Essential Places

Ten great views of the skyline

Our five favorite building toppers

Five confusing intersections

Five nastiest El stations

Most appropriate nicknames for Chicago locales

Great museums that don’t get enough love

Five favorite public nudes

Our favorite Wiener’s Circle obscenities

5 reasons to shop in the Monadnock Building

Ten great views of the skyline

Credit:Callie Lipkin

1. From the northeast corner of Grant Park. Best-case scenario: While lying in the grass during the Outdoor Film Festival

2. Reflected in Cloud Gate (The Bean). It’s clichéd, sure, but tell us we’re wrong.

3. From the pier at Osterman Beach a.k.a. Hollywood Beach

4. From the window of a plane landing at Midway at sunset

5. At the pond at the Lincoln Park Zoo

6. Driving north on Lake Shore Drive past Soldier Field

7. From the Kennedy Expressway, just as you enter from Kedzie Avenue

8. From a sailboat or charter boat on Lake Michigan

9. From the bridge over the Chicago River on Lake Shore Drive

10. From Promontory Point in Hyde Park—JAH

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Our five favorite building toppers

Credit:Caroline Voagen Nelson

311 South Wacker Drive’s drum

This 1990 building peaks in a turretlike, 70-foot-tall drum (sometimes called  the “wedding cake”) that’s illuminated by 2,000 fluorescent tubes.

Credit:Caroline Voagen Nelson

One River Place’s Spirit of Progress

In 1930, this Art Deco structure on 619 West Chicago Avenue was designed as Montgomery Ward’s office building and topped with a 17-foot version of the company’s early symbol: a mythical, robed woman holding a torch and staff.

Credit:Caroline Voagen Nelson

Chicago Board of Trade’s Ceres

This 1929–30 Holabird & Root Art Deco landmark is topped by John Storrs’s 31-foot-tall sculpture of the goddess of agriculture, a reference to the CBOT’s origins as a commodities market.

Credit:Caroline Voagen Nelson

Sears Tower’s illuminated antennas

Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill designed this building, completed in 1973. The seasonal illumination of the antennas—blue and orange for the Bears or red and green for Christmas—was introduced in 1995.

Credit:Caroline Voagen Nelson

Harold Washington Library’s cornice

Owls, foliage and seed pods, made from 100 tons of aluminum, crown the top of this 1991 neoclassical building.—Madeline Nusser

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Five confusing intersections

Credit:Erica Gannett

Credit:Erica Gannett

Credit:Erica Gannett

Credit:Erica Gannett

Credit:Erica Gannett

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Five coolest honorary street names

The Godfather of House Frankie Knuckles Way, 200–400 South Jefferson Street; Hallelluyah Highway, 1500–2800 West 59th Street;

Confucius Place, 200–300 West 22nd Place;

Hugh M. Hefner Way, 932 East Walton Place;

Spanky Jacinto Way, South Avenue L, on the northeast corner facing 116th Street

—Cecilia Wong and Leah Pietrusiak

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Five lamest honorary street names

Wheaties Boulevard, 10400–10600 South Muskegon Avenue;

Today’s Chicago Woman Way, 100–200 East Huron Street;

Chicago(as in Peter Cetera’s old band, in the shape of band logo)Way, 140–200 West Chicago Avenue;

Milky Way, 2019 North Oak Park Avenue, in front of the M&M’s Mars Candy factory;

 City Cat Doctor Place, northwest corner of West Ohio and North Wells Streets

—CW and LP

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Five honorary street names that made us say, “What the hell?”

Diana Princess of Wales Place, 700–800 North Fairbanks Court;

100th/442nd/MIS Way, 4400–4500 North Clark Street;

Jewel Lafontant - Mankarious Street, 4900–5000 South Greenwood Avenue;

For Your Consciousness Ministries Felix Way, 1923 West 51st Street;

Soul Winners Outreach Drive, 732–800 West 90th Street

—CW and LP

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Five nastiest El stations

Jarvis Red Line

 The intoxicating aroma of fresh urine perfumes the air at nearly all El stops, but here it’s combined with the musty scent of the standing water that’s always pooled at the bottom of this Far North Side stop’s steps.

Wilson Red Line

You want a little crazy with your wait for the train? You’ll get it in spades from the colorful characters who chillax in and around this stop.

Division Blue Line

Optimists may think of rust/mold rot holes spreading from the tunnel to the ceiling as an impromptu Rorschach test. But we just think they’re nasty.

Monroe Red and Blue Lines

Dark, depressing, rank and dirty: It’s like visiting an Eastern European refugee camp without having to leave home!

North/Clybourn Red Line

Say, is that a dead rat under the tracks? Wait, no, it’s just flattened detritus. Well, could be a smushed rat. Such are the musings that occur to you while making the half-mile trek from your train car to the sole, inconveniently located exit at this station, which is as damp, dirty and freaky as that crazy dude’s well in The Silence of the Lambs.

—Laura Baginski

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Most appropriate nicknames for Chicago locales

Punkin’ Donuts

The Dunkin’ Donuts at Belmont Avenue and Clark Street, a mecca for suburban goths

Stranglewood

The high-crime Englewood neighborhood

The Crotch

The intersection of North, Damen and Milwaukee Avenues

Ho Depot

The Home Depot on North Avenue that used to see a lot of prostitute foot traffic

The Scare-agon/the Aragon Brawlroom Uptown’s Aragon Ballroom, known for its mosh-pit mayhem—Ruth Welte

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Great museums that don’t get enough love

Polish Museum of America (984 N Milwaukee Ave)

Maybe it’s the monolithic four-story structure that intimidates people. But those who dare cross the threshold will be met with room after room of all things Polish, including our favorite exhibit—a glass-walled Pope John Paul II display that includes His Holiness’s skis.

Robie House (5757 S Woodlawn Ave)

Most architecture buffs stick to the Frank Lloyd Wright epicenter of Oak Park. Head south to Hyde Park, though, and you’ll be rewarded with a look at this 1910 masterpiece—the architect’s personal favorite—with its custom furniture and 174 art-glass windows.

The Arts Club (201 E Ontario St)

With no advertising, no website and a guard posted at the door, you might wonder if this modern-art museum is making a point of keeping the public at bay. Those in the know get to see works by Alexander Calder, Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso—a testament to the nine decade–old club’s ability to spot rising stars.

Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (2320 W Chicago Ave)

It would be easy to assume this place makes the same mistakes many other heritage museums do—namely, delivering amateur presentations of behind-the-curve art chosen more for its country of origin than its merit. That’s not the case here, where the work by Ukrainian, Ukrainian-American and European artists is surprisingly avant-garde.

Chicago-area libraries (Harold Washington Library, 400 S State St; Woodson Regional Library, 9525 S Halsted St; Newberry Library, 60 W Walton St)

Psst! Want to check out exhibitions of rare, historic artifacts for free? Libraries are the city’s best-kept secret. The Woodson Library, which specializes in Chicago’s African-American history, recently opened a show that includes original Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks manuscripts. Another reliable choice is the Newberry Library, which will open a display of American circus memorabilia this summer.—MS

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Five favorite public nudes

1. The Fountain of the Great Lakes

South garden of the Art Institute (1913)

The five female figures in Lorado Taft’s fountain are sisters, but we say Ontario is the winner of this wet T-shirt competition.

2. The Sower

Chicago Botanic Garden (1913)

Albin Polasek’s seven-foot-tall bronze apparently works out at the gym hard—real hard. The work belonged to the Art Institute until 1950, when the sower and his rippling abs were moved to the Chicago Botanic Garden.

3. The Bowman and The Spearman

Credit:"Allison Williams"

Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue (1928)

If you thought Felipe Rose was the hottest member of the Village People, you’ll swoon over Ivan Mes?trovic´’s pair of bronze Native American horsemen. Even the horses let it all hang out.

4. Art Deco female figures

543–545 North Michigan Avenue (1929)

Why is that nude stepping out of a flowing cape on the street? We’re guessing she is getting ready to try on some clothes during her lunch break. Philip B. Maher created this ornamentation for above the door of what was, at the time, a fancy dress shop.

5. Kenna Apartments

2214 East 69th Street (1916)

When artist Alfonso Iannelli created the sculptures for the doorway of architect Barry Bryne’s South Side landmark, he probably had family values in mind. But we think mommy is a MILF and daddy is probably meeting Felipe in the park later tonight.

—Ruth Lopez

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Our favorite Wiener’s Circle obscenities

The Wiener’s Circle (2622 N Clark St, 773-477-7444) is the place to go for a top-notch hot dog, exquisitely greasy cheese fries and, if you’re there during the wee hours, a huge helping of verbal abuse.

1. A preppy guy walks up to the counter where a huge WC employee in a purpleshirt is standing and says, “Yo Grimace, give me some french fries.” Sheresponds, “Shut the fuck up, Jack Tripper.”

2. A Lincoln Park Trixie asks, “Is my hot dog ready yet?” and is asked, “Whatdo you think, I pump this shit out of my pussy, bitch?”

3. A man orders a hot dog with ketchup, spurring the following rejoinder:“Next time you get a hot dog and you ask for it with ketchup, you’ll get itwith ketchup and my pussy juice all over it.”

4. A white man asks for a Sprite with no ice. A WC employee responds, “Awwwshit, look at this cracker here—he think he down, he think he’s black,trying to ask for his muthafuckin’ Sprite with no ice. Next thing you know,nigga will be askin’ for some strawberry-kiwi Mystic shit.”

5. After calling a one-legged man in a wheelchair a “crippled-assmotherfucker,” the ladies behind the counter turn their attention to acustomer who had been telling a joke, shouting, “And you…get outta here…likeyou some funny motherfucker…like you Dave Coulier.”

—Heather Shouse;

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5 reasons to shop in the Monadnock Building

The soft light in the Monadnock Building (53 W Jackson Blvd) is not unlike the hazy visual effects movies use for flashbacks—and that’s entirely appropriate, because these hallways make you feel like you’ve time-warped to an era when the world is full of charming businesses you thought were extinct. Our favorites:

1. The Shoe Hospital Apparently there was a time when, instead of walking to Nine West for a new pair of $60 flats, you simply bought the good stuff, and, if it got sick, nursed it back to health.

2. Monadnock Tobacco Shop It’s very possible that the news about smoking being deadly has not reached this shop yet. That, or the folks here just don’t care.

3. A New Leaf  No, giving flowers is not merely a thing of the past. But these prices are.

4. Harry’s Sandwich Shop Okay, there’s nothing particularly old school about this deli. We just like how when you place your order (“Pastrami on rye, please”) the woman behind the corner screams it back at you (“PASTRAMI ON RYYYE!!!”).

5. CES Travel This is what they call a “travel agency.” It’s a place where people used to go and ask other people to buy their plane tickets and book their cruises and…oh, never mind.—David Tamarkin

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