River North, Chicago

An architectural highlight of River North is Marina City (by Bertrand Goldberg, 1963-64), a 590ft/179m high twin-towered 61-storey office and apartment complex on the Chicago River.

The gigantic Merchandise Mart, which belonged to the Kennedy family until 1998, is found 550yd/500m west of Marina City in River North. This furniture and building materials "supermarket", originally built in 1928 and since then repeatedly enlarged, now has no fewer than 1800 showrooms. It was extended in 1991 by the addition of a large shopping mall.There is more than four million square feet of retail and exhibition space within the facility walls. Most of the areas are off limits to the public, catering only to design professionals and authorized buyers. It hosts numerous trade shows and conferences throughout the year.

The Peace Museum promotes peace through the visual and performing arts. Reputedly, it is the first and only museum in the U.S. devoted entirely to the peace movement. Among the more than 10,000 artifacts in the collection is an acoustic guitar owned by John Lennon and an original manuscript by Bono, the lead singer of U2.Artist Mark Rogovin and Marjorie Craig Benton, the former ambassador to UNICEF, founded it in 1981. Begun as a way to inform the public about the horrors of global war, the museum now devotes an equal amount of time to promoting peace at home.

Exhibits at the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago showcase Ukrainian culture, history, geography and art. Visitors can see dolls and mannequins dressed in traditional Ukrainian costumes, folk art, metalwork, carvings, Easter eggs, ceramics, musical instruments, household items, agricultural tools and historical dioramas. The museum also operates a library and archives with books, periodicals and historical information about a variety of Ukraine-related subjects.

This 1892 Romanesque stone building served as Cook County's court house until 1929. It was here that Clarence Darrow defended murderers and where journalists Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur derived the inspiration for their 1928 work, The Front Page. In the 1980s the building was renovated and now provides professional office space.

The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is a one-story building in the heart of Chicago's Ukrainian village built in 1971 to showcase works by artists of Ukrainian descent. The main gallery features 5 to 6 temporary exhibits each year. The three side galleries house a permanent collection including Chicago artists as well as sculptors and painters of Ukrainian descent.

The Newberry Library is a Romaneque building that was designed in 1893 by Henry Ives Cobb. This research library concentrates on the humanities and presents lectures, seminars and special events throughout the year.The Newberry Library sits on Washington Square Park, which is the oldest in Chicago.