Self-guided Sightseeing Tour #3 in Chicago, United States
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Tour Facts
8.8 km
749 m
Experience Chicago in United States in a whole new way with our self-guided sightseeing tour. This site not only offers you practical information and insider tips, but also a rich variety of activities and sights you shouldn't miss. Whether you love art and culture, want to explore historical sites or simply want to experience the vibrant atmosphere of a lively city - you'll find everything you need for your personal adventure here.
Activities in ChicagoIndividual Sights in ChicagoSight 1: Mark Twain Hotel
The Mark Twain Hotel is a historic residential hotel located at 111 W. Division Street in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1930 by developer Fred Becklenberg, the hotel was one of several residential hotels built to house the influx of labor to Chicago in the late 1920s. Most of the hotel's residents were permanent; according to 1940 census records, the majority had been at the hotel for over five years. Architect Harry Glube designed the hotel in the Art Deco style, a departure from the revival styles normally used for residential hotels. The brick building features extensive terra cotta detailing, including an elaborate cornice and stringcourse above and below the fourth floor.
Sight 2: Church of the Ascension
The Church of the Ascension is an Anglo-Catholic parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Founded in 1857 as a mission of St. James Church, it is now located on North La Salle Drive on Chicago's Near North Side. The church became a part of the Anglo-Catholic movement in 1869. The principal service on Sunday is the Solemn High Mass celebrated at 11 a.m., according to Rite II in the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer (1979). This Mass is celebrated at the High Altar, and includes three sacred ministers, many acolytes, incense, and music provided by a professional choir. The mass includes processions and other devotions on certain feasts and holy days.
Sight 3: Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral
The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral is a Greek Orthodox cathedral located in Chicago, Illinois. It is the mother church of the Metropolis of Chicago. The current membership includes some 400 families.
Wikipedia: Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral (Chicago) (EN)
Sight 4: Washington Square
Washington Square, also known as Washington Square Park, is a park in Chicago, Illinois. A registered historic landmark that is better known by its nickname Bughouse Square, it was the most celebrated open air free-speech center in the country as well as a popular Chicago tourist attraction. It is located across Walton Street from Newberry Library at 901 N. Clark Street in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is Chicago's oldest existing small park. It is one of four Chicago Park District parks named after persons surnamed Washington. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 20, 1991.
Sight 5: Palette and Chisel
The William Waller House is a historic house located at 1012 N. Dearborn St. in the Near North Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The home was built in 1875–76, shortly after the Great Chicago Fire, during the development of Chicago's prosperous Gold Coast district. The house's Italianate design features a stone exterior, a double bay front, a bracketed and ornamented cornice, arched windows, and decorative keystones. Though Italianate rowhouses are still common in the Near North Side, freestanding Italianate homes are relatively rare, and the Waller House is one of the best-preserved examples of these homes.
Sight 6: Mariano Park
Mariano Park is a small public park in Chicago at the intersection of Rush Street and State Street in Gold Coast. It has an official address of 1031 North State Street. The land was initially acquired by the city in 1848 but was not transferred to the Chicago Park District until 1959. Mariano Park was renamed for Louis Mariano, a reporter and editor for the Chicago Daily News, in 1970. Mariano was an editor for World Book Encyclopedia and an associate editor for Science Year, the World Book Science Annual, as well as the assistant managing editor of the World Book Yearbook from 1963 through 1970. His column, "North Looping with Lou Mariano" featured happenings and local celebrities from the vantage point of his office, a table at O'Connell's Sandwich Shop on the corner of Bellevue and Rush Streets. It has a structure designed by Birch Burdette Long, who was a Frank Lloyd Wright protege. The area was colloquially known as "Viagra Triangle" for the many older gentlemen taking young ladies on dates at bars and restaurants.
Sight 7: Fortnightly of Chicago
The Lathrop House, also known as the Bryan Lathrop House, is a Georgian style house at 120 E Bellevue Place in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The house was built in 1892 by McKim, Mead & White for Bryan Lathrop. In 1922 the house was sold to the Fortnightly Club. The club still occupies the building. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on May 9, 1973, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Sight 8: The Drake Hotel
The Drake, a Hilton Hotel, 140 East Walton Place, Chicago, Illinois, is a luxury, full-service hotel, located downtown on the lake side of Michigan Avenue two blocks north of the John Hancock Center and a block south of Oak Street Beach at the top of the Magnificent Mile. Overlooking Lake Michigan, it was founded in 1920, and soon became one of Chicago's landmark hotels and a longtime rival of the Palmer House.
Sight 9: Palmolive Building
The Palmolive Building, formerly the Playboy Building, is a 37-story Art Deco building at 919 N. Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
Sight 10: Allow Me
Allow Me is a bronze sculpture by John Seward Johnson II. Casts of Allow Me are displayed as public art in Bath, New York; Chicago; in front of the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia; on Embassy Row in Washington DC; and in Portland, Oregon. Three additional casts exist in private collections in Hamilton, Ohio, Los Angeles and Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Sight 11: 360 Chicago
The John Hancock Center is a 100-story, 1,128-foot supertall skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Magnificent Mile district, the building was officially renamed 875 North Michigan Avenue in 2018.
Sight 12: Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place
Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place is operated by Broadway In Chicago, a Nederlander subsidiary. Located at Water Tower Place in Chicago, Illinois, it was formerly known as Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. It was reopened in 2004 and seats 549.
Sight 13: 860 Lake Shore Drive
860–880 Lake Shore Drive is a twin pair of glass-and-steel apartment towers on N. Lake Shore Drive along Lake Michigan in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Construction began in 1949 and the project was completed in 1951. The towers were added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1980, and were designated as Chicago Landmarks on June 10, 1996. The 26-floor, 254-ft tall towers were designed by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and dubbed the "Glass House" apartments. Construction was by the Chicago real estate developer Herbert Greenwald, and the Sumner S. Sollitt Company. The design principles were copied extensively and are now considered characteristic of the modern International Style as well as essential for the development of modern high-tech architecture.
Wikipedia: 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments (EN), Heritage Website
Sight 14: Chicago Sports Museum
The Chicago Sports Museum is a 23,000-square-foot museum located along the Magnificent Mile at the Water Tower Place mall in Chicago. The museum, which was opened on April 1, 2014—by Harry Caray's Restaurant Group and CEO Grant DePorter—features interactive skill challenges, unique sports memorabilia, and a collection of game-used artifacts well known to fans of Chicago sports.
Sight 15: Museum of Contemporary Art
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-World War II visual art. The museum is run gallery-style, with individually curated exhibitions throughout the year. Each exhibition may be composed of temporary loans, pieces from their permanent collection, or a combination of the two.
Sight 16: Chicago Avenue Pumping Station
The Chicago Avenue Pumping Station is a historic district contributing property in the Old Chicago Water Tower District landmark district. It is located on Michigan Avenue along the Magnificent Mile shopping district in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois. It is on the east side of Michigan Avenue opposite the Chicago Water Tower.
Sight 17: Chicago Water Tower
The Chicago Water Tower is a contributing property and landmark in the Old Chicago Water Tower District in Chicago, Illinois, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built to enclose the tall machinery of a powerful water pump in 1869, it became particularly well known when it survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, although the area around it was burnt to the ground.
Sight 18: Loyola University Museum of Art
The Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA), which opened in the fall of 2005, is unique among Chicago's many museums for mounting exhibits that explore the spiritual in art from all cultures, faiths, and eras. LUMA is located on Loyola University Chicago's Water Tower Campus in downtown Chicago, at 820 North Michigan Ave.
Sight 19: Holy Name Cathedral
Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago is the seat of the Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the largest Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States. The current Archbishop of Chicago is Cardinal Blase J. Cupich. Dedicated on November 21, 1875, Holy Name Cathedral replaced the Cathedral of Saint Mary and the Church of the Holy Name, which were destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. A cornerstone inscription still bears faint indications of bullet marks from the murder of North Side Gang member Hymie Weiss, who was killed in front of the church on October 11, 1926.
Sight 20: St. James Episcopal Cathedral
St. James Cathedral is the mother church of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America Diocese of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The cathedral stands at the corner of Huron and Wabash streets.
Sight 21: Nickerson House
The Samuel M. Nickerson House, located at 40 East Erie Street in the Near North Side neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, is a Chicago Landmark. It was designed by Edward J. Burling of the firm of Burling and Whitehouse and built for Samuel and Mathilda Nickerson in 1883. Samuel M. Nickerson was a prominent figure in the rising national banking industry, who was said to have owned at one point more national bank stock than anyone else in the United States.
Sight 22: Richard H. Driehaus Museum
The Richard H. Driehaus Museum is a museum located at 40 East Erie Street on the Near North Side in Chicago, Illinois, near the Magnificent Mile. The museum is housed within the historic Samuel M. Nickerson House, the 1883 residence of a wealthy Chicago banker. Although the mansion has been restored, the Driehaus Museum does not re-create the Nickerson period but rather broadly interprets and displays the prevailing design, architecture, and decorating tastes of Gilded Age America and the art nouveau era in permanent and special exhibitions.
Sight 23: Ransom R. Cable House
The Cable House is a Richardsonian Romanesque-style house near Michigan Avenue at 25 E. Erie St. in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The house was built in 1886 by Cobb and Frost for socialite Ransom R. Cable. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on October 2, 1991.
Sight 24: Former Chicago Historical Society Building
The Former Chicago Historical Society Building is a historic landmark located at 632 N. Dearborn Street on the northwest corner of Dearborn and Ontario streets near downtown Chicago. Built in 1892, the granite-clad building is a prime example of Henry Ives Cobb's Richardsonian Romanesque architecture. Henry Cobb designed this home for Walter Loomis Newberry, founder of the Newberry Library in Chicago. The building was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1997. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, under the name, Old Chicago Historical Society Building.
Sight 25: Former Medinah Temple
The Medinah Temple is a large Moorish Revival building in Chicago built by Shriners architects Huehl & Schmid in 1912.
Sight 26: Chicago Riverwalk
The Chicago Riverwalk is a multi-use public open space located on the south bank of the main branch of the Chicago River in Chicago, extending from Lake Michigan and the Outer Drive Bridge westward to Lake Street. The Chicago Riverwalk contains restaurants, bars, cafes, small parks, boat and kayak rentals, a Vietnam War memorial, and other amenities.
Sight 27: Crossing
Crossing is a sculpture by Hubertus Von Der Goltz, installed on La Salle Street in Chicago, Illinois. The 25-foot-tall steel artwork has a statue of a man on top of a V-shaped structure. Installed in 1998, it is the only extant permanent work from the 17th annual International Sculpture Conference hosted by Chicago.
Sight 28: Constellation
Constellation is a sculpture by Santiago Calatrava, installed along the Chicago River in Chicago, Illinois. The 29-foot-tall red sculpture was privately funded.
Sight 29: Chicago and North Western Railway Power House
The Chicago and North Western Railway Power House is the historic power house which served the 1911 Chicago and North Western Terminal in Chicago, Illinois. The building was designed by Frost & Granger in 1909; it was mainly designed in the Beaux Arts style but also exhibits elements of the Italian Renaissance Revival style. Construction on the building finished in 1911, the same year the terminal opened. The irregularly shaped building borders Clinton Street, Milwaukee Avenue, Lake Street, and the former Chicago and North Western tracks, which are now used by Metra for its Union Pacific District. The power house was built in cream brick with terra cotta trim, cornices, and ornamentation; the corner of the house at Clinton and Milwaukee features a 227-foot (69 m) brick smokestack. The building contained four rooms, a large engine room and boiler room and a smaller engineer's office and reception room. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1948 that the power house output enough power to serve a city of 15,000 people. The power house ceased to serve the station in the 1960s, but when the terminal was demolished and replaced by Ogilvie Transportation Center in 1984, the power house survived. It is one of two remaining railroad power houses in Chicago and the only remaining power house for the Chicago and North Western.
Wikipedia: Chicago and North Western Railway Power House (EN)
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