Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
238
Fun Facts
Je welers' Row
It's not quite as impressive as the Big Apple's diamond district, but Chicago's own
“Jewelers' Row” is certainly worth a detour for rock hunters. Half a dozen high-
rises along the Wabash Avenue El tracks in the heart of the Loop service the
wholesale trade, but the one at 5 S. Wabash Ave. opens its doors to customers off
the street. There's a mall-like retail space on the ground floor crammed with tiny
booths manned by smooth-talking reps hawking their wares. You can grab a map
here for a self-guided tour of the rest of the building's tenants. It's quite an expe-
rience because many of the booths are closet-size cubbyholes with hunched-
over geezers who look as if they 've been eyeballing solitaire and marquise cuts
since the Roosevelt administration—Teddy, that is.
teens, however, might w ell enjoy browsing here and taking in the neighborhood 's artsy
vibe.
The River North gallery season officially gets underway on the first Friday after Labor
Day in September. Besides fall, another great time to visit the district is from mid-July to
August, when the Chicago Art Dealers Association presents
Vision,
an annual lineup of
programs tailor ed to the public. Early S eptember also offers the annual
Around the
Coyote
festiv al in Wicker Park/Bucktown (
&
773/342-6777
for information), when
scores of ar tists open their studios to the public (the name r efers to the no w-departed
Coyote Gallery, which used to stand at the corner of D amen and North aves.).
The
Chicago Reader,
a free weekly newspaper available at many stor es, taverns, and
cafes on the North Side, publishes a comprehensive listing of current gallery exhibitions,
as does the quar terly
Chicago G allery N ews
(www .chicagogallerynews.com), which is
available free at the city's three visitor information centers. Another good r esource is the
Chicago Art Dealers Association
(
&
312/649-0065;
www.chicagoartdealers.org); the
group's website has descriptions of all member galleries. For descriptions of the city's top
galleries, see “Art Galleries” under “Shopping A to Z,” below.
Along with its status as Chicago 's primary art-gallery district, River North—the area
west of the Magnificent Mile and north of the Chicago River—has attracted many inter-
esting home-design shops concentrated on Wells Street from Kinzie S treet to Chicago
Avenue. My favorites include
Manifesto,
755 N. Wells St., at Chicago Avenue (
&
312/
664-0733
), which offers custom-designed furnitur e, as w ell as impor ts from Italy and
elsewhere in Europe;
Mig & Tig,
540 N. Wells St., at Ohio Street (
&
312/644-8277
),
a charming furniture and decorative-accessories shop; and
Lightology,
215 W. Chicago
Ave., at Wells Street (
&
312/944-1000
), a massiv e lighting stor e that carries a mind-
boggling array of funky lamps, chandeliers, and glo wing orbs fr om mor e than 400
manufacturers (even if y ou have no intention of flying home with a stack of lamps in
your luggage, it's fun to browse).
Looming above the Chicago River at the southern end of River North is the
Merchan-
dise Mart,
the world 's largest commer cial building. The massive complex was built in
1930 b y Marshall Field & Company and was bought in 1945 b y Joseph P. K ennedy
(JFK's dad); the K ennedy family ran the M art until the late 1990s. N ow the building
houses mostly interior design showrooms, which are open only to professional designers.
One exception is
Luxe Home,
a collection of kitchen and bath sho wrooms on the first
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