Field Trips To Chicago

First called the Windy City in 1893 by a New York newspaper editor sick of long-winded Chicago politicians boasting over wonders of the World’s Columbian Exposition staged in the city that same year, Chicago has plenty more to brag about besides the first Ferris Wheel debuting at the Exposition. Among other firsts, Chicago claims fame to producing the earliest steel frame skyscraper, Pullman rail car, cafeteria, co-educational public high school, bifocal contact lens, along with Cracker Jacks and Schwinn Bicycles. Other bragging points for this city along Lake Michigan’s southwest shore include Sears Tower, stretching 110 floors skyward, the Merchandise Mart as the world’s largest commercial building, and McCormick Place as the largest convention center with 2.2 million square feet.

Adler Planetarium
Opened in 1930 as the first planetarium in the western hemisphere, additions to the Adler within the past decade include a theater and restaurant.

Amoco Building
Formerly known as the Standard Oil Building, the Amoco Building stands as the city’s second tallest structure after the Sears Tower and is most effectively viewed from a distance.

Art Institute of Chicago
Here you’ll find Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Picasso’s The Old Guitarist and a spectacular collection of Impressionist and post Impressionist works by Monet, Renoir, and Gaugin among other celebrated artists.
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Chicago Board of Trade
Don’t miss the gilded statue of Ceres, Roman goddess of agriculture, atop this Art Deco building at the foot of LaSalle Street designed in 1930 by Holabird and Root. Unfolding within is frenetic pit trading for corn, wheat, soybeans, oil, government bonds, and more. The observation deck has been closed since 9/11/2001.

Chicago Children’s Museum
At this 57,000 square-foot facility, you will find a kid-sized neighborhood complete with a bakery, service station, and construction site, plus science exhibits on topics such as inventing, and a whole lot more.

Field Museum
Explore cultures and environments from around the world within six acres of exhibits at this world-class facility originally funded by retailer Marshall Field.

The Loop
Known as the Loop since cable car days of the late 1800s, Chicago’s downtown serves as a vibrant architectural museum where you can wander past modern towers adjacent to 19th century structures, shop at huge department stores surviving the malling of America, and visit world-renowned museums. Noisily looping the loop overhead, you will encounter the train called the El.

Magnificent Mile
Magnificent Mile, a stretch of Michigan Avenue between the Chicago River and Oak Street, is so named because of upscale shops lining the street. Anchoring the south end is the illuminated Wrigley Building, headquarters for the chewing gum enterprise. To the east, you will find affluent Streeterville, once a landfill run by the notorious Cap Streeter. Cap’s shanty has been replaced by the towering John Hancock Center.

Marshall Field’s
Beckoning shoppers are more than 500 departments at the original site of Chicago’s famed department store chain. The huge emporium, designed by D.H. Burnham & Company and built between 1892 and 1907, has an eye-popping Tiffany dome in the southwest corner near State and Washington streets. There is also a landmark clock outside the entrance at State and Randolph streets.

Merchandise Mart
With more square footage (4.2 million) than any building in the nation except the Pentagon, this mart owned by the famed Kennedy family has more than 600 permanent wholesale showrooms. Tours are available.

Museum of Science and Industry
At this sprawling exhibit powerhouse, you can walk through a replica of a human heart, explore a WWII German submarine or sample perfect acoustics at the Whispering Gallery. The museum also has the world’s first permanent exhibit on AIDS and HIV.

Sears Tower
Once the world’s tallest building (now edged out by another in Malaysia), the 110-story Sears Tower continues to impress with its steel frame covered in black aluminum and bronze-tinted glass. On clear days, you can see Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin from the 103rd floor Skydeck open 365 days.

Shedd Aquarium
John G. Shedd Aquarium, the world’s largest, boasts underwater viewing areas for dolphins and whales along with exhibits for river otters, electric eels, piranhas, and scores of other aquatic wonders.

Tribune Tower
Home of the Chicago Tribune, Tribune Tower’s exterior walls are embedded with pieces of famed buildings far from the Windy City, including authentic stones from Westminster Abbey, the Alamo, Hamlet’s Castle, the Great Pyramid, the Taj Mahal, Fort Sumter and the Arc de Triomphe.