The Guide: Chicago
September 1, 2005
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A modern kitchen from de Giulio. Photography by Paul Schlismann. (Click image to enlarge.)Festivals and Sites
Chicago’s best weather occurs in September, when the average temperature is 75 degrees, but the city’s most popular festivals are in July and August, when temperatures approach the mid to high 80s (January through March are the coldest months). The Chicago Blues Festival lasts for four days in Grant Park during the second weekend in June. The park also hosts the Chicago Jazz Festival over Labor Day weekend as well as The Taste of Chicago, which is held during the 10 days preceding Independence Day and includes over 100 booths from the city’s best restaurants, as well as outdoor concerts (this year it attracted such artists as Clint Black, Santana, Donna Summer and Lauryn Hill). Millennium Park, located on Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets, is hard to miss. Its 24.5-acre mass was conceived as an addition to Grant Park. It offers ice-skating in the winter, but the summer months are the perfect time to enjoy the landscaping and outdoor concert venue, which was designed by Frank Gehry, who also built the BP Bridge linking the two parks together. NeoCon, the largest trade show of its kind in North America, has been taking over the Merchandise Mart every June for the past 35 years. Nearly 40,000 people come to get a first look at the latest in designs and technologies for the home. If you like design but not big crowds, then take one of the many architectural tours offered by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Among the tours that vary each season are the Architectural River Cruise down the Chicago River that hits 50 sites around the Chicago Loop and a walking tour of the city’s culture and commerce, which includes buildings by Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham and ends at Millennium Park.
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The Glen Club’s $10 million clubhouse and Tom Fazio–designed fairway. Photography by Miller Brown Marketing. (Click image to enlarge.)Other monuments not to be missed are the Shedd Aquarium, (the largest indoor version in the world), the Adler Planetarium (the oldest in the Western Hemisphere) and the Art Institute of Chicago (both a museum and a school, its collection includes George Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on La Grand Jatte, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and 33 paintings by Claude Monet).
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The Adler Planetarium, where Lohan Caprile Goettsch added a
64,000-square-foot Sky Pavilion to the original building, built in 1930. Copyright Steinkamp/Ballogg Photography, Courtesy Goettsch Partners. (Click image to enlarge.)
Clubs
About 40 minutes east of the city is the highly-ranked Medinah
Country Club. Its course was designed by Tom Bendelow in 1924 and will host the
2012 Ryder Cup. Built in 1920, the private Indian Hill Golf Club in Winnetka is
a traditional course with tree-lined fairways in one of the city’s most
exclusive suburbs. The public Glen Club is located on the former Glenview Naval
Air Base and boasts a $10 million, 48,000-square-foot clubhouse that rivals most
private facilities. The 195-acre course designed by Tom Fazio is no slouch,
either (it cost around $18 million). Most high-rises offer their own health
clubs, but it is hard to top the East Bank Club. The 23-year-old health Mecca is
generally noted as the country’s first large-scale fitness center, where the gym
craze all began. With over 450,000 square feet, the club offers everything from
swimming pools and gym equipment to a restaurant and spa.
Do
Chicago City Events, 2111 West Lexington, Chicago, 312.744.5000, www.cityofchicago.org/specialevents,
Millennium Park, 312.742.1168, www.millenniumpark.org
NeoCon, 222
Merchandise Mart Plaza, Chicago, 312.527.7999, www.merchandisemart.com/neocon
Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 S Michigan Ave., Chicago, 312.922.3432,
www.architecture.org
Shedd
Aquarium, 1200 South Lake Shore Dr., 312.692.3274, www.sheddaquarium.com
Adler
Planetarium, 1300 South Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, 312.922.7827, www.adlerplanetarium.org
Art
Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, 312.443.3600, www.artic.edu
Medinah, 6N001 Medinah Rd.,
Medinah, 630.773.1700
Indian Hill Golf Club, 1 Indian Hill Rd., Winnetka,
847.256.0800
The Glen Club, 2901 W. Lake Avenue, Glenview, 847.724.7272, www.theglenclub.com
East Bank Club, 500
N. Kingsbury St., Chicago, 312.527.5800, www.eastbankclub.com
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