Streeterville

Streeterville continued...

Our Streeterville includes Navy Pier, the Ferris wheel and the water. The Pier, with its skyline views, boat rides, shows, restaurants and refreshments -- and the Shakespeare Theatre -- is one of Chicago's prime visitor attractions. It's the Ferris wheel that especially resonates, not only as a revolving, twinkling billboard of sorts but as a link to the city's history: The first one in the world, recycled long ago, rose in the Hyde Park neighborhood for the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition.

The Streeterville territory between Lake Michigan and street addresses that begin at 200 East is dominated by large buildings -- vintage and newer condominiums and apartments, and health care and research facilities associated with Northwestern University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

There are also points of interest for visitors and locals alike.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, behind Water Tower Place (which belongs to the Mag Mile), combines its own collection of post-1945 artwork with changing exhibitions. Some of the artists in its own collection are familiar -- works by Andy Warhol, Rene Magritte, Claes Oldenberg and Ed Paschke and more. Others are there to be discovered and debated.

Mies Van Der Rohe, the modernist architect and designer, lived at 200 E. Pearson St. He's not represented in the museum and didn't live to see it -- his 1967 death preceded its opening by 27 years -- but his flat is just north of the museum's entrance . . . which faces Mies Van Der Rohe Way.

Want to see Van Der Rohe's "less is more" in the neighborhood? Walk toward the lake along Oak Street east of Michigan -- Oak Street becomes East Lake Shore Drive here -- pass the Drake Hotel (Mag Mile again), admire the row of exquisite apartment buildings along the way, continue to the end of the block, turn right and you'll see a pair of tall, mostly-glass buildings framed by a grid of black steel.

The buildings are 860-880 Lake Shore Drive (1949-51). Considered by architecture buffs to be the quintessential minimalist Mies, the concept has been much-emulated, even by Van Der Rohe. (See the 1959 Dirksen and Kluczynski Federal Buildings in the Loop.)

For an idea of what the neighborhood looked like before things got big here, find 222 E. Ontario St. , a half-block east of St. Clair. This is Les Nomades, one of Streeterville's finest restaurants.

But before you drop in for dinner, or even if you don't, look at the townhouse it's in. Walk west past the big Marriott hotel next door that dwarfs the restaurant and check out 212 E. Ontario, another townhouse, this one converted to offices.

That's what was.

Back to what is.

On Illinois Street near Navy Pier, warehouses have become the River East Art Center. The open loft/glass setting of the galleries is almost as interesting as the artwork featured within them.

At 610 N. Fairbanks Court, and easily bypassed, is the Pritzker Military Library. Students of war -- particularly wars involving the U.S. but all wars dating to the Punic ones (Rome vs. Carthage, of course) -- will find priceless resources here; more casual observers might find its poster collection and rotating exhibitions of interest.

Streeterville does have, along with Les Nomades, other restaurants of note. Critics have swooned over Pelago Ristorante (Italian), on Delaware Place in the Raffaello Hotel, unrecognizable from its days as a piano bar and Harry Caray hangout. The Saloon Steakhouse, on Chestnut Street in the Seneca Hotel, has devotees among local carnivores. Emilio's Sol y Nieve, on Ohio Street, offers mostly tapas. And on Grand Avenue at St. Clair Street, in the afternoon shadow of Tribune Tower, is Volare, another well-rated Italian restaurant.

And speaking of food and drink: Show business fans will be interested to know that the third floor at 610 Fairbanks -- one level above the Pritzker library -- from 1932 until 1960 was home to the Chez Paree nightclub, Chicago's Copacabana.

Modern offices have replaced the stage where Sinatra sang and the Chez Paree Adorables kicked, but if those bricks could talk . . . or sing . . .

For more information about Streeterville, please contact the Streeterville Chamber of Commerce (312.664.2560) or the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association (312.642.3570).