Sights in Uptown
THE 5 BEST Landmarks in Uptown (Chicago)
Sights in Uptown
Category types
Types of Attractions
Sights & Landmarks
Traveller rating
Neighbourhoods
Good for
9 results sorted by traveller favourites
- Things to do ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings, number of page views, and user location.
We perform checks on reviews.
Tripadvisor’s approach to reviews
Before posting, each Tripadvisor review goes through an automated tracking system, which collects information, answering the following questions: how, what, where and when. If the system detects something that potentially contradicts our community guidelines, the review is not published.
When the system detects a problem, a review may be automatically rejected, sent to the reviewer for validation, or manually reviewed by our team of content specialists, who work 24/7 to maintain the quality of the reviews on our site.
Our team checks each review posted on the site disputed by our community as not meeting our community guidelines.
Learn more about our review moderation.
Neighbourhoods
Ravenswood
Recommended Sightseeing Experiences (198)
Revenue impacts these recommendations, learn more.
Points of Interest & Landmarks
Uptown
Historic Sites • Architectural Buildings
Uptown
What travellers are saying
- JPatti1Chicago, IL267 contributionsJust the most beautiful cemetery around and full of so many important figures from Chicago history, US architecture and even sports. We all should be so lucky as to spend perpetuity in a place such as this.Written 5 October 2024This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- teacher1349Billerica, MA4 contributionsThe Swedish museum is like 2-3 rooms, but it is like walking through "Kirsten's world" from American Girl. It took me an hour or so and I recommend it, but if time is limited, you can also just look in the Gift shop for free, and that was huge. They had good candy there, including chocolate bars and REAL Swedish Fish!!
The Galleria had tiny little booths for many different craftspeople. There was jewelry and blown glass and cards and a million other things. The Ann Salter restaurant was quite the walk away, but it rounded out my visit with some Swedish treats.
The RAYGUN store has really funny t-shirts and stationary products.
I really enjoyed the shops and the feel of this neighborhood and I would like to go back to see what I might have missed.Written 6 August 2023This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews. - EliasChicago, IL819 contributionsI haven't seen a lot of churches in Chicago, bit for sure this one is beautiful. The exterior is very impressive and good to look at. The interior is beautiful as well.Written 25 April 2016This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- Taylor BChicago, IL8,479 contributionsCharlie Chaplin was here. So was Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. And Bronco Billy Anderson, Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, Gloria Swanson, Harold lloyd, Tom Mix and Francis X. Bushman. This is where Hollywood began--the Essanay Studios at 1333-1345 West Argyle Street in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. The studio was founded in 1907. Its first film, "An Awful Skate" or "The Hobo on Rollers," starring Ben Turpin (then the studio janitor), was produced for only a couple hundred dollars and released in July 1907. It grossed several thousand dollars and the studio began to prosper. In 1914, Essanay succeeded in hiring Charlie Chaplin away from Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, offering him a higher salary and his own production unit. He made 14 short comedies for Essanay in 1915, including the landmark "The Tramp" with the famous shot of the lonely tramp with his back to the camera, walking down the road dejectedly, then squaring his shoulders optimistically and heading for his next adventure. Chaplin disliked the unpredictable weather of Chicago and left after only one year for sunny California and more money and more creative control. The Essanay building was later taken over by independent producer Norman Wilding, who made industrial films. In the early 1970s, a portion of the studio was offered to Columbia College for a dollar but the offer lapsed without action. Then it was given to a non-profit television corporation which sold it. One tenant was the midwest office of Technicolor. Today the Essanay lot is the home of St. Augustine's College and its main meeting hall has been named the Charlie Chaplin Auditorium. The studio was designated a Chicago Landmark by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks in 1996 and acknowledged as the most important structure connected to the city's role in the history of motion pictures.Written 29 December 2014This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- crunch6Northbrook, IL728 contributionsThere is so much to learn here and the members are so passionate about sharing information about this temple that has been here since the Japanese concentration camps in the USA opened in the 40's. Make sure to see the silent room and the hand-carved altar. Thank you for opening at Open House Chicago!Written 20 October 2019This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- crunch6Northbrook, IL728 contributionsThis is a HIDDEN TREASURE in Chicago that so few people know of. We came here for Open Chicago and it was delightful to see everyone's faces just mesmerized by the huge train set. It is open on Friday nights and also on November 14th for an Open House. GO!!!Written 20 October 2019This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- Taylor BChicago, IL8,479 contributionsThe grave site of widely acclaimed architect Daniel Burnham in Chicago's historic Graceland Cemetery is noted on TripAdvisor's website. But Daniel Burnham Park on Chicago's lakefront, which covers 583.4 acres and includes some of the city's most endearing attractions, isn't listed at all. Go figure. Burnham, was was described as "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ever produced," was an architect and urban designer who was the Director of Works for the 1892-1983 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and co-authored the visionary Plan of Chicago in 1909. He died in 1912 and his ashes were interred on a picturesque island in Lake Willowmere in Chicago's Graceland Cemetery, a unique shrine for a larger-than-life figure in a "cemetery of architects" that also includes the burial plots of Lorado Taft, Louis Sullivan, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, John Root, Howard Van Doren Shaw and Daniel Chester French. Burnham and his family are buried under natural glacial granite boulders at the north end of the lake. The grave site is reachable via a permanent footbridge. Today, it is surrounded by shrubs, trees, lush greenery and wetland plants that attract fish, turtles, frogs and a host of water birds. Of all the grand monuments and mausoleums that are part of the history of Graceland Cemetery, which is located at 4001 North Clark Street and dates to 1860, no grave site is more impressive than Burnham's. He may not have said "Make no little plans" in referring to his work -- the quote was credited to him by a biographer -- but it certainly applies.Written 20 August 2024This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- Taylor BChicago, IL8,479 contributionsChicago's Graceland Cemetery is one of the most historic and picturesque cemeteries in the United States, in a class with Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC and Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. And one of the reasons why is the Carrie Eliza Getty Tomb, acknowledged as the most significant piece of architecture in the 121-acre garden/arboretum located at Clark Street and Irving Park Road on the city's North Side, north of Wrigley Field. Commissioned in 1890 by the lumber baron, Henry Harrison Getty, for his wife, the tomb was designed by the noted American architect, Louis Sullivan, who also designed the Martin Ryerson Mausoleum for Getty's late partner, which also stands in Graceland Cemetery. The Getty Tomb is said to be the beginning of Sullivan's involvement in the architectural style known as the Chicago School. It stands on its own triangular plot of land and is composed of limestone masonry construction. Roughly a cube in shape, the bottom half is composed of large, smooth limestone blocks while the upper half is composed of a rectangular pattern of octagons, each containing an eight-pointed starburst design. The cornice is banded with smooth limestone above intricate spiraling patterns below and the top-edge of the roofline is straight and horizontal on the front and back and scalloped in a concave fashion on the sides. But what is most compelling about the design with the ornate doorway, an intricately ornamented bronze gate and door, spanned by a broad semi-circular archway. Henry Getty joined his wife in the tomb after his death in 1919 and their only child was added in 1946. In 1971, the tomb as designated a Chicago Landmark. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.Written 13 May 2023This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
- Taylor BChicago, IL8,479 contributionsThere are many reasons to visit historic Graceland Cemetery at 4001 North Clark Street in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. It is the burial site of many notable Chicagoans and it features several mausoleums and burial sites that are masterpieces of architecture and landscape. One is the Potter Palmer and Bertha Honore Palmer Memorial. Erected in 1921, it is a monument to two of the giants of Chicago development and high society. Potter Palmer (1826-1902) was a business tycoon and real estate developer who built State Street and the Palmer House Hotel. Bertha Honore Palmer (1850-1918) was considered the queen of Chicago high society and patron of impressionist artists. They lived in a Gothic Castle at 1350 North Lake Shore Drive, once the largest private residence in Chicago. Today, they lie within the two large granite sarcophagi of the massive memorial structure, which is embellished with flowery garlands and inverted torches symbolizing death. Designed by architects McKim, Mead and White, it is built in the style of a Greek temple, the largest and most significant tomb in Graceland Cemetery. Sixteen massive ionic columns ring the structure and a line of antifixes stand at attention along the roofline. Three generations of the Palmers' descendants lie beneath the floor around time. The tomb was Palmer's way of displaying his wealth in a big way. How wealthy was Potter Palmer? When his hotel was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, he borrowed $2 million from an insurance company, the largest amount lent to a private individual up to that time, and rebuilt State Street and the Palmer House Hotel and turned swampland into North Lake Shore Drive.Written 2 October 2020This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
