Exploring Chicago’s Well-Known Neighborhoods

Lincoln Park Block by Block focuses on how people work, play, and live in this neighborhood and allows visitors to share their own memories and connections. The exhibition will take visitors through the evolution of the area from a natural landscape to the bustling urban neighborhood it is today. Many historical and cultural events affected Lincoln Park over the past 150 years, including the Great Chicago Fire, the opening of Chicago’s first public beach, and the riots of the late 1960s. The exhibition will highlight these and other notable Lincoln Park events and points of interest. As part of the Museum’s celebration of the Lincoln Bicentennial, Lincoln Park Block by Block tells the story of how Lincoln Park was named in honor of President Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865.

The exhibition is set on an oversized map, and invites visitors to use their feet to navigate the streets of Lincoln Park in the gallery, and then encourages visitors to venture outside into the actual park and neighborhood. In the exhibition, visitors will be able to sit in a swan boat from the Lincoln Park Zoo, see actor Bill Murray jump from a plane during the Chicago Air and Water Show, and learn why the world’s first Ferris wheel was temporarily reconstructed on North Clark Street in 1895. The exhibition also touches on events that occurred in the neighborhood, taking visitors to the infamous gangland sites of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and where bank robber John Dillinger was shot.

Those who wish to learn more about the community are encouraged to blaze their own trails outside by using a takeaway map provided at the end of the exhibition. The map guides visitors to see some of the

neighborhood’s many familiar and unknown landmarks such as the Second City, Twin Anchors Restaurant and Tavern (a Chicago favorite of Frank Sinatra and Conan O’Brien), Vienna Beef headquarters, and a block of wood-frame cottages that survived the 1871 fire.

While visiting the Museum, guests can also register for Lincoln Park walking tours taking place this summer on July 18 and August 8. Also, an online component to the exhibition includes a curator blog where visitors can continue exploring Lincoln Park history.

This exhibition would not have been possible without the generous support from DePaul University with additional support provided by Children’s Memorial Hospital. The Museum opens at noon on Saturday, July 4 following a special public program celebrating the Fourth of July holiday from 10 a.m. until 12 Noon. -- www.chicagohistory.org