Historic Michigan Avenue: The Chicago Bridgehouse Museum
I’ve been intrigued ever since I learned of the Bridgehouse Museum on Michigan Avenue. It was awesome to discover that you can actually go inside of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. The McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum has exhibits inside and gives a glimpse of the machinery behind this engineering wonder. I had the opportunity […]
Middle Eastern Explorations in Albany Park
Sometimes I need a break from going downtown just about every day. Our office is in the Loop and many of our tours, too. In order to build a tour business, and not just a tour hobby, one has to start where the visitors are – both from afar and from the suburbs. Chicago Detours […]
Rambling Around Rogers Park
Take a straight shot to the north edge of chicago to find Rogers Park, which has the eclectic mix of people you’d expect of a border town — except it’s a border neighborhood. Hop off the CTA red line at Morse and you are in Rogers Park; The Glenwood Avenue Arts District, to be exact. […]
Lost Chicago Drinking Poems
We lose things for all kinds of reasons – we’re absent minded, we drop them, or we just plain forget about them. One could make many cases for why drinking poems might get lost over time: 1. People were drunk when they wrote them, so they aren’t worth being remembered. 2. People got drunk after […]
Been to Chicago’s Bronzeville Neighborhood?
Off the beaten path but still close to downtown, Bronzeville is a great place to learn more about our city. The four Chicago Community Areas of Grand Boulevard, Kenwood, Douglas, and Oakland comprise Bronzeville, which is historically known as the “Black Metropolis.” It served as the northern hub for the “Great Migration” of African Americans […]
The Bughouse Square Debates
The true spirit of free speech will be exercised this Saturday at the annual Newberry Library Bughouse Square Debates. In an age of sound-bite journalism and tweets, see the ancient art of oration, inflammatory rhetoric, and soapboxing come to life in a series of curated, public, open-air debates. You can chime in and heckle speakers. […]
History of Futures: The University Club of Chicago
I’ve always wondered what goes on in those exclusive clubs downtown. Have you ever noticed them? Their closed doors make it easy to just walk right by. I had the unexpected opportunity the other day to find out for myself at the University Club, a 124-year-old institution. It’s located on Michigan Avenue, right by where […]
Anyone remember the Blizzard of ’79?
Yesterday neighborhoods were surprisingly alive by mid-day, since everyone stayed home from work and apparently wanted to play in the snow. I hear downtown was eerily empty, but in Logan Square kids were getting carted around with sleds with ropes, and it was quite fun to finally put on the winter boots and climb over […]
Navigating the Loop in 3-D
On our wintertime tour, “The Loop: Explore Without Freezing,” we experience the insides of buildings. With this unique perspective of architecture, we engage with intriguing stories of the inner-workings of city life. It’s pretty incredible the different worlds we step into over the short walking course of just half a mile, and we use the […]
Chicago Tour Company Cheers to our New Website
Note: Our current website was built by the Langley Group. This dynamic website, designed by Studio of the Month, will help us fulfill our mission to share Chicago history and culture through our public walking tours and private tour programs. Many exciting developments are happening with Chicago’s newest tour company, which just launched this past […]
