CHICAGO — Part of Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood this weekend is being transformed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ‘The Polar Express’ and its director, Chicago-native Robert Zemekis.
Through Monday, the Pullman National Historical Park’s model train experience features Lionel trains and an expanded Polar Express exhibit to showcase the role the historic neighborhood played in the making of the Christmas classic.
Zemekis lived not far from the neighborhood and drew inspiration from its historic clocktower and other buildings.
“When it came time to visualize what he thought the background for the North Pole should be, he remember his days as a teenager hanging around Pullman,” train enthusiast and longtime Pullman resident Tom McMahon said of Zemekis. “The arches that you see predominantly in the North Pole are from the Pullman square, market square. So we see Pullman all over the North Pole.”
Chicago’s Pullman National Monument — and its story of a planned industrial community — now a National Park