The United States's largest hand-dug well is topped with a state-of-the-art museum.

This Chinese-style quartz sundial was saved in its final hour.

A collection of over 15,000 zines works to preserve DIY publishing culture.

Small and slightly hidden, the American Writers Museum is preserving the legacy of America's finest authors.

An outdoor urban gallery of large-scale artworks by the world's most influential street artists.

To find the "unicorns of the deep" you've got to go downstairs.

This urban drawbridge gained eternal pop culture fame when the Blues Brothers jumped it while it was raised.

Assemble a masterpiece at the first and only North American school exclusively dedicated to mosaic art.

This surprising gem is a world-class archeological museum hidden at the University of Chicago.

An avant garde art museum at the University of Chicago.

The beloved home to all publications indie, erotic, and punky.

Combination beer garden and music venue in the heart of Wicker Park.

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

Built to house a chapter of the Knights Templar, this grandiose building is a relic of Freemasonry in Chicago a century ago.

This $3 million model train takes you through Chicago, Seattle, and the thousands of miles in between.

The world's only known button museum.

Years of archaeology, just chillin' by the water cooler.

Nonprofit art center that promotes outsider, intuitive, and self-taught art.

This historic hotel invented the chocolate brownie.

Internationally known record store and purveyor of "dusties."

Chicago's largest cemetery is full of beautiful Victorian monuments and more than a few ghost stories.

This unauthorized stone mermaid was secretly carved out of public stone before being permanently preserved.

A hollow cement depiction of time's inexorable effect on the human body.

An antiquated German apothecary on Chicago's North Side.