Many of Chicago's major cultural attractions are gathered on the
eastern edge of the Loop, along Michigan Avenue between the city's
commercial core and the shores of Lake Michigan. On the lake side
of South Michigan Avenue, at the east end of Adams Street, the
Art Institute of Chicago (Mon-Fri 10.30am-4.30pm, Tues until
8pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; $10 suggested donation, free Tues;
) has an excellent collection of Impressionist and
Post-Impressionist paintings, Asian art (particularly Japanese
prints), photography and architectural drawings. The Neoclassical
facade of the main entrance does its best to look dignified, but
the numerous added-on wings can make it hard to find your way
around inside.
Most visitors head straight upstairs to the Impressionist works,
which include a wall full of Monet's Haystacks captured in
various lights, next to Seurat's immediately familiar pointillist
Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte . A handful of
Post-Impressionist masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse
are arrayed nearby. Beyond here, a tortured, tuxedoed self-portrait
by Max Beckmann - his last Berlin painting before fleeing
the Nazis - welcomes you into a crowded gallery of early
twentieth-century American and European works, in which moody
portraits by Balthus and Picasso, and Surrealist landscapes by Max
Ernst and Yves Tanguy hang side by side with Edward Hopper's lonely
Nighthawks and Georgia O'Keeffe's Black Cross, New
Mexico .
Also look for the pitchfork-holding farmer of Grant Woods'
oft-reproduced American Gothic - a picture he painted as a
student at the Art Institute school, and sold to the museum for
$300 in 1930 - and for the delightful seventh-century
Indonesian-sculptured stone monkeys in the Southeast Asia
collections displayed around the McKinlock Court Garden - in summer
an open-air café . Also here, in the east end of the
complex, is the immaculately reconstructed Art Moderne trading room
of the Chicago Stock Exchange, designed by Louis Sullivan in 1893
and moved here in the 1970s.
A few blocks north, the Chicago Cultural Center takes up
most of the splendid old Public Library building at 78 E Washington
St, and offers a range of free activities. As well as the city's
main visitor center , it features various galleries
(including some great photos of Chicago's most famous landmarks),
major touring exhibits, and free lunchtime and evening recitals,
readings and concerts (tel 312/346-3278 for details). The highlight
is the Museum of Broadcast Communications , where you can
watch old advertisements, newsreels and sporting moments (Mon-Sat
10am-4.30pm, Sun noon-5pm; ; free).
In 1900 this lakefront strip around the Art Institute on South
Michigan Avenue was the city's prime entertainment district. Many
of that era's grand structures preserve a sense of its unabashed
artistic aspirations. The world-renowned Chicago Symphony
Orchestra , now run by Daniel Barenboim after many successful
years under the baton of Sir Georg Solti, performs to sell-out
crowds at the new Symphony Center at 220 S Michigan Ave ( ).
Down the street, the Fine Arts Building ( ) at no. 410 once
held the offices of Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum and
the drafting studio of the young Frank Lloyd Wright. At no. 430,
the stately 1889 Auditorium Theater was originally funded by
a group of Chicago's civic leaders who were embarrassed by the
derision of the more established Eastern cities. They hoped this
performance center, incorporating lavish use of gold, mosaics and
murals, in addition to the acoustically perfect theater, would
overcome the stigma.
Yet farther south on Michigan stand two of Chicago's most
famous old hotels , including the recently renovated
Hilton , the world's largest hotel when it opened in 1927 -
and the more affordable and atmospheric Blackstone . South
of here, the neighborhood income levels drop off sharply. Apart
from the Prairie Avenue Historic District, there's little of
interest before the Hyde Park district three miles south. However,
R&B fans may like to know that the southwest corner of Michigan
Avenue and 21st Street held the studios and offices of Chess
Records , immortalized in the early Rolling Stones song 2120
S Michigan Avenue . Plans to turn this hallowed building into a
museum and resource center for local musicians have so far failed
to get beyond the argument stage.