The palatial McDonald's that inspired Wesley Willis.

Once at the center of U.S. finance, the historic Trading Room was meticulously recreated piece by piece and rebuilt in the Art Institute.

These chunky stone towers out in Lake Michigan are the key to Chicago’s drinking water.

This cheerfully-named branch of the Chicago River is the fetid result of years of blood, entrails, and meatpacking waste.

Former bath house turns gastropub.

An actual 1957 Cadillac De Ville, encased in 15 cubic yards of concrete.

One of the last functioning antique elevators in Chicago.

One of the largest pieces of scientific equipment ever carried on a NASA space shuttle sits in a Chicago alley.

Former meatpacking facility turned vertical farm and sustainable business complex.

The twin towers in this Chicago fountain use 50 foot tall video screens to spit on people.

This alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after the fateful Iroquois Theatre fire.

Chicago's North Park Village was once the largest municipal sanatorium in the country.

Each of these gorgeous, intricately decorated rooms is painstakingly crafted to the scale of 1 inch: 1 foot.

This museum celebrating the almighty dollar lets visitors literally stand in the shadow of a million bucks.

What's left of the ruins of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition, or World's Fair, also known as the White City.

This historic hotel invented the chocolate brownie.

All of Chicago's wood-paved streets are long gone but two alleys remain.

A science teacher's dream.

A century-old hotspot for jazz, frequented by everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone.

A monument to the art of slicing people open.

A lush green oasis in the middle of Chicago.

A spectacular remnant of an Adler and Sullivan masterpiece that was destroyed in 1972.

This massive stained-glass masterpiece is thought to be the largest Tiffany dome in existence.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.