Description

Lincoln Park, Community Area 7 is 3 miles north of Chicago’s Loop. It occupies what is now some of the most desirable real estate and wealthy sections of the city, but it was certainly not always this way. Stretching from North to Diversey and from the Lake to the River, Lincoln Park is the star of the north side communities, and the location of some of the cities greatest cultural icons like the Chicago History Museum, the Lincoln Park Conservatory and the Lincoln Park Zoo. For our purposes, it offers a truly exceptional pallet of architectural finds with exquisite examples of nearly every Victorian Style, exceptional green space, a free 35 acre in-city zoo, lakefront trails and beaches and a virtual paradise in the city on what used to be largely cemetery land, or didn’t exist until the landfill made it.

The tour will of course include a lovely ride through the park itself but perhaps of greater interest are visits to prominent works of Louis Sullivan, Dwight Perkins, Henry Ives Cobb, Solon Beman, Richard Schmidt, Howard Van Doren Shaw, Joseph Lyman Silsbee, Mies van de Rohe, David Adler and dozens of others as well as over a dozen sites on the Chicago Landmark List and/or National Register of Historic Places. It is a dizzying array of beautiful architecture and a built environment that grew up in the ashes and rubble of the Great Fire. Put aside your notions of what Lincoln Park is today and join us for a story of what it was, and how it came to be.