Open Doors Worldwide

This weekend was Open Doors Chicago. One of the many participating cities in this worldwide event that allows people to freely enter private buildings and take photos to their heart's content. From beautiful auditoriums, to forgotten and abandoned landmarks, there's quite the variety. I only did a tiny sampling of the buildings with the intent to capture view. Unfortunately it was an awful weekend with rainy weather, but I did what I could with the photos.

A couple photos were taken from abandoned top floor observatories. As tall towers were unseated in height by newer buildings, many owners closed off the observation decks and forgot about them. Some hadn't been opened since the 1970s!!!


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^ Wolf Point soon to host a trio of office and residential towers that could reach heights as tall as 1000' They could be the flagship towers of Chicago's post-recession skyscraper boom.

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On the move. The city will spend $1 Billion to rebuild stations and tracks as an interim plan to eventually reconstruct much of the aging system when even billions more become available. Funding was provided through the city's Building A New Chicago Infrastructure Trust. At the same time, I've seen miles of roads, sidewalks, police and fire stations, and shiny new schools go up. Definitely something impressive to witness in just a short period of time.

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^ Looking over Merchandise Mart, the 11th largest building in the United States....and yet nearly 100% occupied.

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^ New residential tower

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^ Wabash Canyon. CTA loop service is shutdown sundays while crews rebuild the tracks

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^ New colleges and universities populate once empty surface lots south of the loop. A realized dream by past city administrations to bring more students into the downtown. Old vintage office buildings have seen a second life as affordable apartments for students and young professionals bringing life to an area that had once fallen silent after rush hour.

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Wrigley building seeing a renovation and restoration. The ugly arch constructed between the buildings in recent times was demolished and a new plaza and retail arcade will be built

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Silent Sunday and a building renovation

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Ford Oriental Theater

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^ The inside of the art-deco Chicago Motor club. The building has sat abandoned for over 15 years. Finally, the public got to see the interior of this forgotten building. The building was recently sold and now on its way to becoming a hotel with its important historical features preserved.

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Great photos Wolverine.

You did manage to get the only recent building I like in Chicago - twice.

Are they tearing down the sun-times building?

Thanks. I wish they would tear down the sun times building. It's ugly IMO. Replace it with something nice. But the new towers will only partially obscure it.

Gorgeous pictures, I am so glad you shared them with us.

Thank you! I had friends in town from Michigan doing the tour. I'm wondering if Preservation Detroit could organize a similar event which would boost tourism. People come all over for this.

Sites I'm thinking would include:

- Guardian Building
- Whitney Building
- Penobscot Building
- Broderick Tower [[any vacant unit)
- RenCen
- 1 Woodward
- County Building
- Book Cadillac
- Fox Theater
- A variety of churches

The types of locations you visit in the Open Doors Program are:
- Architecturally impressive office space
- Locations with incredible views or observation decks
- Places of architectural significance where goods and products are manufactured
- Abandoned Buildings [[safe enough to visit without hard hats and safe air quality)
- Places of extraordinary architectural detail.