: Chicago History Museum
Sightseeing
The Chicago History Museum, formerly known as the Chicago Historical Society, is a must-see for all Chicago natives and visitors. The city’s oldest cultural institution, the Museum is all new after completing a nine month renovation in September 2006.The Museum’s permanent exhibition, Chicago: Crossroads of America, explores the city’s economy, crises, innovation, neighborhoods, and entertainment. Visitors entering the exhibition are greeted by ‘L’ Car No. 1, the city’s first elevated train car. The Museum also installed its first Children’s Gallery, where kids can explore Chicago’s history using their five senses. Additional highlights include a Costume and Textile Gallery that showcases the Museum’s premier costume collection, and installation throughout the building, including a 1978 Chevy Monte Carlo custom low-rider and Lincoln’s death bed, and artifacts from Chicago’s two world’s fairs.
: Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies
Sightseeing
Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies reopens in November 2007 in a stunning new building designed by award-winning Chicago-based architects Krueck & Sexton. The innovative, environmentally sustainable facility features interlocking interior spaces and a one-of-a-kind ten-story faceted window wall that provides spectacular views of the Chicago skyline, Millennium Park, Grant Park, and Lake Michigan. The Institute includes Spertus Museum, Chicago’s Jewish museum, as well as Spertus College, a leading resource for graduate education in Jewish Studies, Leadership, and Nonprofit Management. Research offerings are provided by the Asher Library and Chicago Jewish Archives.
The building's two top floors feature approximately 8,000 square feet of open gallery space housing Spertus Museum's core-collection display, exhibited in a visible storage area that presents approximately 1,000 objects from the Museum's outstanding 15,000-piece collection. The galleries also present site-specific installations of work by leading international artists and a series of special changing exhibitions.
On the fourth floor, an interactive Children's Center (designed with the artistic team of Redmoon Theater) focuses on the building blocks of literacy: letters, language, and storytelling. The evocative setting includes cloudscapes, night skies, and hands-on activities such as climbing tubes, mazes, and kinetic sculptures designed to introduce young visitors to the unique role of storytelling in the Jewish tradition. A special resource center is available for parents and teachers.
A second-floor kosher café run by Wolfgang Puck offers grab-and-go sandwiches, salads, pastries, and coffee drinks. A beautiful gift and bookshop in the lobby showcases work by leading Israeli designers, and features a special section of educational toys, games, and books for children. Wireless Internet is available throughout the building.
A diverse schedule of public programming includes lectures, performance, comedy, and film, as well as community festivals and celebrations. For hours, admission, parking, and program information, visit www.spertus.edu.
Museum Hours
Sunday-Wednesday 10 am – 6 pm
Thursday 10 am – 7 pm
Friday 10 am – 3 pm
Spertus is closed Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath, and public and Jewish holidays.
Museum Admission
$7 general museum admission
$5 for students and seniors
Spertus members and children under 5 free
Free museum admission for everyone every Tuesday from 10 am – 12 noon and every Thursday from 3 – 7 pm.
: Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
Sightseeing
Mitchell Museum of the American Indian is the only museum in the Chicago-area that focuses exclusively on the history, culture and arts of North American native peoples. The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian was founded in 1977 with John and Betty Mitchell's gift to Kendall College of their Native American collection. Based on almost 60 years of collecting, primarily among the Southwest, Plains and Great Lakes Indians, the Mitchell Collection provided a nucleus of approximately 3,000 individual objects. Over the past 20 years numerous gifts and purchases have increased the Museum's collection to more than three times the original size.
In 1997 the Mitchell Museum moved to its current home in northwest Evanston, approximately 2 miles from the main Kendall College campus. The three level brick and concrete building provides room for permanent exhibits dedicated to the Native cultures of the Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Northwest Coast and Arctic regions of North America. Each gallery contains a "touching table" where visitors can handle real examples of Indian artifacts, as well as feel the raw materials - including snakeskin, caribou fur, birch bark, turquoise and buffalo skin - that were used by Native Americans. There are also two changing galleries that feature special temporary exhibits.
