Places EmileeRicketts Wants to Go

This urban drawbridge gained eternal pop culture fame when the Blues Brothers jumped it while it was raised.

One of Chicago's last seafood smokehouses perfects a dying breed of fishcraft.

A one-armed veteran of the Battle of Waterloo lies in a cemetery for one in the middle of a Chicago scrapyard.

Chicago's North Park Village was once the largest municipal sanatorium in the country.

What may be America's largest classic video game arcade lurks inconspicuously in a Chicago suburb.

Chicago's largest cemetery is full of beautiful Victorian monuments and more than a few ghost stories.

Cemetery featuring rare glass-fronted columbarium.

The young Black revolutionary was killed before getting to see a non-segregated pool in his hometown.

A plaque marks a former safe house on the secret route, now hidden next to a McDonald's.

This morbid, delightful curiosity shop offers everything from animal bones to human teeth.

This landmark of the Chicago silent film industry may not be in the picture business anymore but it still stands proudly.

It was originally part of a "terrible lizards" collection at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

You can take a class, browse the library, or visit the lavish lair of an international men's humor society.

A century-old hotspot for jazz, frequented by everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone.

An antiquated German apothecary on Chicago's North Side.

This small, but long-running hobby club has built one of the largest model rail lines in the US.

A source of civic pride, though the reason for its construction is unknown.

Chicago’s incendiary role in the labor movement.

A haunting statue called "Eternal Silence" has quite the reputation among visitors with active imaginations.

A strange and haunting monument of unknown origin in the historic Graceland Cemetery.

The first home and studio that belonged to the famous architect.

An enormous park-like oasis, full of famous Chicagoans’ graves.

Chicago was once a major hub of film production, but being silent film you don’t hear much about it.

The famous author's birthplace is preserved in a town that he once described as narrow-minded.