Commuters who use the Riverside Train Station, 90 Bloomingbank Road, will soon have something new to look at while waiting for their trains to arrive. Starting Monday, Jan. 23, a new permanent exhibit — “Picturing Riverside,” emphasizing different aspects of Riverside history — will be on display in the west waiting room of the station.
The exhibit was curated by Michelangelo Sabatino, an architect, historian and Riverside resident who is a member of the village’s Historical Commission. He and Historical Commission Chairwoman Connie Guardi led the way on the creation of the exhibit, assisted by doctoral students in the architecture program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Sabatino is the director of the College of Architecture’s Ph.D. program at the school.
Tall vertical bands featuring reproductions of historic photographs, maps, drawings, engravings and artwork will be placed between the windows of the waiting room, grouped under letters that spell out the word “Riverside.”
The letters introduce nine themes — River, Infrastructure, Vision, Environment, Recreation, Society, Institutions, Domesticity and Education — that relate to Riverside’s establishment and development through the years. The black-and-white images appearing under each letter relate to that particular theme.
The roughly $3,000 cost of the exhibit is being funded by the Historical Commission. The interior of the station is also due for repainting, so that by late spring, said Guardi, “the whole station should look better.”
