Chicago's Top Ten

Chicago is one of the best tourist cities in the world. It’s compact, easy to navigate on public transport and full of surprises. Here are the top 10 things to see and do there, according to Susan McKee  

10   UNIVERSITIES

Chicago’s institutions of higher learning are world famous. From Hyde Park to the south to suburban Evanston to the north, college campuses are great for wandering on a sultry summer’s day. More winners of the Nobel Prize in economics have taught at the University of Chicago than anywhere else in the world, and it’s also where the first controlled nuclear reaction occurred as part of World War II’s Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. The Oriental Institute includes a newly renovated museum to display its vast collection of ancient art and artifacts from Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq). The painstakingly restored Robie House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1909, remains a campus landmark – an outpost of Prairie-style architecture providing a landscape-hugging alternative to the soaring spires of the American Gothic university buildings. The Mies van der Rohe-designed campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, on the south side, is a magnet for architecture buffs. The first Mies-designed buildings were completed in the mid-’40s, and construction continued through the early ’70s. Buildings by Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn are recent additions to the 49-hectare campus, which is surrounded by a busy and crowded urban neighbourhood. Northwestern University’s 90-year-old Shakespeare Garden on its Evanston campus draws fans from around the globe to see a 21-by-30-metre plot of land with flowers, shrubs, trees and herbs mentioned in the Bard’s sonnets and plays. Designed by Danish-American landscape architect Jens Jensen, it was envisioned as a way to celebrate the ties between England and America at the start of World War I, and to commemorate the 300th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

09 NEIGHBOURHOODS

Chicago is a city of neighbourhoods – 77 to be precise. Best known is Chinatown, just south of the Loop (Chicago’s downtown). The ornate red and gold gate over Wentworth Avenue at Cermak Road marks the entrance to a dozen square blocks packed with 59 restaurants and twice as many shops. In fact, Chinatown is so tightly packed that it has exploded beyond its borders – don’t miss the new section north of Cermak. Chicago’s Mexican-American community has displaced the Czechs and Slovaks in Pilsen, a neighbourhood around 18th Street and Ashland Avenue. Frequent cultural festivals bring crowds to the streets in joyous celebration. Heading west from Ridge Avenue on Devon Avenue takes you to Chicago’s Indo-Pakistani neighbourhood. If you’d like to sample a curry, try on a sari or ogle gold jewellery, this is the place. Andersonville, along Clark Street north of Foster, is a neighbourhood in transition, spanning Swedish to Middle Eastern. Where else can you pick up a jar of lingonberries and a bag of freshly baked pita bread? Visitors can travel the world on one of the city’s 20 different neighbourhood tours, which start at the Chicago Cultural Center on Saturday mornings.

08 FESTIVALS, PARADES AND OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS

There’s always something special happening in Chicago. The Magnificent Mile Lights Festival takes place November 18, and the State Street Thanksgiving Parade November 23. Perennial favourites are the Chicago Blues Festival June 7 to 10, 2007, Taste of Chicago June 29 to July 8, Chicago Outdoor Film Festival July 17 to August 28, and the Chicago Air and Water Show August 18 and 19. Ethnic festivals are a Chicago trademark. Consider attending the Venetian Night on July 28 or Celtic Fest Chicago on September 15-16. Check the calendar on the City of Chicago’s website (www.cityofchicago.org/specialevents) for information.

07 FOOD

The city has thousands of restaurant choices (between 7,000 and 15,500 – depending on who’s counting). Editors of the Robb Report magazine have tagged Chicago as “America’s most exceptional dining destination”. My best bet is the award-winning Charlie Trotter’s in Lincoln Park. There are only three dining options each evening – set menus of about eight courses each. Each selection, varying with the season, is exquisite. Order a flight of wines to go with your choices, and the prices hit the stratosphere (but worth every morsel and sip). The more adventurous might prefer to dine in the techno-kitchen of Homaro Cantu. This is a chef who thinks nitrogen is the perfect spot-freezer, and lasers should be used to cook food to order tableside. Sample his creations at Moto in the old meatpacking district (your choices are from a fixed menu, five or 10 courses). For an intimate ambience, consider dining at Ambria. Tucked into a former hotel in the Lincoln Park neighbourhood, this award-winning restaurant oozes restrained sophistication with Art Nouveau architectural flourishes. The service and wine cellar are especially exquisite, and there’s always something luscious for dessert. Chic is more than a word at Tru. The name means “being true to one’s art or craft”, say the owners, with a focus on keeping the flavour of an ingredient true while drawing from unlimited creativity and resources from around the world. This eatery is trendy in décor, menu and clientele (jackets are required for gentlemen). Choose a prix fixe three-course menu or sample from the chef’s collections for the evening (“nine spontaneous courses designed for sensory overload”). Sometimes you don’t want exquisite dining, you just want good food fast. My favourite dive is the venerable Billy Goat Tavern, established in 1934. Hidden in the dim recesses of the lower level of Michigan Avenue, it’s famous for its double cheeseburgers and chips (no French fries – except at their spin-off locations, including one in O’Hare Airport). It’s open between 0700 and 0200. The emblematic Chicago dish remains more down-to-earth. Deep-dish pizza has been drawing diners to Gino’s East and Pizzerias Uno and Due for decades.

06 PERFORMING ARTS

Music, theatre, opera and dance flourish in the Second City. It claims the term “jazz” was coined here in 1914, and of course the Blues Brothers are Chicagoans. Venerable icons are the Lyric Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but culture vultures also have discovered the new North Loop Theater District. In the Old Town area is Steppenwolf, home to such well-known actors as John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and Laurie Metcalf. There are great music festivals in Grant Park – all with free admission – including the ¡Viva! Chicago Latin Music Festival, and Jazz on Labor Day weekend. Just completed in the northern section, called Millennium Park, is the sinuous metal shell of the Music Pavilion by Frank Gehry.

05 SPORTS

The quintessential Chicago experience is an afternoon double-header at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. If a Cubs game doesn’t fit your schedule, check out their cross-town rivals, the White Sox, playing at US Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Park). Sports teams for other seasons include the NFL’s Chicago Bears (football), NBA’s Chicago Bulls (basketball), NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks (hockey) and MLS’ Chicago Fire (soccer).

04 SHOPPING

Downtown shopping began in Chicago on State Street with the opening of the original Marshall Field’s Department store in 1852. The store building is still there, but to the abject horror of many Chicagoans, it’s been renamed Macy’s. Local icon Carson Pirie Scott, with its ornate ironwork entrance dating from 1899, remains in the original downtown, called the Loop for its surrounding “loop” of elevated train tracks. Most of the shopping, however, is of the discount variety. The elegant retailing has moved north of the Chicago River. North Michigan Avenue – known as the Magnificent Mile – is a browser’s delight. In addition to the myriad options street side, four vertical malls together offer some 250 department stores and specialty shops. Look for Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Rand McNally, Burberry, and more. Just to the west, the River North neighbourhood is the newest magnet for art galleries, auction houses, antique dealers and jewellers who love the spacious loft buildings. This newly-gentrified area stretches a half-dozen blocks north from the Merchandise Mart. That mammoth emporium includes an 80-store retail complex and a special series of public showrooms for kitchen and bath products.

03 MUSEUMS

There are more than four-dozen museums in Chicago, from the obscure to the world famous. The John G Shedd Aquarium is the world’s largest indoor aquarium. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the largest collection of Impressionist paintings outside the Louvre in Paris, and the largest Latino cultural institution in the US is Chicago’s Mexican Fine Arts Museum. But Chicago also is home to the more esoteric, including the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows and the American Police Center and Museum. If you can see only one, make it the Museum of Science and Industry. Opened in 1933, this south side landmark is chock full of opportunities for discovery. My favourite remains Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, but there’s also a World War II German submarine, a replica of an Illinois coal mine and a mammoth DNA double-helix structure. If you have more time, add a visit to the Museum Campus on the south side of downtown. Grouped together are the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum of Natural History (home of  “Sue”, the biggest Tyrannosaurus fossil ever unearthed), and the Adler Planetarium.

02 ARCHITECTURE

Chicago is a microcosm of modern urban architecture – the first steel frame skyscraper was built here in 1885. Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Mies van der Rohe, Helmut Jahn and hundreds of other designers have created a living museum of architecture. Highlights in the Loop include the Chicago Cultural Center, Auditorium Building and the magnificently Art Deco-style Chicago Board of Trade. The best view in town is from the Sears Tower Skydeck at sunset! North of the Chicago River, Tribune Tower has exterior walls imbedded with actual bits of famous buildings – Westminster Abbey, the Taj Mahal and the Arc de Triomphe, among them. Across the street is the Wrigley Building, designed to look like a “luscious birthday cake”. The Water Tower is one of the few buildings to survive the disastrous 1871 Chicago fire. Indulge in a tour by the Chicago Architecture Foundation and learn all about the magnificent buildings all around you.

01 THE LAKE!

Chicago would not have existed without Lake Michigan – it’s the location of an ancient portage site connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico via the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Waterfronts in other cities are crowded with factories, highways or ports, but Chicago celebrates its lakefront with an unparalleled system of public parks. Daniel H Burnham, who was chief of construction for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, envisioned a comprehensive outline of development for Chicago that included parks connected by landscaped boulevards. The centrepiece of his 1909 plan is Grant Park. No trip to Chicago is complete without a visit to this green lakefront oasis. To the north, check out Navy Pier, an entertainment and shopping complex that began life as a dock for Lake Michigan freighters. Now it is home to a replica of the 45.72-metre Ferris wheel that made its debut at the World’s Columbian Exposition. Right in the middle of Grant Park is Buckingham Fountain, twice as large as its inspiration, the Latona Basin at Versailles, France. Don’t miss the nighttime light shows, every evening between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Chicago’s best festivals take place right here along Lake Michigan. And remember, as Chicagoans say, in the summer the weather is “cooler by the lake”.