//
The Skokie-based museum has a temporary exhibit here while its main building is under renovation.
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is a museum located in Skokie, Illinois, near Chicago. According to the Center's mission statement, its founding principle is to "Remember the Past; Transform the Future." Its mission is to preserve the legacy of the Holocaust by honoring victims' memories and to educate in the service of combating hatred, prejudice, and indifference. The Museum fulfills its mission through its collections-based exhibitions and through education programs and other initiatives that promote human rights and the elimination of genocide.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
No tours available, unless you're cheeky enough to fill out a fake rental application (24 hours in advance), but these iconic twin buildings are worth a photo. (You might recognize them from the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, among many others.) Designed to be "a city within a city," they include a wildly overpriced bowling alley and the House of Blues (see Drink below). If you like Marina City, be sure to visit the South Loop for two more of architect Bertrand Goldberg's corncob structures.
1362 ft. The Trump Hotel and luxury residential building is both the newest member of the Chicago skyline, completed at the beginning of 2009, and the tallest after the Sears Tower — indeed, it is the fourth tallest in the United States. The Donald intended for it to be the tallest in the world, but decided to scale back following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The design features three prominent setbacks at the height of nearby buildings: the Wrigley Building, Marina City, and 330 N Wabash, which, combined with its singularly reflective exterior, allow this supertall to blend into the skyline, almost to the point where you could overlook it. As intended, the building reflects and interacts with the Chicago skyline, rather than imposing itself upon it with its great height. Regardless, you will not likely miss this building, and it's plenty interesting to examine — its asymmetric form ensures that you will see something quite different from any different vantage point.
A small museum spread over the five floors of the southwest tower of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Visitors can see displays on the history of Chicago's famously abused river, and also check out the machinery used for raising the bridge. Tower tours are Fridays and Saturdays at 11AM and 2:30PM beginning in June, book online. The bridge lift times depends on tides, but is usually between 10AM and 1PM on W and Su.
Built in 1925, the walls of the Tribune Tower contain rocks from many famous world landmarks, including: the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, and from the New York World Trade Center, demolished in 2001. The Tribune Tower even managed to get its hands on a moon rock, but so far NASA hasn't allowed it to add the rock to the wall.
Adorning the first floor are decorative arts from the collection of the museum's namesake, Richard H. Driehaus, with plenty of Tiffany stained glass. But it's the restored 1883 mansion itself that garners glowing reviews; inside are 17 different types of marble, hand-painted ceilings, carved exotic wood wainscoting and other marks of superior 19th-century craftsmanship. If you're interested in historic architecture and interior design, this is still a hidden gem without crowds.
Easy to miss, as it's on a side street without much in the way of signage (or advertising), but this gallery has a long history — it opened in 1916, and hosted Pablo Picasso's first art show in the U.S. Visitors will find three public art shows each year, usually of exceptional quality. Note the Mies van der Rohe central staircase, which was transplanted from the club's previous Mies-designed location.