Chicago
Illinois, USA · The Loop & lakefront
4 places pinned — click any one for its story.
About the place
Chicago is the great city of the American interior — the third-largest in the country, built where the Great Lakes meet the prairie and the rivers that carried commerce west. After the Great Fire of 1871 leveled it, the city rebuilt so ambitiously that it invented the skyscraper: the world's first steel-framed high-rise went up here in 1885.
It's a city of broad-shouldered architecture, deep-dish pizza, blues and jazz, and a lakefront kept open to the public by a century of stubborn planning. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition on its South Side dazzled 27 million visitors and shaped American cities for decades.
A long fall weekend on the lake — bundle up, late November means wind off the water.
What I want to see
History & facts for each spot — with a “then & now” archival photo where one exists. Every one has its own page; open it for the full write-up and all the photos.
Founded in 1879, one of the oldest and largest art museums in the U.S. — home to Hopper's *Nighthawks*, Grant Wood's *American Gothic*, and a world-class Impressionist collection.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Art Institute of Chicago 1890 — Wikimedia Commons
The lakefront park that opened in 2004, anchored by Anish Kapoor's mirror-polished "Bean." Built over old rail yards, it's become the city's front lawn.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: 1893 view of Grant Park — Wikimedia Commons
Completed in 1973 as the Sears Tower, it was the tallest building in the world for 25 years. The glass Ledge boxes hang 1,353 ft over the street.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: 6 102778 Sears Tower — Wikimedia Commons
Built in 1916 as a municipal shipping and recreation pier, now the lakefront's landmark with a 196-ft Ferris wheel modeled on the very first one, built for Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.
Full history & photos →Read more on Wikipedia →Archival photo: Toward Navy Pier from Planetarium Drive Chicago (4109853751) — Wikimedia Commons