-
Alta Vista Terrace
Chicago's first designated historic district is worthy of the honor. Developer Samuel Eberly Gross re-created a block of London row houses on Alta Vista Tce in 1904. The 20 exquisitely detailed homes on either side of the street mirror each other diagonally, and the owners have worked hard at maintaining the spirit of the block. Individuality isn't dead, however - have a look at the back of the west row
-
Astor Street
In 1882 Bertha and Potter Palmer were the power couple of Chicago. His web of businesses included the city's best hotel and a huge general merchandise store he later sold to a clerk named Marshall Field. Their relocation north from Prairie Ave to a mansion on N Lake Shore Dr set off a lemming-like rush of Chicago's wealthy to follow. The mansions along Astor St, especially the 1300 to 1500 blocks, reflect the grandeur of that heady age.
-
Bronzeville Historic Buildings
Once home to Louis Armstrong and other notables, Bronzeville thrived as the city's vibrant center of black life from 1920 to 1950, boasting an economic and cultural strength akin to New York's Harlem. Shifting populations, urban decay and the construction of a wall of public housing led to its. Recently, the area has begun its comeback with resident young urban professionals and South Loop development. Still, it's not a safe place at night.
-
Buckingham Fountain
This is one of the world's largest squirters, with a 1.5 million gallon capacity and a 15-story-high spray. Wealthy widow Kate Sturges Buckingham gave the magnificent structure to the city in 1927 in memory of her brother, Clarence. She also wisely left an endowment to maintain and operate it. The central fountain symbolizes Lake Michigan, with the four water-spouting sea creatures representing the surrounding states.
-
Chicago Board Of Trade
The Board of Trade is a 1930 art deco gem. Inside, manic traders swap futures and options. No one really knows what those are, other than it has something to do with corn. Or maybe it's wheat. A small visitors center (312-435-3590; - Mon-Fri) tries to explain it all. Or just stay outside and gaze up at the mondo statue of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, that tops the building.
-
Chicago Theatre
Everyone from Duke Ellington to Frank Sinatra to Prince has taken the stage here over the years (and left their signature on the famous backstage walls). The real show-stopper, though, is the opulent French Baroque architecture, including the lobby modeled on the Palace of Versailles. Opened in 1921, the theater originally screened silent movies with a full orchestra and white-gloved ushers leading patrons to their seats.
-
Churches Of Ukrainian Village
The domes of the neighborhood's majestic churches pop out over the treetops in Ukrainian Village. Take a minute to wander by St Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral (773-276-4537; 2238 W Rice St), which is the less traditional of the neighborhood's main churches. Its 13 domes represent Christ and the Apostles. The intricate mosaics - added to the 1915 building in 1988 - owe their inspiration to the Cathedral of St Sophia in Kiev.
-
Haymarket Square
The odd-looking, bronze statue of some guys on a wagon marks the spot where the world's labor movement began. So the next time you take a lunch break or go home after your eight-hour work day, thank Haymarket Square, which you're standing upon.
-
Hillary Rodham Clinton Women's Park
Fronting on Prairie Ave, with the Glessner House to the north and the Clarke House to the west, the 4-acre park is named for former first lady, now US Senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who grew up in suburban Park Ridge. Since she dedicated the park in 1997, landscapers have added a French garden, fountain and winding paths.
-
Hutchinson St District
The Hutchinson St District is a proud, well-maintained area perfect for a genteel promenade. The homes here were built in the early 1900s, and represent some of the best examples of Prairie School residences in Chicago. Several of the homes along Hutchinson St - including the one at 839 Hutchinson St - are the work of George W Maher, a famous student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Of special note are the homes at 817 Hutchinson St and 4243 Hazel St.
-
Advertisement
-
Illinois Centennial Memorial Column
What's that giant, phallic thing sticking up in the middle of the road, causing traffic to swerve every which way? Excellent question. Most locals have no idea. Turns out it's a monument commemorating the 100th anniversary of Illinois' statehood. The reliefs of Native Americans, explorers, farmers and laborers that surround the base represent the great changes the state experienced during its first century.
-
Illinois Institute Of Technology
A world-class leader in technology, industrial design and architecture, IIT owes much of its look to legendary architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who fled Nazi-Germany for Chicago in 1938. From 1940 until his retirement in 1958, Mies designed 22 IIT buildings that reflected his tenets of architecture, combining simple, black metal frames with glass and brick infills. The look became known as the 'International Style.'
-
Marina City
For some postmodern fun, check out the twin 'corncob' towers of the 1962 mixed-use Marina City. Designed by Bertrand Goldberg, it has become an iconic part of the Chicago skyline, showing up on the cover of the Wilco CD Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . The condos that top the spiraling parking garages are especially picturesque at Christmas, when owners decorate the balconies with a profusion of lights.
-
Merchandise Mart
The Merchandise Mart is the world's third-largest building (the Pentagon and a Dutch flower market are bigger). Spanning two city blocks, the 1931 monster has its own zip code and gives most of its copious space to wholesale showrooms for home furnishing and design professionals. Technically off-limits to non-industry types, everyone, though, is welcome to explore the mall on the first two floors.
-
Millennium Park
Rising up boldly from Grant Park's northwest corner (between Monroe and Randolph Sts), Millennium Park is Chicago’s civic showpiece, crowned by the Frank Gehry–designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion; Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain; and Anish Kapoor’s 110-ton, silver-drop sculpture, Cloud Gate, known commonly as 'The Bean.' If the crowds at these attractions are too much, walk the peaceful Lurie Garden, where native plants pay homage to Illinois' tall-grass prairie.
-
Olmec Head No 8
Near the Field Museum, the city has installed Olmec Head No 8. Over 7ft tall, it's a copy of one of the many amazing stone carvings done by the Olmec people more than 3500 years ago in what is now the Veracruz state of Mexico. No one has been able to figure out how the Olmec carved the hard volcanic rock.
-
Pilsen Churches
Some wonderful European-influenced churches remain throughout Pilsen. The 1914 St Adalbert Church (1650 W 17th St) features 185ft steeples and is a good example of the soaring religious structures built by Chicago's ethnic populations through thousands of small donations from parishioners, who would cut family budgets to the bone to make their weekly contribution.
-
Prairie Ave Historic District P000
By 1900, Chicago's crème de la crème had had enough of the scum de la scum in the nearby neighborhoods. Potter Palmer led a procession of millionaires north to new mansions on the Gold Coast. The once-pristine neighborhood fell into quick decline as mansions gave way to warehouses and industry, hookers and gin. Thanks to the efforts of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, a few of the prime homes from the area have also been carefully restored.
-
Printer's Row
Chicago was a center for printing at the turn of the 20th century, and the rows of buildings on S Dearborn St from W Congress Pkwy south to W Polk St housed the heart of the city's publishing industry. By the 1970s the printers had left for more-economical quarters elsewhere, and the buildings had been largely emptied out, some of them barely getting by on the feeble rents of obscure nonprofit groups.
-
Robie House
This masterpiece is the ultimate expression of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie School style; it makes the otherwise charming surrounding houses look like dowdy old aunts. The long, thin Roman bricks and limestone trim mirror the same basic shape of the entire house. The long and low lines, which reflect Midwest topography, are ornamented solely by the exquisite stained- and leaded-glass doors and windows.
-
Advertisement
-
Sears Tower
The Sears Tower was the world's tallest building right up until the end of the 20th century. Then the Malaysians built the Petronas Towers, and Sears became a has-been. Its self esteem only got worse with Taipei, Shanghai and Dubai putting up even higher towers. Now Sears has an outright Napoleon complex. But it's still the USA's tallest building, and it's still way up in the clouds.
-
Tribune Tower
Colonel Robert McCormick, eccentric owner of the Chicago Tribune , collected - and asked his reporters to send - rocks from famous buildings and monuments around the world. He stockpiled pieces of the Taj Mahal, Westminster Abbey, the Great Pyramid and 120 or so others, now embedded around the Tower's base. And the tradition continues with a twisted piece from the World Trade Center wreckage and a piece from Sydney's Opera Hobricks in 2006.
-
Union Station
This wonderfully restored 1925 building, designed by Graham, Burnham & Company (Daniel Burnham's successors), looks like it stepped right out of a gangster movie. In fact, it's been used to great effect in exactly this way. Remember director Brian de Palma's classic The Untouchables , when Elliott Ness loses his grip on the baby carriage during the shoot-out with Al Capone's henchmen and it bounces down steps? Those steps are right here, baby.
-
Washington Square
This plain-looking park across from the Newberry Library has had both a colorful and a tragic history. In the 1920s it was known as 'Bughouse Sq' because of the communists, socialists, anarchists and other -ists who gave soapbox orations here. Clarence Darrow and Carl Sandburg are among the respected speakers who climbed up and shouted.
-
Water Tower
Believe it or not, the 154ft Water Tower, a city icon and focal point of the Mag Mile, once dwarfed all the surrounding buildings. Built in 1869, the Water Tower and its associated building, the Pumping Station (aka the Water Works) across the street, were constructed with local yellow limestone in a Gothic style popular at the time. Owing to this stone construction, they were the only downtown buildings to survive the great fire in 1871.
