Neighbors and officials cut the ribbon earlier this week on an interactive museum celebrating Route 66's hundredth anniversary, tucked inside unused retail space at the Central Park Pink Line station in North Lawndale. The exhibit, called “Route 66 @ 100 in North Lawndale,” faces Ogden Avenue — the very corridor that once carried the Mother Road out of Chicago.
According to Block Club Chicago, the pop-up museum includes history exhibits, games and Route 66 pop-culture memorabilia, all designed to connect the neighborhood's transportation past with its present-day transit stop. On display is a recreation of a 1950s diner, a Route 66 pinball machine, historic images of North Lawndale and a replica Victrola jukebox, the outlet reports. Visitors can also pick up a limited-time Route 66 CTA Ventra card while the exhibit runs.
Route 66 was established in 1926 to link Chicago with Los Angeles and support the growing automotive industry, stretching more than 2,400 miles from Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue, in front of the Art Institute, out to its terminus at the Santa Monica Pier in California, per the same account. This year, organizers extended the route's ceremonial beginning to Navy Pier. From its original start downtown, the highway ran west out of the city along Ogden Avenue, passing directly through North Lawndale — the first neighborhood travelers reached entering Chicago along the route.
A Road That Shaped the Neighborhood
Museum posters inside the station walk visitors through Ogden Avenue's layered history, describing its role as a travel hub stretching back to the 1800s, when it served as a plank road to Naperville, the outlet notes. Long before interstates reshaped the region, Ogden Avenue functioned as the West Side's hub for automotive culture and traveler services until I-55 and I-290 bypassed it. Castle Car Wash and Ben Geller Chevrolet were popular stops for Route 66 travelers passing through, and the Castle Car Wash's historic structure still stands at 3801 W. Ogden Avenue.
The exhibit also traces how the neighborhood itself transformed as the highway's heyday faded. North Lawndale was largely a Jewish neighborhood during Route 66's height of popularity from the 1930s through the 1970s, according to Choose Chicago, cited in the museum's materials. By the time the road's use began declining in the 1960s and 70s, the neighborhood had become majority African American, according to a UIC report referenced in the exhibit. The museum displays images from the Chicago History Museum's Westside Love Map exhibit alongside community drawings of landmarks in Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park, and plays classic soul hits, including Nat King Cole's song named after the highway.
A Community Partnership Finds a Transit Home
The project is a collaboration between the CTA and the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, the local exhibit space founded by Jonathan Kelley that has featured art and storytelling by and for West Side residents since 2019 alongside co-founder Chelsea Ridley, per Chicago Tribune. That organization typically hosts six to eight exhibits a year, predominantly featuring work by and with West Side artists, curators and community organizations, from its shipping-container home at 3601 W. Douglas Blvd.
Kelley said he hopes visitors leave the pop-up with a clearer sense of how North Lawndale, Ogden Avenue and Route 66 are tied together. CTA's Brian Daly said stations should be welcoming spaces that reflect community culture and history, adding that the exhibit connects North Lawndale's transportation past to contemporary transit through the Central Park station. The Pink Line itself, inaugurated in 2006, is the newest CTA L line.
Route 66's Place In Bigger West Side Plans
The station museum arrives alongside other Route 66 centennial programming in the neighborhood. The Lawndale Pop-Up Spot's website notes a community-curated exhibition, developed by North Lawndale community members and college students, was slated to begin Nov. 11, with funding coming in part from the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events through its Neighborhood Access Program, along with Wintrust Bank and Ogden Commons, according to Lawndale Pop-Up Spot. Earlier this year, the Lawndale Route 66 Festival was scheduled for Aug. 23 along West Ogden Avenue between Central Park and Harding avenues, with planned attractions including a classic car show, a community art center block party, a jazz festival, a church service, a blood drive and boxing exhibitions, per Route 66 Centennial.
Ogden Avenue itself remains a focus of city planning beyond the centennial celebrations. The Chicago Department of Transportation has been developing a multimodal plan for the corridor between Pulaski and Roosevelt roads aimed at improving safety for drivers, bus riders, cyclists and pedestrians alike, according to Austin Weekly News. As of 2023, workshop moderator Reshorna Fitzpatrick said construction on that project was not expected to start until 2026.
For now, the pop-up museum offers a smaller-scale way to mark the anniversary. It's open 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays through Nov. 28, with live music and art events planned during the run.
