Pullman It’s one of the biggest stories in Chicago history, yet its Far South Side location keeps most Chicagoans from visiting, and that’s a shame. For much of the original town of Pullman, the grand experiment in building a self-contained company town, still remains, and deserves to be on of Chicago’s premier tourist destinations. The founder of the Pullman Company, George Pullman was a titan of Chicago business in the nineteenth century who stood alongside the Fields, the Palmers and the Armours among Chicago’s early captains of industry. Known for his innovative sleeper railcars in his day, as well as his experiment in social engineering, his company town later became the setting for a seminal moment in American labor history, when the Pullman Strike resulted from his cutting wages without cutting rents. Federal troops put down the strike, but Pullman’s reputation never recovered. Today, many of the structures in this landmark neighborhood are preserved by the Historic Pullman Foundation (pullmanil.org), which operates a visitor’s center with self-guided walking tours, as well as monthly guided tours. And one weekend each October, residents open their homes to the Historic Pullman House Tour, with participants ranging from worker cottages to mansions on display. Metra Electric Line, 111th Street-Pullman and 115th Street-Kensington stations
Audience choice: Ravinia Best audience comment: I can`t remember anyone being outed on the CTA or Metra hmm… make sure the politicians have a WIDE STANCE.
Best of Chicago 2007
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El of a Night: Twelve Hours on the Red and Blue Lines While I ride CTA trains a few times a week, I was interested in getting a better sense of what conditions are like on the El at other times of the day. So I hung out on the Red and Blue routes from 5pm to 5am.
