six parks. And unlike similar linear-park projects, The 606 is open to pedestrians and cyclists to use as a new "transit corridor".

Prior to The 606, those communities were historically divided by the Bloomingdale railway and were in need of open green space. The newly opened trail is still looking fairly sparse at the moment, but later phases of the project include enhanced landscaping, arts integration, and additional parks.

Named after Chicago's 606 zip code prefix, the City of Chicago is said to have begun officially planning to convert the Bloomingdale railway during the 1990s. It became part of the 2004 Logan Square Open Space Plan, which led to the establishment of the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail residential group. The group worked for a decade to help realize The 606 along with the City of Chicago, the Chicago Park District, The Trust for Public Land, and dozens of organizations, all under the leadership of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The project broke ground in August 2013.

Another standout element of The 606 is its explicit public/private funding. Budgeted at $95 million, the 606's project managers raised $76 million from local and federal governments toward its construction, including $56 million in public funds and $20 million in private donations -- with additional funds to garner, most likely. The 606 is also a milestone in Mayor Emanuel's ambition to add 800 parks, green spaces, and recreation spots throughout the city over the next five years.

So far, locals have expressed a generally positive outlook on the trail as a new way to get around town and a welcoming place for their families (despite recent incidents that sparked some concern over security around the trail). However, longtime residents remain anxious over gentrification and other changes it will eventually reveal to their communities as time passes on.

From that, there's more to be said about The 606 as it grows and more visitors both from and outside of Chicago flock to it. In the meantime, here's a glimpse at some local perspectives on the developing trail:

For starters, Curbed Chicago shared a festive set of Instagram photos from the trail's opening celebration.

Blair Kamin, architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, penned a review on the pros, the cons, and the could-haves on The 606's design:

• "Fiscal hawks will predictably cite Chicago's red ink-stained books and shout: 'How can we afford to do this?' But the real question is: How could Chicago not afford to make an improvement like this with the federal government and private donors picking up all but $5 million of the tab? Cities that don't seize upon such opportunities are sacrificing their future on the altar of excessive caution."
• "There are some bad strokes, such as the decision to paint the trail's most iconic element — a rebuilt bridge over Milwaukee Avenue with three new arches — the same burgundy color as the historic bridges over the Chicago River and other bridges on The 606. The bridge, which could have been a shining symbol of the future, looks like it's been antiqued."
• "Here, The 606 strives to be more than a recreational amenity. It seeks to integrate art and science, pleasure and provocation. But its simple pleasures are the ones that matter most."

In a similar fashion, Edward Keegan also wrote a review on the trail's design for Crain's Chicago Business, including missed opportunities for the design to have more oomph — and more seating.

• "But while the 606's thoughtful design never will stun us like the decade-old Millennium Park or New York's High Line, the 606's more recent precedent as a 'linear' park, that's fine. It's an example of simple, clear and modest design being almost the right answer. And the 'almost' qualifier is appropriate only because in a few places the project's design team should have been bolder."
• "The 606 provides one example of how to extend our connections, but its success won't ultimately be based on its promising design. It will be judged on how it's tended on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis."
• "That the 606's design is modest should ultimately become one of its great strengths. It doesn't suggest that capital 'D' design will solve all our city's problems. It's just a starting place for the more complicated task of living well together. And that's the most important urban problem of the 21st century."

Greg Trotter of the Chicago Tribune wrote up contrasting articles regarding gentrification fears from longtime residents followed by a recap of the opening-day celebration:

• "'I think it's wonderful, man,' said Joaquin Flores, 38, of Logan Square, looking down at his two young daughters riding bicycles on the trail. 'You get connected with your community and with your neighbors.' Flores said he's noticed positive change in Logan Square, notably when the Julia de Burgos Park, a key piece in the development of The 606, opened in 2012."
• "Bernadette Day, 55, of West Humboldt Park: 'It feels good when you live around here and something good happens. It doesn't happen a lot. But it's hard when you think about it because you want it to get better, but you don't want it to get expensive where you can't afford it anymore.'
• "Yet the opening also has raised troubling questions about gentrification, particularly in Logan Square and Humboldt Park, where residents are expressing concerns about whether the trail is meant for them — or to attract new residents who will displace them."

• Greg Viti [a Bucktown resident and real estate agent at Jameson Sotheby's International Realty] can see the trail from his house and looks forward to using it year-round. The project has definitely driven up prices within a few blocks of the trail, Viti said, and accelerated the gentrification already occurring in Logan Square. But the community will also be safer and healthier as a result, Viti said. 'If you live near the trail and don't like it, then … sell, because you're going to make a lot of money,' Viti said. 'Then move to Schaumburg or some place.'"

Julia Thiel from the Chicago Reader focuses on how longtime residents of Humboldt Park, Logan Square, and other local areas around The 606 are organizing to ensure they're not priced out of their neighborhoods.

• "[Local resident] Delia Ramirez says that the concern she's been hearing is that rather than enhancing her neighborhood with the addition of cycling and running paths, landscaping, art installations, and other planned amenities, the Bloomingdale Trail will transform it. 'When I drive down my street I see these big signs on the bridge that will be the trail: 'Building a New Chicago.' I struggle with that, because it makes me wonder, what does that make us? What does that make our neighborhood? Building a new Chicago for who?'"

In a more poetic approach, Whet Moser of Chicago Magazine composed a reflective piece on how The 606, through its design and urban context, can grow into a 21st-century embodiment of the city's desires and anxieties for its future.

• "'I think of the 606 as a transportation corridor, it’s a connector, but it’s also a linear story, or a linear mechanism to get us from where we are into the future.'" -- Frances Whitehead, Lead Artist of The 606.
• "Like its predecessors, it will tell a story of urban environmental anxiety, with a living data visualization that runs the length of the park, an ongoing experiment in climate science [...] The 606 will also tell its own story—an industrial corridor abandoned and turned feral, rediscovered by urban explorers, and transformed into a stylized urban amenity...[It] will tell the story of its neighbors, and what they want the trail to say."