This fall, visitors to the Bloomingdale Trail are invited to Ghosts on the Bloomingdale Trail, a self-guided listening experience featuring real Chicago ghost stories. Each stop was designed by artists at Chicago Mobile Makers (an organization located in the Kimball Arts Center that works with youth to develop design skills and thinking) and features a unique QR code that will allow visitors to listen to a story about a ghost as experienced by a Chicago resident. The stories have been collected and performed by Free Street Theater, with audio engineering by Lucy Saldana of Radio Luzifer, a bilingual Chicago podcast about the supernatural. “These are real ghost stories,” says Free Street’s Artistic Director Coya Paz, “in the sense that people are sharing experiences that they believe happened to them. Some are really scary, sure, but more often these are stories about human feelings: who we miss, what we’re afraid of, how we feel about death.” Free Street is no stranger to ghost stories. Their 2016 play, 100 Hauntings, was based on stories from over 400 Chicago residents, and Paz is the author of a recent TEDx talk on the ways in which ghost stories archive history. 

Installation dates: October 19-November 15, 2020

Cost: Free

Location: The Bloomingdale Trail, between St. Louis and Humboldt Ave

Accessibility info: wheelchair accessible, transcripts of stories available at each link, a mobile phone is required to access the individual stories