Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Wright Stuff in the Gold Coast
Architecture junkies may also want to visit the
Charnley-Persky House
(
&
312/915-0105
or 312/573-1365), designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and
Louis Sullivan in 1891. The house is located in the Gold Coast at 1365 N.
Astor St. and makes a nice highlight during an informal walking tour of
the area. One-hour tours are offered on Wednesdays at noon (free) and
Saturdays April through November at 10am and 1pm ($5); no reservations
are accepted.
Finds
of any three tours. Registration is recommended but not required. Tours depart
from the CHS museum at Clark Street and North Avenue, and light refreshments
are served immediately afterward. Call
&
312/642-4600
for updates.
The museum also offers a few half-day and daylong bus tours, called
“Explor-
ing Chicago,”
in the summer and fall that cover unique themes or aspects of the
metropolitan area's history. Led by historians and scholars, they take place in the
city and surrounding areas. Tours are different every year, so call the Historical
Society (
&
312/642-4600
) for updates (the tours usually are tied in to exhibits at
the museum). Prices vary but are usually about $35 per person for the half-day
tours, $60 for the full day. Tours depart from the Historical Society's museum at
Clark Street and North Avenue, and include lunch and light refreshments.
CEMETERY TOURS
Don't be scared away by the creepy connotations. Some of Chicago's cemeteries
are as pretty as parks, and they offer a variety of intriguing monuments that are
a virtual road into the city's history. There's also something undeniably peaceful
about strolling these places, which offer an escape from the nonstop bustle of
downtown.
One of the best area cemeteries is
Graceland,
stretching along Clark Street in
the Swedish neighborhood of Andersonville, where you can view the tombs and
monuments of many Chicago notables. When Graceland was laid out in 1860,
public parks as such did not exist. The elaborate burial grounds that were con-
structed in many large American cities around this same time had the dual pur-
pose of relieving the congestion of the municipal cemeteries closer to town and
providing pastoral recreational settings for the Sunday outings of the living.
Indeed, cemeteries like Graceland were the precursors of such great municipal
green spaces as Lincoln Park. Much of Lincoln Park, in fact, had been a public
cemetery since Chicago's earliest times. (Many who once rested there were rein-
terred in Graceland when the plans for building Lincoln Park went forward.)
The Chicago Architecture Foundation (
&
312/922-TOUR
) offers walking
tours of Graceland on selected Sundays during August, September, and Octo-
ber. The tour costs $10 per person and lasts about 2 hours. Among the points
of interest in these 121 beautifully landscaped acres are the Ryerson and Getty
tombs, famous architectural monuments designed by Louis Sullivan. Sullivan
himself rests here in the company of several of his most distinguished colleagues:
Daniel Burnham, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Howard Van Doren Shaw.
Some of Chicago's giants of industry and commerce are also buried at Grace-
land, including Potter Palmer, Marshall Field, and George Pullman. The
Chicago Architecture Foundation offers tours of some other cemeteries, as well,
including Rosehill Cemetery, suburban Lake Forest Cemetery, and Oak Woods
