Brown Line El Tour

This adventure was brought to you by the Chicago History Museum. I am a member and decided to start taking advantage of some of their awesome tours. I've done the historical pub crawls, but have not done any of the El or Walking tours. So, I decided that the Brown Line El Tour would be my first one. Tours meet at the Palmer House Hotel, which is a magnificent hotel that I will certainly be back to explore (especially the bar). Our group had about 14 which was on the larger size. I'd say the average age of the group was about 50. Sadly, not a lot of hot single guys on this one....but I digress.



Our journey started at the Library stop:





From there is was on to the Armitage stop:

We got off at Armitage and looked at some of the older buildings in the area.

And then we walked up a few blocks to look at the McCormick Row Houses. I work in this area and have seen the houses before, but never really paid attention to them. These houses are designed in the Queen Anne style and were originally part of the McCormick Theological Seminary and were housing for students. Now they are actual homes.

We boarded the Brown Line at Fullerton and took it all the way north to the Fransico stop, which had been recently renovated. Ellen Harvey did this tile mosaic.

From here we got back on the train and took it south to the Western stop which lets you off in the heart of Lincoln Square. Lincoln Square is known as the German neighborhood and has an abundance of German restaurants. One of my favorite places is Merz Apothecary which specializes in herbal remedies and bath and body products from Europe.

We continued to wander the neighborhood and stooped by the Krause Music Store which was designed by Louis Sullivan.

We made a quick detour to the Old Town School of Folk Music (which used to be a public library) and then went back to the Western station. Now, here's something neat. The Western station houses a piece of the Berlin Wall!

Overall, it was a great tour. It was supposed to run 2 hours, but we were a little longer. I blame that on the old people who were slowing us up. Who brings an 80 year old on a walking tour? Really, people.