A parish built it; Chicago theatre never gave it back. The Athenaeum at 2936 North Southport Avenue in Lakeview opened in 1911, designed by architect Hermann J. Gaul for the Redemptorist Fathers of St. Alphonsus as a home for the intellectual, physical and social intercourse of their German-Catholic parishioners - opera, dance, orchestral and dramatic productions from day one. More than a century later it is Chicago's oldest continuously operating Off-Loop theatre, now run as the Athenaeum Cente.....

The butcher shop in the back became one of Chicago's hardest-working stages. Beat Kitchen at 2100 West Belmont Avenue has anchored the Roscoe Village corner of Belmont and Hoyne since 1990, serving live music, food and beer out of an 1889 building whose back room spent its first century as the neighbourhood butcher's before conversion into the venue's music room. Owner Robert Gomez - whose portfolio also includes Wicker Park's Subterranean - has kept the formula steady for three decades: a prope.....

The Moorish castle of Uptown has been Chicago's dream palace for a century. The Aragon Ballroom opened on 15 July 1926 at 1106 West Lawrence Avenue, built for 2 million dollars by brothers Andrew and William Karzas to surpass their own south-side Trianon as "the Wonder Ballroom of the World." Architects Huszagh and Hill wrapped the block in Spanish Baroque stucco while John Eberson - America's master of atmospheric movie palaces - designed the interior as the courtyard of a Moorish castle under .....

Chicago's last honky-tonk survived the neighbourhood, the taxman and two years of darkness. Carol's Pub at 4923 North Clark Street, at the corner of Clark and Leland in Uptown's Sheridan Park enclave, opened in 1972 as Pam's Playhouse under Ted Harris, an Alabama transplant who knew exactly who his customers were: the huge wave of Appalachian and southern migrants who had turned post-war Uptown into "Hillbilly Heaven," a district of honky-tonks, diners and drag-strip streets. When Ted died in 19.....

Standing at the southern edge of Lincoln Park, where Clark Street meets North Avenue, the Chicago History Museum holds the collections of the Chicago Historical Society, an institution founded in 1856 and among the oldest cultural organisations in the city. Its early collections were twice devastated by fire, including the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and the society rebuilt each time before moving to its present Georgian-style building, which opened in 1932. The museum took its current public n.....

A century-old Wicker Park auto body garage now butchers whole animals in the front and books indie tours in the back. Chop Shop at 2033 West North Avenue opened in October 2013 as Chicago's only sustainable butcher, deli, restaurant and bar attached to a full concert venue - the two-story building, vacant for years, was bought in August 2011 by investor Nick Moretti, who brought in Mario Minelli of Minelli Meats to run the food side and Matt Woodburn to book and manage the performance space. The.....

Three festival promoters bought a nightclub to fill the hole the Congress Theater left, and built one of Chicago's hardest-working mid-size rooms. Concord Music Hall at 2047 North Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square opened in August 2013 - Adam Ant played the first show on 1 August, with the official opening on the 17th - after React Presents, Silver Wrapper and Riot Fest, the teams behind Spring Awakening, North Coast Music Festival and Riot Fest itself, converted the former VLive nightclub just u.....

Few bars in America have a more storied address than 1059 West Addison Street, directly across from the Wrigley Field marquee in Chicago's Wrigleyville neighbourhood. The Cubby Bear has occupied the corner of Addison and Clark since 1953 and has earned Best Rock Club from the Chicago Music Awards, number-one Neighbourhood Bar in Chicago from Maxim, and a seventh-place ranking among the best sports bars in the United States from Sports Illustrated. The venue spans over 30,000 square feet and hol.....

No seat in the house is more than 45 feet from the stage - not even in the balcony. The Gary and Laura Maurer Concert Hall, at 4544 North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Square, is the flagship performance room of the Old Town School of Folk Music, the storied teaching institution that has anchored the city's folk scene since 1957. The hall occupies the school's Lincoln Square West building, a handsome former public library the Old Town School converted when it moved north from its original.....

Horner Park is a Chicago Park District facility on the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois, featuring athletic fields, playgrounds, and a fieldhouse that hosts community events, outdoor concerts, and neighbourhood festivals.