Self-guided Sightseeing Tour #6 in Chicago, United States
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Tour Facts
6.5 km
452 m
Experience Chicago in United States in a whole new way with our free 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: Rosenberg Fountain (Hebe)
Rosenberg Fountain is an outdoor fountain and sculpture by German artist Franz Machtl, installed at Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It features an 11-foot-tall bronze figure representing Hebe.
Sight 2: Ludington Building
The Ludington Building in Chicago, Illinois is a steel-frame building that is the oldest surviving structure of its kind in the city. It is located in the Chicago Loop community area. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney and was named a Chicago Landmark on June 10, 1996. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 8, 1980. The Ludington Building "was commissioned by Mary Ludington Barnes for the American Book Company"; presently it is one of twenty buildings that comprise the campus of Columbia College Chicago.
Sight 3: Fairbanks Morse Building
The Fairbanks, Morse and Company Building is a historic commercial building located at 900 S. Wabash Ave. in the South Loop, Chicago, Illinois. The building served as the national headquarters of Fairbanks, Morse and Company from 1907 to 1937. The company sold a variety of agricultural equipment; while it was originally known for its scales, by 1907 it was best known for producing internal combustion engines. At its peak, the company was one of the largest engine makers in the world, and it was particularly dominant in the diesel engine market. The headquarters building is a seven-story Chicago school building designed by Christian Eckstorm. While the company moved to a larger headquarters at 606 S. Michigan Ave. in 1937, the Wabash Avenue building is the best-preserved remnant of its historic significance and still bears the company's name above the second floor.
Sight 4: John Alexander Logan Monument
General John Logan Memorial, also known as the John Alexander Logan Monument, is an outdoor bronze sculpture commemorating John A. Logan by sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor, in a setting by architect Stanford White. Installed in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois, the statue and pedestal sit atop a memorial mound, with a ceremonial stairway leading to the summit.
Sight 5: 8th Street Fountain
The 8th Street Fountain was erected in 1927 and was created by architects Bennett, Parsons, and Frost. It is located in Chicago's Grant Park in the U.S. state of Illinois.
Sight 6: Merle Reskin Theatre
The Merle Reskin Theatre is a performing arts venue located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Originally named the Blackstone Theatre it was built in 1910. Renamed the Merle Reskin Theatre in 1992, it is now part of DePaul University, and is also used for events and performances of other groups. It serves as the home of the Chicago Playworks for Families and Young Audiences series produced by The Theatre School of DePaul.
Sight 7: Spirit of Music (Theodore Thomas Memorial)
The Spirit of Music also known as the Theodore Thomas Memorial, is an outdoor 1923 sculpture and monument commemorating Theodore Thomas by Czech-American artist and educator Albin Polasek, installed in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois.
Sight 8: Magdalene
Magdalene is an outdoor 2005 sculpture by Dessa Kirk, designed specifically for the triangular garden in Congress Plaza, east of S. Michigan Avenue at East Ida B. Wells Drive, in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The statue is part of the Chicago Public Art Program.
Sight 9: Fine Arts Building
The ten-story Fine Arts Building, formerly known as the Studebaker Building, is located at 410 S Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in Chicago in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. It was built for the Studebaker company in 1884–1885 by Solon Spencer Beman, and extensively remodeled in 1898, when Beman removed the building's eighth (top) story and added three new stories. Studebaker constructed the building as a carriage sales and service operation with manufacturing on upper floors. The two granite columns at the main entrance, 3 feet 8 inches (1.12 m) in diameter and 12 feet 10 inches (3.91 m) high, were said to be the largest polished monolithic shafts in the country. The interior features Art Nouveau motifs and murals by artists such as Martha Susan Baker, Frederic Clay Bartlett, Oliver Dennett Grover, Frank Xavier Leyendecker, and Bertha Sophia Menzler-Peyton dating from the 1898 renovation. In the early 20th century, the Kalo Shop and Wilro Shop, firms owned by women and specializing in Arts and Crafts items, were established in the renamed Fine Arts Building.
Sight 10: Symphony Center
Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO); Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and Training; Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and performance space named for the CSO trustee and benefactor Dean L. Buntrock; Grainger Ballroom, an event space overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Art Institute of Chicago; a public multi-story rotunda; Forte, a restaurant and café; and administrative offices. In June 1993, plans to significantly renovate and expand Orchestra Hall were approved and the $110 million project resulting in Symphony Center, completed in 1997.
Sight 11: Lion “in an attitude of defiance”
Lions is a pair of 1893 bronze sculptures by Edward Kemeys, installed outside of the main entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The sculptures are well-recognized public artworks.
Sight 12: Fountain of the Great Lakes
Fountain of the Great Lakes, or Spirit of the Great Lakes Fountain, is an allegorical sculpture and fountain by Lorado Taft. The bronze artwork, created between 1907 and 1913, depicts five women arranged so that the fountains waterfall recalls the waterflow through the five Great Lakes of North America. In the Great Lakes, the waterflow begins in Lake Superior at 600 feet (180 m) above sea level and continues eastward through each lake until it reaches Lake Ontario. The Fountain is one of Taft's best known works. It is located in the public South McCormick Memorial Court of the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Chicago Loop.
Sight 13: Hector Guimard Metro entrance
Between 1900 and 1913, Hector Guimard was responsible for the first generation of entrances to the underground stations of the Paris Métro. His Art Nouveau designs in cast iron and glass dating mostly to 1900, and the associated lettering that he also designed, created what became known as the Métro style and popularized Art Nouveau. However, arbiters of style were scandalized and the public was also less enamored of his more elaborate entrances. In 1904 his design for the Opéra station at Place de l'Opéra was rejected and his association with the Métro ended; many of his station entrances have been demolished, including all three of the pavilion type. Those that remain are now all protected historical monuments, one has been reconstituted, and some originals and replicas also survive outside France.
Sight 14: Equestrian Indians (The Bowman)
The Bowman and The Spearman, also known collectively as Equestrian Indians, or simply Indians, are two bronze equestrian sculptures standing as gatekeepers in Congress Plaza, at the intersection of Ida B. Wells Drive and Michigan Avenue in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The sculptures were made in Zagreb by Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović and installed at the entrance of the parkway in 1928. Funding was provided by the Benjamin Ferguson Fund.
Sight 15: Sir Georg Solti Bust
The bust of Georg Solti is an outdoor bronze sculpture by Elisabeth Frink, installed in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois.
Sight 16: Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State
Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State is a 9-foot (2.7 m) tall bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park, in Chicago. Created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and completed by his workshop in 1908, it was intended by the artist to evoke the loneliness and burden of command felt by Lincoln during his presidency. The sculpture depicts a contemplative Lincoln seated in a chair, and gazing down into the distance. The sculpture is set upon a pedestal and a 150-foot (46 m) wide exedra designed by architect Stanford White.
Sight 17: Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room
The Chicago Stock Exchange Arch is a piece of historical architecture located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Installed outside of the Art Institute of Chicago, it is one of the few surviving large-scale fragments from the Chicago Stock Exchange building designed in 1893.
Sight 18: James C. Petrillo Music Shell
The Petrillo Music Shell is an outdoor amphitheater in Grant Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It serves as host to many large annual music festivals in the city such as Chicago Blues Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Taste of Chicago and Lollapalooza.
Sight 19: Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain
Buckingham Fountain is a Chicago Landmark in the center of Grant Park, between Queen's Landing and the end of Ida B. Wells Drive. Dedicated in 1927 and donated to the city by philanthropist Kate S. Buckingham, it is one of the largest fountains in the world. Built in a rococo wedding cake style and inspired by the Latona Fountain at the Palace of Versailles, its design allegorically represents nearby Lake Michigan. The fountain operates generally from mid-April to mid-October, with regular water-jet displays and evening colored-light shows. During the winter, the fountain is decorated with festival lights.
Sight 20: Grant Park
Grant Park is a large urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Located within the city's central business district, the 319-acre (1.29 km2) park's features include Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Campus.
Sight 21: Maggie Daley Park
Maggie Daley Park is a 20-acre (81,000 m2) public park in the Loop community area of Chicago operated by the Chicago Park District. It is near the Lake Michigan shoreline in northeastern Grant Park where Daley Bicentennial Plaza previously stood. Maggie Daley Park, like its predecessor, is connected to Millennium Park by the BP Pedestrian Bridge. Designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, the park had its ceremonial ribbon cutting on December 13, 2014, and is named for Maggie Daley, the former first lady of the city who died of cancer in 2011. The park was almost entirely remade with multiple new features including a new field house designed by Valerio Dewalt Train, an ice skating ribbon, climbing walls, landscaping and children's playground. An older section of the park maintains a garden dedicated earlier to honor cancer survivors. The park is bounded by Randolph Street, Monroe, Columbus and Lake Shore Drives. Construction took 2 years and cost $60 million, including rebuilding an underground parking lot.
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