{ "api_version": "1.0.0", "generated_at": "2026-08-23T14:48:56.270Z", "documentation": "https://badhistorian.com/docs/api/", "license": "https://badhistorian.com/terms", "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA", "tagline": null, "description": "Chicago reversed a river, invented the skyscraper, survived a fire that killed three hundred people, and came back meaner.\n\nThere's a reason people have been telling stories about this city for a hundred and fifty years.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8781, "longitude": -87.6298 }, "image_url": "https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1494522855154-9297ac14b55f?w=800", "trailer_audio_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/audio/tours/city-intros/chicago-intro.mp3", "tour_count": 6, "attraction_count": 52, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/cities/chicago.json", "tours": [ { "slug": "chicago-gangsters", "title": "Bootleggers, Bullets & Baloney", "subtitle": null, "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "description": "Al Capone ran a hundred-million-dollar beer empire, bathed three times a day, and lost it all to a tax form. A singer got his throat cut for switching nightclubs. A bank robber broke out of jail with a pistol carved from wood. Walk Prohibition-era Chicago from the Green Mill — where you can still drink in Capone's booth — down to the vanished hotels of the South Side, past the massacre site that's now a lawn and the cathedral where a man was gunned down in daylight. Most of it is documented. A few small things I slipped in myself. See if you can spot them before the reveal.", "neighborhood": "The Loop & North Side", "tour_type": "Crime Tour", "tags": [], "duration_minutes": 35, "stop_count": null, "price_usd": 9.99, "currency": "USD", "is_free_preview": false, "cover_image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/cover.jpg", "trailer_audio_url": null, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters.json" }, { "slug": "museum-campus", "title": "Museum Campus: Landfill of Dreams", "subtitle": null, "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "description": "Everything on this campus stands on ground Chicago manufactured out of a burned-down city. A marble temple holds the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex on Earth, found because somebody got a flat tire. An aquarium a thousand miles from the sea got filled by hauling a million gallons of ocean up from Key West in railroad tank cars. There's the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, a two-thousand-year-old Roman column Mussolini sent as a thank-you gift, and a downtown airport a mayor erased with bulldozers at one in the morning. Walk the lakefront from Buckingham Fountain to Soldier Field. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small things I mixed into the fill myself. See how many seams you can find before I show you.", "neighborhood": "Museum Campus", "tour_type": "History Tour", "tags": [], "duration_minutes": 47, "stop_count": null, "price_usd": 9.99, "currency": "USD", "is_free_preview": false, "cover_image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/cover.jpg", "trailer_audio_url": null, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/museum-campus/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/tours/chicago/museum-campus.json" }, { "slug": "architecture", "title": "Steel, Stone & Ego", "subtitle": null, "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "description": "Chicago burned to the ground in 1871 and stacked the strangest concentration of ambition in America on top of the ashes. A newspaper tower studded with 149 pieces chipped off other people's landmarks. An office whose steel skeleton went up in fifteen days. A brick tower so heavy it sank twenty inches into the mud, so you step down into 1891. Two round concrete towers — the tallest apartments on Earth the day they opened — bankrolled by a union of janitors. And forty stories up, a goddess of grain with no face, because the sculptor assumed no one would ever build high enough to look her in the eye. Walk the Magnificent Mile into the Loop to Cloud Gate. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small details are mine, set into the true ones where they blend in. See how many seams you can find before the reveal.", "neighborhood": "The Loop & Magnificent Mile", "tour_type": "Architecture Tour", "tags": [], "duration_minutes": 53, "stop_count": null, "price_usd": 9.99, "currency": "USD", "is_free_preview": false, "cover_image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/cover.jpg", "trailer_audio_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/audio/tours/chicago-architecture/intro.mp3", "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/architecture/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/tours/chicago/architecture.json" }, { "slug": "lincoln-park", "title": "The Best Free Day in Chicago", "subtitle": null, "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "description": "One of America's oldest free zoos. A Victorian glass house. A hidden garden designed by a man who cashed in his life insurance for flowers. And roughly twelve thousand unmarked graves. All free.", "neighborhood": "Lincoln Park", "tour_type": "Neighborhood Tour", "tags": [], "duration_minutes": 50, "stop_count": null, "price_usd": 7.99, "currency": "USD", "is_free_preview": true, "cover_image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/lincoln-park/cover.jpg", "trailer_audio_url": null, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/lincoln-park/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/tours/chicago/lincoln-park.json" }, { "slug": "chicago-obama-center", "title": "The Obama Library Tour", "subtitle": null, "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "description": "They carved a speech into the side of the Obama Presidential Center — four hundred and fifty-eight concrete letters, each one taller than you are — and the engineers nearly couldn't build it, because of the letter S. This is the story of the most expensive presidential center ever put up, told through the things you can actually stand in front of: a tower its own architects wanted smaller, a font borrowed off a men's fashion magazine, a granite skin cut to a sixteenth of an inch, a free public gym, a garden that replaced a garden, and a six-lane road Chicago simply deleted. It is also, technically, not a presidential library. Nearly all of this is documented. Two small things are mine.", "neighborhood": "Jackson Park", "tour_type": "Architecture Tour", "tags": [], "duration_minutes": 55, "stop_count": null, "price_usd": 9.99, "currency": "USD", "is_free_preview": false, "cover_image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/cover.jpg", "trailer_audio_url": null, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center.json" }, { "slug": "postcard", "title": "The Postcard Tour", "subtitle": null, "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "description": "Chicago's greatest hits, and the stories behind them. A river the city reversed so its sewage would flow toward Saint Louis. A newspaper tower with 149 chunks of other people's landmarks — the Parthenon, the Great Wall, the Alamo — bolted into the walls. Two towers everyone calls the corn cobs, financed by a union of janitors. A public library England stocked with 8,000 signed books before Chicago had gotten around to building one. And a mirrored sculpture that showed up to its own unveiling unfinished. Walk the Magnificent Mile into the Loop, from the Water Tower to the Art Institute lions. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small things I slipped in myself — see how many you can catch before the reveal.", "neighborhood": "The Loop & Magnificent Mile", "tour_type": "Highlights Tour", "tags": [], "duration_minutes": 40, "stop_count": null, "price_usd": 9.99, "currency": "USD", "is_free_preview": false, "cover_image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/postcard/cover.jpg", "trailer_audio_url": null, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/walking-tours/chicago/postcard/", "api_url": "https://badhistorian.com/api/tours/chicago/postcard.json" } ], "attractions": [ { "slug": "adler-planetarium", "name": "Adler Planetarium", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Your brain is going to file the building at the end of this peninsula as a nineteen-thirties idea of a flying saucer. Close enough.", "description": "Your brain is going to file the building at the end of this peninsula as a nineteen-thirties idea of a flying saucer. Close enough. It's the Adler Planetarium, and until it opened, nobody in the entire Western Hemisphere had ever sat in a room and watched a machine make a sky. Count the sides. Twelve. It's a twelve-sided drum of rainbow granite under a copper dome.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8663, "longitude": -87.6072 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/7_adler-planetarium-the-first-sky-in-the-hemisphere.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/adler-planetarium/" }, { "slug": "alfred-caldwell-lily-pool", "name": "Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "A hidden prairie in the middle of a city of three million people.", "description": "A hidden prairie garden designed by a man who cashed in his life insurance to buy flowers. National Historic Landmark.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.927, "longitude": -87.6355 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/alfred-caldwell-lily-pool.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/alfred-caldwell-lily-pool/" }, { "slug": "buckingham-fountain", "name": "Buckingham Fountain", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "That enormous pink marble wedding cake in front of you is Buckingham Fountain, and every part of it is pointed at the lake on purpose. Start with the four bronze sea horses. They aren't decoration and they aren't Greek.", "description": "That enormous pink marble wedding cake in front of you is Buckingham Fountain, and every part of it is pointed at the lake on purpose. Start with the four bronze sea horses. They aren't decoration and they aren't Greek. They stand for Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana — the four states that touch Lake Michigan — and they're arranged around the basin leaning in toward the middle.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8758, "longitude": -87.6189 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/1_buckingham-fountain.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/buckingham-fountain/" }, { "slug": "cafe-brauer", "name": "Café Brauer", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The most beautiful building in a public park that was also, for decades, a storage shed.", "description": "Prairie School architecture at its finest. Once stored lawn mowers for decades. Now one of the most expensive wedding venues in Chicago.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.921, "longitude": -87.6345 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/cafe-brauer.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/cafe-brauer/" }, { "slug": "chicago-board-of-trade", "name": "Chicago Board of Trade", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "LaSalle Street ends here. Every bank and every trading house up that canyon lines up in two walls of stone, and at the bottom of the corridor the Chicago Board of Trade stands across the whole opening like a cork in a bottle.", "description": "LaSalle Street ends here. Every bank and every trading house up that canyon lines up in two walls of stone, and at the bottom of the corridor the Chicago Board of Trade stands across the whole opening like a cork in a bottle. It was designed to be the thing you see from ten blocks away, and it is. Now go all the way to the top.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8779, "longitude": -87.6324 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/7_chicago-board-of-trade.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/chicago-board-of-trade/" }, { "slug": "cloud-gate", "name": "Cloud Gate", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "You already know it's a bean. Everybody knows it's a bean. Its name is Cloud Gate, the sculptor is Anish Kapoor, and he has spent roughly twenty years being quietly furious that the city looked at his masterwork and named it after a…", "description": "Your eyes are going to hunt for the seams. Give it a second. There aren't any, and that absence is the whole achievement. This is Cloud Gate, built from a hundred and sixty-eight separate plates of stainless steel, bent to shape and welded together over an internal frame. Then a crew ground every weld down and polished the surface until the joins disappeared.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8827, "longitude": -87.6233 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/12_cloud-gate-millennium-park.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/cloud-gate/" }, { "slug": "couch-tomb", "name": "Couch Tomb", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "A tomb in a public park. And it's not empty.", "description": "The only visible grave remaining from Lincoln Park's days as Chicago City Cemetery. About 12,000 bodies were never moved.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9123, "longitude": -87.632 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/couch-tomb.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/couch-tomb/" }, { "slug": "crown-fountain", "name": "Crown Fountain", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Two towers of glass block, fifty feet tall, facing each other across a long black granite floor with a quarter inch of water lying on it. And on the inward face of each tower, a person. Enormous. Blinking. Looking at you.", "description": "Two towers of glass block, fifty feet tall, facing each other across a long black granite floor with a quarter inch of water lying on it. And on the inward face of each tower, a person. Enormous. Blinking. Looking at you. This is Crown Fountain, made by a Catalan sculptor named Zhow-meh Plen-sa, and the faces on it are a thousand actual residents of this city. Not donors. Not aldermen.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8814, "longitude": -87.6237 }, "image_url": null, "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/crown-fountain/" }, { "slug": "dusable-bridge-and-the-river-mouth", "name": "DuSable Bridge and the River Mouth", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Four little stone houses sit at the corners of this bridge, and there are bronze plaques set flat into the pavement. This is the mouth of the Chicago River.", "description": "Four little stone houses sit at the corners of this bridge, and there are bronze plaques set flat into the pavement. This is the mouth of the Chicago River. Everything you can see from here grew out of one property that stood on this ground before there was a city to put it in. In the seventeen eighties, a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable built a homestead right here.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8882, "longitude": -87.6242 }, "image_url": null, "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/dusable-bridge-and-the-river-mouth/" }, { "slug": "grant-park-the-fight-to-keep-it-empty", "name": "Grant Park — The Fight to Keep It Empty", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "Turn back toward the skyline and notice what's missing. There's a solid wall of towers along Michigan Avenue, and then, between that wall and the water, a long green nothing.", "description": "Turn back toward the skyline and notice what's missing. There's a solid wall of towers along Michigan Avenue, and then, between that wall and the water, a long green nothing. Grant Park is the most valuable empty real estate in the Midwest. It's empty because one furious catalog salesman sued the city of Chicago four times and won every single one.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8677, "longitude": -87.6199 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/2_grant-park-the-fight-to-keep-it-empty.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/grant-park-the-fight-to-keep-it-empty/" }, { "slug": "holy-name-cathedral", "name": "Holy Name Cathedral", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Look up. Holy Name Cathedral — the seat of the whole Chicago archdiocese, and one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.", "description": "Look up. Holy Name Cathedral — the seat of the whole Chicago archdiocese, and one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It is also, historically, one of the more dangerous street corners in it, which is a strange thing to be able to say about a church. The reason is the block across the way.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8956, "longitude": -87.6304 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/4_holy-name-cathedral.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/holy-name-cathedral/" }, { "slug": "home-court", "name": "Home Court", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Home Court. Sixty thousand square feet, and inside it is a full N-B-A regulation basketball court. Free. Open to the public, seven days a week, noon till eight.", "description": "Home Court. Sixty thousand square feet, and inside it is a full N-B-A regulation basketball court. Free. Open to the public, seven days a week, noon till eight. There is a reason a basketball court got built into a presidential campus, and it is one of the great documented superstitions in American politics. January, two thousand eight.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7827, "longitude": -87.5858 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/6_home-court.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/home-court/" }, { "slug": "john-lewis-plaza", "name": "John Lewis Plaza", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "John Lewis Plaza — the open stone square you're standing in. Somewhere near you there's a long wooden beam, thirty-four feet of it, hand-carved and left out in the weather. That's by Martin Puryear, and he called it Bending the Arc.", "description": "John Lewis Plaza — the open stone square you're standing in. Somewhere near you there's a long wooden beam, thirty-four feet of it, hand-carved and left out in the weather. That's by Martin Puryear, and he called it Bending the Arc. The title comes from Martin Luther King's line about the arc of the moral universe being long, but bending toward justice.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7847, "longitude": -87.5856 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/2_john-lewis-plaza.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/john-lewis-plaza/" }, { "slug": "lincoln-park-conservatory", "name": "Lincoln Park Conservatory", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Therapy with ferns. A Victorian glass house in Chicago.", "description": "A Victorian glass house with tropical plants. Designed by the architect who gave Frank Lloyd Wright his first job.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9243, "longitude": -87.636 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/lincoln-park-conservatory.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/lincoln-park-conservatory/" }, { "slug": "lincoln-park-zoo", "name": "Lincoln Park Zoo", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "One of the last free zoos in America. Started with two swans.", "description": "One of America's oldest zoos, free since 1868. Started with two swans from Central Park.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9215, "longitude": -87.634 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/lincoln-park-zoo.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/lincoln-park-zoo/" }, { "slug": "marina-city", "name": "Marina City", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Two round concrete towers with scalloped edges, sixty-five stories each, sitting right on the water. Everyone calls them the corn cobs.", "description": "Two round concrete towers with scalloped edges, sixty-five stories each, sitting right on the water. Everyone calls them the corn cobs. Their real name is Marina City, and they were designed by a Chicago architect named Bertrand Goldberg who thought the rectangle was a failure of imagination.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8886, "longitude": -87.6285 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/4_marina-city.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/marina-city/" }, { "slug": "monadnock-building", "name": "Monadnock Building", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The long dark brown slab in front of you is the Monadnock Building, and it has the visual charisma of a very serious brick. I mean that with real affection. It might be the most consequential brick anyone ever laid.", "description": "The long dark brown slab in front of you is the Monadnock Building, and it has the visual charisma of a very serious brick. I mean that with real affection. It might be the most consequential brick anyone ever laid. There is no ornament on it. None.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8779, "longitude": -87.6295 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/8_monadnock-building.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/monadnock-building/" }, { "slug": "nature-boardwalk", "name": "Nature Boardwalk", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "You're walking on milk jugs. The skyline view is the money shot.", "description": "A polluted Victorian pond transformed into a living ecosystem by Jeanne Gang. The boardwalk is made of recycled milk bottles.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9198, "longitude": -87.6335 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/nature-boardwalk.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/nature-boardwalk/" }, { "slug": "northerly-island", "name": "Northerly Island", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "Made from garbage. Destroyed by bulldozers at midnight. Now a nature sanctuary.", "description": "The only island from Burnham's 5-island plan. Site of a midnight bulldozer raid in 2003.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.858, "longitude": -87.605 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/northerly-island.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/northerly-island/" }, { "slug": "northerly-island-the-airport-that-was-erased-overnight", "name": "Northerly Island — The Airport That Was Erased Overnight", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The prairie grass ahead of you is a runway. Northerly Island was a working downtown airport until a mayor decided, in the middle of one night, that it wasn't going to be one anymore. Start with the name, which is wrong in two directions.", "description": "The prairie grass ahead of you is a runway. Northerly Island was a working downtown airport until a mayor decided, in the middle of one night, that it wasn't going to be one anymore. Start with the name, which is wrong in two directions.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8607, "longitude": -87.6083 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/8_northerly-island-the-airport-that-was-erased-overnight.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/northerly-island-the-airport-that-was-erased-overnight/" }, { "slug": "reliance-building", "name": "Reliance Building", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The slim white tower on this corner is almost entirely window. Count the wall. There's barely any.", "description": "The slim white tower on this corner is almost entirely window. Count the wall. There's barely any. Thin ribs of white glazed terra cotta run up between enormous sheets of plate glass, and the building reads as a stack of light with a little pottery holding it apart.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8827, "longitude": -87.6278 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/10_reliance-building.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/reliance-building/" }, { "slug": "shedd-aquarium", "name": "Shedd Aquarium", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The Shedd Aquarium is a Greek temple covered in seafood. Get close to the trim around the doors and windows and the classical restraint falls apart.", "description": "The Shedd Aquarium is a Greek temple covered in seafood. Get close to the trim around the doors and windows and the classical restraint falls apart. Waves, shells, tridents, fish and sea turtles, worked into the stone and the terra cotta, all the way around an eight-sided marble building. Same architects as the Field Museum. Same white Georgia marble. Completely different mood.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8676, "longitude": -87.614 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/5_shedd-aquarium-they-shipped-the-ocean.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/shedd-aquarium/" }, { "slug": "soldier-field", "name": "Soldier Field", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Those two long rows of Doric columns are Soldier Field, or at least the part of it that's original. Everything you can see between and above them arrived seventy-nine years later, and Chicago has never fully forgiven anyone for it.", "description": "Those two long rows of Doric columns are Soldier Field, or at least the part of it that's original. Everything you can see between and above them arrived seventy-nine years later, and Chicago has never fully forgiven anyone for it. The stadium opened in nineteen twenty-four under the name Grant Park Municipal Stadium.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8618, "longitude": -87.6167 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/10_soldier-field.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/soldier-field/" }, { "slug": "solidarity-drive", "name": "Solidarity Drive", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The causeway running out toward the planetarium is called Solidarity Drive, and there are three bronze men standing in the median of it. All three were made for somewhere else. All three got moved.", "description": "The causeway running out toward the planetarium is called Solidarity Drive, and there are three bronze men standing in the median of it. All three were made for somewhere else. All three got moved. This is the most well-traveled strip of grass in Chicago. The one seated with a compass in his hand is Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who took Earth out of the center of the universe.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8666, "longitude": -87.6119 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/6_solidarity-drive.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/solidarity-drive/" }, { "slug": "standing-lincoln", "name": "Standing Lincoln", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The greatest Lincoln sculpture ever made — by a sculptor who basically traced.", "description": "What many consider the greatest Lincoln sculpture ever made. The sculptor \"cheated\" by using a life mask of Lincoln's actual face.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9115, "longitude": -87.6315 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/standing-lincoln.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/standing-lincoln/" }, { "slug": "sue-and-the-lions-of-tsavo", "name": "Sue and the Lions of Tsavo", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The east face of the Field Museum, with the lake at your back. On the other side of that marble is a forty-foot Tyrannosaurus rex named Sue, and she was found because somebody got a flat tire. August, nineteen ninety.", "description": "The east face of the Field Museum, with the lake at your back. On the other side of that marble is a forty-foot Tyrannosaurus rex named Sue, and she was found because somebody got a flat tire. August, nineteen ninety. A fossil-hunting crew was packing up near the town of Faith, South Dakota, when they noticed a flat on the truck. Most of the team stayed to fix it.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8661, "longitude": -87.6155 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/4_sue-and-the-lions-of-tsavo.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/sue-and-the-lions-of-tsavo/" }, { "slug": "sullivan-center", "name": "Sullivan Center", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Get close to the rounded corner where State Street meets Madison, and look at the metal around the doorway. It runs from the entrance up through two full floors, and it's the finest metalwork in Chicago.", "description": "Get close to the rounded corner where State Street meets Madison, and look at the metal around the doorway. It runs from the entrance up through two full floors, and it's the finest metalwork in Chicago. Cast iron, and a jungle — vines, seed pods, curling leaves, hexagons and spirals folding into each other so densely that your eye can't find where one shape ends.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8818, "longitude": -87.6278 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/9_sullivan-center.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/sullivan-center/" }, { "slug": "the-ann-dunham-water-terrace", "name": "The Ann Dunham Water Terrace", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The water terrace. There's a low stone form here that fills until it can't hold any more and then spills over its own edge, and near it an upright ring that puts out a fine mist. The piece is called Seeing Through the Universe.", "description": "The water terrace. There's a low stone form here that fills until it can't hold any more and then spills over its own edge, and near it an upright ring that puts out a fine mist. The piece is called Seeing Through the Universe. The terrace is named for Ann Dunham — Obama's mother, and a considerably more interesting person than most people realize. She was an anthropologist.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7838, "longitude": -87.5835 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/7_the-ann-dunham-water-terrace.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-ann-dunham-water-terrace/" }, { "slug": "the-art-institute-lions", "name": "The Art Institute Lions", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The lions. One on each side of the stairs, bronze gone dark green except where the weather has scrubbed it back to gold, and both of them ignoring you completely. These are the meeting point for the entire city.", "description": "The lions. One on each side of the stairs, bronze gone dark green except where the weather has scrubbed it back to gold, and both of them ignoring you completely. These are the meeting point for the entire city. Chicagoans don't say the corner of Michigan and Adams. They say, meet me at the lions. The man who made them had no business making them.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8796, "longitude": -87.6237 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/art-institute-lions.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-art-institute-lions/" }, { "slug": "the-balbo-monument", "name": "The Balbo Monument", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "monument", "short_blurb": "A stone column is standing in the grass beside the lakefront path, greenish, about thirteen feet tall, wearing a plaque nobody reads.", "description": "A stone column is standing in the grass beside the lakefront path, greenish, about thirteen feet tall, wearing a plaque nobody reads. It's roughly two thousand years old, it was quarried by Romans, and it is here because of a dictator and a flight of seaplanes. The column came from Ostia Antica, the ancient port city at the mouth of the Tiber that supplied Rome with its grain.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8615, "longitude": -87.6142 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/9_the-balbo-monument.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-balbo-monument/" }, { "slug": "the-biograph-theater", "name": "The Biograph Theater", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The Biograph, and its restored marquee, look frozen in the summer of nineteen thirty-four. That's deliberate, and there's a reason.", "description": "The Biograph, and its restored marquee, look frozen in the summer of nineteen thirty-four. That's deliberate, and there's a reason. On a July night that year, the most wanted man in America walked in here to see a movie and never made it home. This one isn't a Capone story. This is John Dillinger, a completely different animal — a bank robber, and a famous one.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9257, "longitude": -87.6495 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/2_the-biograph-theater.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-biograph-theater/" }, { "slug": "the-chicago-cultural-center", "name": "The Chicago Cultural Center", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Go inside this one. Walk in, climb the marble stairs, and look up. There's a stained glass dome up there thirty-eight feet across, made of about thirty thousand pieces of glass in two hundred and forty-three sections.", "description": "Go inside this one. Walk in, climb the marble stairs, and look up. There's a stained glass dome up there thirty-eight feet across, made of about thirty thousand pieces of glass in two hundred and forty-three sections. It's the largest Tiffany dome in the world. It's free. It has been free the whole time. Most of Chicago doesn't know it's here. The reason any of this exists starts with the fire.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8837, "longitude": -87.6247 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/11_chicago-cultural-center.jpg", "is_free": true, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-chicago-cultural-center/" }, { "slug": "the-chicago-riverwalk", "name": "The Chicago Riverwalk", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Down here at water level you get engine noise, gulls, and a slow green river with tour boats sliding along it. That river is flowing the wrong way. Not by accident, and not by a little.", "description": "Down here at water level you get engine noise, gulls, and a slow green river with tour boats sliding along it. That river is flowing the wrong way. Not by accident, and not by a little. Chicago turned it around on purpose, and it's been running backwards ever since. The reason is unglamorous.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8879, "longitude": -87.6262 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/riverwalk-big-flush.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-chicago-riverwalk/" }, { "slug": "the-chicago-theatre", "name": "The Chicago Theatre", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Six stories of red letters spelling out the name of the city, hung off the front of a building on State Street. That sign is the shorthand for Chicago in roughly every film, news broadcast, and postcard ever made.", "description": "Six stories of red letters spelling out the name of the city, hung off the front of a building on State Street. That sign is the shorthand for Chicago in roughly every film, news broadcast, and postcard ever made. Behind it is the Chicago Theatre, which opened in nineteen twenty-one with three thousand eight hundred seats and called itself the Wonder Theatre of the World.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8853, "longitude": -87.6278 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/chicago-theatre.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-chicago-theatre/" }, { "slug": "the-chicago-water-tower", "name": "The Chicago Water Tower", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The little stone castle stranded in the middle of Michigan Avenue is the Chicago Water Tower. Yellow limestone, turrets, battlements, tiny pointed caps on every corner. It looks like somebody lost a castle and left it on the sidewalk.", "description": "The little stone castle stranded in the middle of Michigan Avenue is the Chicago Water Tower. Yellow limestone, turrets, battlements, tiny pointed caps on every corner. It looks like somebody lost a castle and left it on the sidewalk. It was built to hide a pipe. That's the whole job. Inside stood a hundred-and-thirty-eight-foot iron standpipe — a tall open column of water.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.897, "longitude": -87.6243 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/1_chicago-water-tower.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-chicago-water-tower/" }, { "slug": "the-field-museum", "name": "The Field Museum", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "museum", "short_blurb": "Three hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of white Georgia marble, quarried in the South and shipped a thousand miles north. That's the Field Museum, and large parts of it were copied off a specific temple in Athens.", "description": "Three hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of white Georgia marble, quarried in the South and shipped a thousand miles north. That's the Field Museum, and large parts of it were copied off a specific temple in Athens. Find the ends of the building, where instead of plain columns there are rows of tall robed women holding the roof on their heads.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8672, "longitude": -87.6169 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/museum-campus/stops/3_the-field-museum-a-greek-temple-on-landfill.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-field-museum/" }, { "slug": "the-great-lawn-and-the-road-that-isnt-there", "name": "The Great Lawn and the Road That Isn't There", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The Great Lawn. Fifty-eight thousand square feet of grass, built for picnics, concerts, and a sledding hill in the cold months. Stand still on it for a second, because a few years ago standing here would have gotten you killed.", "description": "The Great Lawn. Fifty-eight thousand square feet of grass, built for picnics, concerts, and a sledding hill in the cold months. Stand still on it for a second, because a few years ago standing here would have gotten you killed. This was a road.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7828, "longitude": -87.5824 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/9_the-great-lawn-and-the-road-that-isnt-there.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-great-lawn-and-the-road-that-isnt-there/" }, { "slug": "the-green-mill-cocktail-lounge", "name": "The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The Green Mill. That crescent-moon sign has been hanging over this corner since nineteen ten, and the room behind it has barely changed. Same long mahogany bar, same booths, same low green light.", "description": "The Green Mill. That crescent-moon sign has been hanging over this corner since nineteen ten, and the room behind it has barely changed. Same long mahogany bar, same booths, same low green light. Walk in and it looks like nineteen twenty-seven, except everyone has a phone and better dental work. Capone had a booth here. Back corner, angled so he could watch both doors.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9686, "longitude": -87.6529 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/1_the-green-mill-cocktail-lounge.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-green-mill-cocktail-lounge/" }, { "slug": "the-library-branch-and-the-reading-garden", "name": "The Library Branch and the Reading Garden", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "The low building with the courtyard. In the reading garden there's a bronze sculpture of a bird coming up off an open book, and it's called Book Bird. That's a Richard Hunt. If you don't know the name, you know the work.", "description": "The low building with the courtyard. In the reading garden there's a bronze sculpture of a bird coming up off an open book, and it's called Book Bird. That's a Richard Hunt. If you don't know the name, you know the work. Hunt put public sculpture all over this city for sixty years. In nineteen seventy-one he became the first Black sculptor to get a solo retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7837, "longitude": -87.585 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/5_the-library-branch-and-the-reading-garden.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-library-branch-and-the-reading-garden/" }, { "slug": "the-merchandise-mart", "name": "The Merchandise Mart", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The limestone thing occupying the entire far bank of the river is the Merchandise Mart, and the correct way to understand it is that this is not a building with a footprint. It's a building with a territory. Four million square feet.", "description": "The limestone thing occupying the entire far bank of the river is the Merchandise Mart, and the correct way to understand it is that this is not a building with a footprint. It's a building with a territory. Four million square feet. About ninety acres of floor, stacked twenty-five stories high across two full city blocks.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8886, "longitude": -87.6354 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/5_the-merchandise-mart.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-merchandise-mart/" }, { "slug": "the-north-face-wrapping-the-pineapple", "name": "The North Face — Wrapping the Pineapple", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "This side of the tower has the color on it. Eighty-three feet of glass mural by Julie Mehretu, called Uprising of the Sun, which is the one part of this building that looks like it's moving. Mehretu is worth a second.", "description": "This side of the tower has the color on it. Eighty-three feet of glass mural by Julie Mehretu, called Uprising of the Sun, which is the one part of this building that looks like it's moving. Mehretu is worth a second. She was born in Addis Ababa and came to Michigan as a child, when her family left Ethiopia.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7856, "longitude": -87.5847 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/4_the-north-face-wrapping-the-pineapple.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-north-face-wrapping-the-pineapple/" }, { "slug": "the-palmer-house-hotel", "name": "The Palmer House Hotel", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "historic_site", "short_blurb": "The Palmer House. There has been a hotel on this spot since eighteen seventy-one, which makes it the longest continuously operating hotel in the country — with an asterisk.", "description": "The Palmer House. There has been a hotel on this spot since eighteen seventy-one, which makes it the longest continuously operating hotel in the country — with an asterisk. The original burned to the ground thirteen days after it opened, in the Great Chicago Fire. So the owner rebuilt it bigger. This city treats a total loss as a renovation opportunity.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.88, "longitude": -87.6277 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/6_the-palmer-house-hotel.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-palmer-house-hotel/" }, { "slug": "the-rookery", "name": "The Rookery", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "From the sidewalk the Rookery is a fortress. Dark red granite, deep arches, stonework heavy enough to survive a siege by a medium-sized army.", "description": "From the sidewalk the Rookery is a fortress. Dark red granite, deep arches, stonework heavy enough to survive a siege by a medium-sized army. And the name carved on a building this serious is the Rookery — which is not grand, and is not Latin, and was originally a slur.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.879, "longitude": -87.632 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/6_the-rookery.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-rookery/" }, { "slug": "the-site-of-the-lexington-hotel", "name": "The Site of the Lexington Hotel", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "historic_site", "short_blurb": "There is no building to point at here. The Lexington Hotel came down in nineteen ninety-five, so if you're hunting for something grand, I'm sorry. You're standing in front of the memory of a headquarters.", "description": "There is no building to point at here. The Lexington Hotel came down in nineteen ninety-five, so if you're hunting for something grand, I'm sorry. You're standing in front of the memory of a headquarters. Because for three years at the end of the twenties, this was the address in Chicago. Al Capone didn't rent a room at the Lexington. He took the building.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8721, "longitude": -87.6246 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/7_the-site-of-the-lexington-hotel.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-site-of-the-lexington-hotel/" }, { "slug": "the-site-of-the-metropole-hotel", "name": "The Site of the Metropole Hotel", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "historic_site", "short_blurb": "Another gap in the block. Another Michigan Avenue hotel that isn't here anymore. The Metropole is where Capone set up before the Lexington, back when the empire was still climbing — he rented dozens of rooms and turned the whole third…", "description": "Another gap in the block. Another Michigan Avenue hotel that isn't here anymore. The Metropole is where Capone set up before the Lexington, back when the empire was still climbing — he rented dozens of rooms and turned the whole third floor into a private gymnasium, complete with a boxing ring nobody ever actually saw him use. This is where the story starts to bend downward.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8745, "longitude": -87.6246 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/8_the-site-of-the-metropole-hotel.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-site-of-the-metropole-hotel/" }, { "slug": "the-southwest-corner-the-letters", "name": "The Southwest Corner — The Letters", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Look up at the corner of the tower. Way up, near the top, wrapping around from one face to the other — those are letters. Concrete ones.", "description": "Look up at the corner of the tower. Way up, near the top, wrapping around from one face to the other — those are letters. Concrete ones. Four feet four inches tall apiece, four hundred and fifty-eight of them, spelling out a hundred and three words. Part of what it says is this. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word we.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7841, "longitude": -87.5866 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/3_the-southwest-corner-the-letters.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-southwest-corner-the-letters/" }, { "slug": "the-st-valentines-day-massacre-site", "name": "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre Site", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "historic_site", "short_blurb": "You're looking at a strip of lawn and a parking lot. Some grass, a few trees, cars. It is one of the most infamous addresses in American crime, and the city's answer to that was landscaping.", "description": "You're looking at a strip of lawn and a parking lot. Some grass, a few trees, cars. It is one of the most infamous addresses in American crime, and the city's answer to that was landscaping. On the morning of February fourteenth, nineteen twenty-nine, a red brick garage stood right here.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.9137, "longitude": -87.6362 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-gangsters/stops/3_the-st-valentines-day-massacre-site.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": true, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-st-valentines-day-massacre-site/" }, { "slug": "the-statue-of-the-republic", "name": "The Statue of the Republic", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "monument", "short_blurb": "The gold woman. Twenty-four feet of gilded bronze standing at a road junction in the middle of a park, arms up, holding a globe and a staff, looking north. Locals call her the Golden Lady. She's a copy.", "description": "The gold woman. Twenty-four feet of gilded bronze standing at a road junction in the middle of a park, arms up, holding a globe and a staff, looking north. Locals call her the Golden Lady. She's a copy. And she's a copy of something that isn't here anymore.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7799, "longitude": -87.5806 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/10_the-statue-of-the-republic.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-statue-of-the-republic/" }, { "slug": "the-tower-from-stony-island-avenue", "name": "The Tower from Stony Island Avenue", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The Obama Presidential Center. Two hundred and twenty-five feet of gray granite with almost no windows in it, which is not how museums usually introduce themselves. Find the corner closest to you, where the two big faces of the tower meet.", "description": "The Obama Presidential Center. Two hundred and twenty-five feet of gray granite with almost no windows in it, which is not how museums usually introduce themselves. Find the corner closest to you, where the two big faces of the tower meet. It isn't square.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.785, "longitude": -87.587 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/1_the-tower-from-stony-island-avenue.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-tower-from-stony-island-avenue/" }, { "slug": "the-womens-garden", "name": "The Women's Garden", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "park", "short_blurb": "The Women's Garden. Planted beds, low walls, a place laid out to be sat in rather than walked through. The Foundation describes it as a living memorial to the power of civic participation. All of that is new.", "description": "The Women's Garden. Planted beds, low walls, a place laid out to be sat in rather than walked through. The Foundation describes it as a living memorial to the power of civic participation. All of that is new. And there is something you should know about the ground it's on. There was already a Women's Garden in Jackson Park.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.7829, "longitude": -87.5841 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/chicago-obama-center/stops/8_the-womens-garden.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-womens-garden/" }, { "slug": "the-wrigley-building", "name": "The Wrigley Building", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "The white one. Two towers joined by walkways, a clock tower on the south end, and a surface so bright it looks lit even when it isn't. That's the Wrigley Building, and the brightness is a trick.", "description": "The white one. Two towers joined by walkways, a clock tower on the south end, and a surface so bright it looks lit even when it isn't. That's the Wrigley Building, and the brightness is a trick. The skin is terracotta — glazed clay tile, more than three hundred and seventy-five thousand pieces of it. And it's not all one color.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8895, "longitude": -87.6244 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/attractions/chicago/wrigley-building.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/the-wrigley-building/" }, { "slug": "tribune-tower", "name": "Tribune Tower", "city": { "slug": "chicago", "name": "Chicago", "country": "USA" }, "category": "landmark", "short_blurb": "Get close to the base of the pale Gothic tower with the crown of stone spikes on top. Down at hand height, set into the limestone, there are ragged little chunks of rock with labels chiselled under them. That one's the Parthenon.", "description": "Get close to the base of the pale Gothic tower with the crown of stone spikes on top. Down at hand height, set into the limestone, there are ragged little chunks of rock with labels chiselled under them. That one's the Parthenon. That one's the Great Wall of China. Keep going — the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, Westminster Abbey, the Alamo, the Berlin Wall. A brick out of Abraham Lincoln's house.", "coordinates": { "latitude": 41.8905, "longitude": -87.6237 }, "image_url": "https://euuqfgxiwmpxyscuzcqv.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/tours/chicago/architecture/stops/2_tribune-tower.jpg", "is_free": false, "is_featured": false, "url": "https://badhistorian.com/stories/chicago/tribune-tower/" } ] }