The South Gardens at the AIC are magical––go in the middle of the summer when the whole gardens are lush, the flower pots are overflowing, and the leaves have came in on all the trees to form a sun-dappled canopy. Make sure to look at the Fountain of the Great Lakes––each woman in it personifies one of the Great Lakes of the region, and when the water is turned on, their seashell basins flow into one another in the same direction of the real lakes.

DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) is a world-class museum located in the heart of Lincoln Park on DePaul University’s campus. DPAM is open to the public and presents four to nine temporary exhibitions per year with a permanent collection of more than 3,500 objects with strengths in international modern and contemporary art. DPAM enriches the university’s commitments to excellence, diversity and social concerns.  Built in 2011, the LEED-certified building was designed by Antunovich Associates.

Chicago has great brutalist architecture but this is one I pass by all the time. It has been burned into my mind and I'm pretty sure it can fly.

Chicago is a gigantic open-air museum of hand painted signs and murals where you can still find gold leaf lettering in shop windows and ghost signs litter the city's brick walls. This handmade sign is on the wall of a Mexican garage near my apartment.

The Green Mill is Chicago's oldest Jazz club, open since 1907. Today it is an authentic link to past visitors like Al Capone and his henchman “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn who was the club’s former manager.