Free Walking Sightseeing Tour #6 in Chicago, United States

Legend

Churches & Art
Nature
Water & Wind
Historical
Heritage & Space
Tourism
Paid Tours & Activities

Tour Facts

Number of sights 20 sights
Distance 9.5 km
Ascend 898 m
Descend 903 m

Explore Chicago in United States with this free self-guided walking tour. The map shows the route of the tour. Below is a list of attractions, including their details.

Individual Sights in Chicago

Sight 1: Chicago and North Western Railway Power House

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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)

831 meters / 10 minutes

Sight 2: Civic Opera House

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The Civic Opera House, also called Lyric Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. The Civic's main performance space, named for Ardis Krainik, seats 3,563, making it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America, after the Metropolitan Opera House. Built for the Chicago Civic Opera, it has been home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago since 1954 and the Joffrey Ballet since 2021. It is part of a complex with a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings, known as the Civic Opera Building that opened November 4, 1929 and features Art Deco details.

Wikipedia: Civic Opera House (Chicago) (EN), Website

532 meters / 6 minutes

Sight 3: Cadillac Palace Theatre

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The Cadillac Palace Theatre is operated by Broadway In Chicago, a Nederlander company. It is located at 151 West Randolph Street in the Chicago Loop area.

Wikipedia: Cadillac Palace Theatre (EN)

365 meters / 4 minutes

Sight 4: Chicago Picasso

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Chicago Picasso

The Chicago Picasso is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. The 1967 installation of The Picasso, "precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public art beyond the commemorative."

Wikipedia: Chicago Picasso (EN)

161 meters / 2 minutes

Sight 5: First United Methodist Church of Chicago

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First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple is a church located at the base and in the utmost floors of the Chicago Temple Building, a skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. The top of the building is at a height of 173 metres (568 feet).

Wikipedia: First United Methodist Church of Chicago (EN)

319 meters / 4 minutes

Sight 6: Chicago Building

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Chicago BuildingJ. Crocker / Attribution

The Chicago Building or Chicago Savings Bank Building is an early skyscraper, built in 1904–1905. It is located at 7 W. Madison Street in Chicago. Designed by the architecture firm Holabird & Roche, it is an early and highly visible example of the Chicago school of architecture.

Wikipedia: Chicago Building (EN)

601 meters / 7 minutes

Sight 7: Cow

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CowParade is an international public art exhibit that has featured in major world cities. Fiberglass sculptures of cows are decorated by local artists, and distributed over the city centre, in public places such as train stations, important avenues, and parks. They often feature artwork and designs specific to local culture, as well as city life and other relevant themes.

Wikipedia: CowParade (EN)

621 meters / 7 minutes

Sight 8: Chicago Theatre

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The Chicago Theatre, originally known as the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre, is a landmark theater located on North State Street in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the Chicago Theatre was the flagship for the Balaban and Katz (B&K) group of theaters run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Currently, Madison Square Garden, Inc. owns and operates the Chicago Theatre as a 3600 seat performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, sporting events and popular music concerts.

Wikipedia: Chicago Theatre (EN), Website

418 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 9: Chicago Riverwalk

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The Chicago Riverwalk is a multi-use public space located on the south bank of the main branch of the Chicago River in Chicago, extending from Lake Michigan and Lake Shore Drive westward to Lake Street. The Chicago Riverwalk contains restaurants, bars, cafes, small parks, boat and kayak rentals, a Vietnam War memorial, and other amenities.

Wikipedia: Chicago Riverwalk (EN)

391 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 10: McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum

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The DuSable Bridge is a bascule bridge that carries Michigan Avenue across the main stem of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States. The bridge was proposed in the early 20th century as part of a plan to link Grant Park (downtown) and Lincoln Park (uptown) with a grand boulevard. Construction of the bridge started in 1918, it opened to traffic in 1920, and decorative work was completed in 1928. The bridge provides passage for vehicles and pedestrians on two levels. An example of a fixed trunnion bascule bridge, it may be raised to allow tall ships and boats to pass underneath. The bridge is included in the Michigan–Wacker Historic District and has been designated as a Chicago Landmark.

Wikipedia: DuSable Bridge (EN), Website

293 meters / 4 minutes

Sight 11: Jack Brickhouse

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An outdoor sculpture of Jack Brickhouse is installed along Michigan Avenue, near the Chicago River bridge, in Chicago, Illinois. The bust was originally dedicated in 2000, and renovated in 2009.

Wikipedia: Bust of Jack Brickhouse (EN)

439 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 12: Chicago Rising from the Lake

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Chicago Rising from the Lake

Chicago Rising from the Lake (1954) is a bronze sculpture by Milton Horn. The sculpture shows a woman, rising from waters of Lake Michigan, with flames, animals and wheat. It represents Chicago's rebirth after the Great Chicago Fire, and subsequent rise to become a leader in transportation, stockyards and commodities.

Wikipedia: Chicago Rising from the Lake (EN)

430 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 13: Nicholas J. Melas Centennial Fountain

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Nicholas J Melas Centennial Fountain is located on the north bank of the Chicago River at McClurg Court in Near North Side, Chicago. It was dedicated in 1989, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, perhaps best known for its major achievement in reversing the flow of the Chicago River in 1900; and in 1999, this system was named a "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Wikipedia: Centennial Fountain (EN)

1383 meters / 17 minutes

Sight 14: Ransom R. Cable House

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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.

Wikipedia: Cable House (EN)

68 meters / 1 minutes

Sight 15: Richard H. Driehaus Museum

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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.

Wikipedia: Driehaus Museum (EN), Website

682 meters / 8 minutes

Sight 16: Chicago Water Tower

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Chicago Water Tower Bernt Rostad / CC BY 2.0

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.

Wikipedia: Chicago Water Tower (EN)

386 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 17: Eli Schulman

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Eli's Cheesecake is a cheesecake company based in Chicago. Eli's Original Plain Cheesecake, which has been called "Chicago's most famous dessert", is made of cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla in a butter shortbread cookie crust. Since the introduction of Eli's Original Plain Cheesecake, the company now offers cheesecakes with various ingredients such as chocolate, fruit, or caramel, as well as other desserts like tarts, cakes, and tiramisu.

Wikipedia: Eli's Cheesecake (EN)

138 meters / 2 minutes

Sight 18: Chicago Sports Museum

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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.

Wikipedia: Chicago Sports Museum (EN), Website

406 meters / 5 minutes

Sight 19: The Drake Hotel

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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. It has 535 bedrooms, a six-room Presidential Suite, several restaurants, two large ballrooms, the "Palm Court", and Club International. Designed in the Italian Renaissance style by the firm of Marshall and Fox, the hotel's silhouette and sign contribute to the Gold Coast skyline.

Wikipedia: Drake Hotel (Chicago) (EN)

1001 meters / 12 minutes

Sight 20: Church of the Ascension

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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.

Wikipedia: Church of the Ascension, Chicago (EN)

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Disclaimer Please be aware of your surroundings and do not enter private property. We are not liable for any damages that occur during the tours.

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