A Speed Run Through Open House Chicago 2024

Touring as many sites as possible in this year’s Open House Chicago in one day

I’m a sucker for traditions. I love having those things to look forward to once every year; whether it’s my family “Slava” that I’ve continued celebrating since moving away from my parents or taking the time to enjoy drinking my “djezva” coffee accompanied with a rose Turkish delight every morning. It’s a lot of these seemingly silly or everyday things that I like to call tradition, because after all, the word tradition simply means a customary pattern of thought or behavior that holds significance, sometimes being passed on.

A new tradition that I’ve set up for myself in the past few years is attending Open House Chicago (OHC) every October. Hosted annually by the Chicago Architecture Center, OHC is a free self-guided tour that encompasses around 20 of the city’s neighborhoods and over 170 sites. Sites range from architecturally significant buildings, like decades-old movie buildings with intricate architectural details, to community-centered organizations and neighborhood artists.

A little over a month after moving to Chicago in 2022, I decided to check out the event, and I fell in love — I started by creating an itinerary for myself, followed my Google Maps list and took the CTA to as many new neighborhoods as I could. From exploring new places to talking with local artists and community organizers, I was sold from the get-go. Happening during a single weekend in October, OHC is popular for a reason. Personally, it was the way I first started my journey of discovering all of Chicago’s neighborhoods.

So, of course, I was going to do it again this year for round three. Doors were open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on October 19 and 20 for most sites, but I was disappointed when I realized that because of my schedule I was only going to be able to visit on Sunday. Although I am a sucker for tradition, I think the beauty of them is that they can be tweaked to individual values and situations while still staying true to their roots. This being said, I decided that this year I would try to do a speed run — meaning that my goal was to visit as many neighborhoods and sites as possible in around six hours only using public transit without a strict itinerary. I think I did pretty well.

Kenar Studio

After hopping on my tried-and-true Damen bus in North Center, I traveled south to Ukranian Village to my first Open House site of the day. Located on Wolcott, artist Jerzy Kenar’s studio (simply known as Kenar Studio) was one of the busiest locations I saw that day. After being greeted by OHC volunteers, visitors were welcome to explore the vast studio space freely; first walking through a bright, sunny room with large-scale paintings on either side before opening into a darker room with ten chairs placed next to one another and walls decorated by three large paintings. Moving further into the studio, visitors enter another room with high ceilings that are full of large-scale wooden sculptures including an intricate knot piece, a floating circular wooden cutout and numerous moving 10-foot phallic objects — all free to touch.

Since emigrating to Sweden and then to the United States from Poland in the early 1980s, Kenar has primarily worked with wood and bronze when creating his sculptures as well as acrylic in his large-scale painting. The studio, according to Kenar when talking about his work to OHC visitors, continues to be a center for many events for the Polish diaspora community. While presenting self-recorded soundscapes made to accompany each of the three large-scale paintings, Kenar answers visitors’ questions and mentions the scale of change he has seen his neighborhood go through. He notes that prices and taxes continue to rise, making his future in the neighborhood uncertain in the long term.

Kenar’s work has been installed at the Harold Washington Library, O’Hare airport, various churches in the city and more. A fun side note is that if you are familiar with the iconic “S—t Fountain” of Chicago, you are also familiar with Kenar’s work.

Jerzy Kenar greets and helps Open House Chicago visitors explore his studio on Sunday, October 20 2024. With various works on display, attendees has more a plethora of options to explore and ask questions about.

Ukrainian National Museum

My next location was just a small walking distance and one that I was particularly excited about. I often love exploring small, niche community museums, particularly those that are related to specific ethnicities and communities. Yet, I still hadn’t visited the Ukrainian National Museum until now. Located right across from the beautiful Saints Volodymyr & Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church, the museum is home to a rotating art gallery, a permanent exhibition centered around Ukrainian history — both within the country and the diaspora — as well as a rich archive library that, although closed that particular day, is open for community use. Walking around the exhibits, visitors were able to read histories dating back centuries while getting context through physical details on display, like traditional folk wardrobes — including the essential vyshyvanka — and my personal favorite, two huge shelves filled with intricately painted Pysanky eggs.

The museum, which has been around since 1952, regularly hosts literary evenings, concerts and social events. The neighborhood is home to two Ukrainian Orthodox churches, two Catholic churches, a parochial school and two Ukrainian Saturday schools. Lydia Tkaczuk, the president of the museum’s board, grew up in the neighborhood and remembers that these were the very same elements that were important to her family to foster traditions. Like within many diaspora communities, cultural traditions may slowly get lost through generations. In Tkaczuk’s view, lost traditions could also be a result of when a country is free and people get lax — however, it isn’t to say that traditions aren’t fostered or valued. “We do have a big influx of Ukrainians that are in that U4U [Uniting for Ukraine] program that are coming here, so I think that’s our future that will help us survive,” said Tkaczuk. “But, I don’t know, I think our neighborhood has really held its own.”

Open House Chicago participants explore the Ukrainian National Museum on Sunday, October 20 2024. Two floors and multiple rooms were open for the public to explore and learn about Ukrainian culture.

“Intermission”

After exiting the museum and thinking about where exactly it made the most sense to go time and CTA-wise, I realized that it would feel wrong to spend time in Ukrainian Village and not pay a visit to Ann’s Bakery and Deli.

Ann’s is simply one of those Chicago institutions that if you haven’t visited, you are missing out. It’s a neighborhood grocery store filled to the brim with Ukrainian and Slavic delights; a wall dedicated to a variety of canned fish and pickled vegetables, a bakery making fresh bread alongside traditional cakes and a deli counter that, in my biased opinion, may be one of the best in the city. Fresh-cut meats, smoked fish, hard-to-find cheeses and traditional dishes are only some of the gems available. I knew I was going to get hungry sometime throughout the day and opted to buy a Napoleon cake (layers upon layers of puff pastry all filled with rich vanilla cream) before heading to the southbound Ashland bus just down the street.

Growing Home Urban Farm

Englewood’s Growing Home Urban Farm is an OHC site that I have been wanting to visit every year but hadn’t got a chance to do until now. Located on Wood St. between 58th and 59th, Growing Home has been serving their community for over 20 years. After being greeted by friendly volunteers of the farm, OHC visitors were welcome to walk around the grounds exploring hoop houses and plots that were currently hosts to peppers and various leafy greens.

Growing Home doesn’t just serve their community with fresh and locally grown food, but also provides on-the-job training and job-readiness programs for Englewood residents. A neighborhood historically underserved by the city of Chicago, it is community initiatives like Growing Home that continue to play an important role in rejuvenating the neighborhood by helping to “start people on the path to self-sufficiency,” as stated on their website.

One of many Growing Home Urban Farm’s greenhouses open for he public to explore during Open House Chicago on Sunday, October 20 2024. Peppers and leafy greens are some of the most common products being harvested at the farm.

Hyde Park Arts Center

In order to save time and to try and fit in at least two more sites into my schedule, I opted to travel west to Hyde Park via the Garfield bus and visit the Hyde Park Arts Center. It’s worth noting that there were some really great locations opened to the public on the Southeast side and Pullman neighborhoods this year, but for the sake of time, I was unable to tour them (there’s always next year!)

The Art Center has been a resource hub since 1939, serving artists and students alike at this particular location since 2006. People who are interested in learning or honing their skills can choose from classes and workshops including ceramics, painting, drawing, screen printing, printmaking, photography and airbrushing — all taught on a pay-what-you-can basis. Student Services Coordinator Victoria Sockwell mentions, “A lot of the feedback I get from students who’ve been here is that this has been a wonderful environment to build community outside of just living in Hyde Park.

“They’re building artistic communities where they’re learning different ways to do their art craft or different places that they can go to do this work or where to show their artwork around the city.”

Aside from hosting lessons and serving as an important community space, the center has a rotating exhibition of in-house artists that are available to be viewed by anyone. The exhibition on display during OHC was by textile artist and painter Robert Paige, titled “The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige,” consisting of a variety of large- and small-scale textile designs and painted fabrics. The exhibition room’s walls are lined with vibrant painted fabrics and textile designs, the floors are covered with eye-catching rugs, and the ceiling is draped with massive textile designs.

Hyde Park Art Center exhibition “The United Colors of Robert Earl Paige” on display during Open House Chicago 2024 on Sunday, October 20.

Chicago Board of Trade Building

As I started to head back up north, I realized that my initial plans of checking out some Uptown OHC sites wouldn’t pan out since I had only about an hour and a half left. It’s not that I don’t like the Loop, it’s just that I spend so much time there for school and work that I often opt to avoid it when I don’t have to be there. In an effort to continue exploring as much as possible, I decided my best bet to fit in one more site was to take the Jackson Park Express bus and find something interesting in the Loop.

I first saw the Chicago Board of Trade building listed to be open for visitors to visit the actual trade floor but unfortunately, that was only a possibility on Saturday — What a missed opportunity. When else would I have been able to say I was on the trade floor? Nevertheless, on Sunday the building was open for touring and specifically mentioned that visitors were able to enter a massive secure vault in the basement. The building is Art Deco galore, making you feel as if you were immediately transported to the 1920s — like at any moment the elevator doors would open and flapper girls accompanied by a live jazz band would walk out. The tall ceilings, marble floors and designs on the walls seemingly haven’t changed in a century, giving the building a special sense of being stuck in time (irony at its finest considering how fast-paced brokers work). As OHC volunteers steered the last of this year’s visitors towards the basement, I was surprised with how many people were participating in OHC at this particular location — it was the last day and almost 5 p.m.

When I finally reached the vault, I was completely taken aback by just how huge it was. Like in one of those cliché spy or heist movies, visitors were able to examine the massive door and walk into the vault itself, leaving them to wonder how hard it would be to break into such a thing.

Visitors and attendees of Open House Chicago explore the Chicago Board of Trade buildings vault on Sunday, October 20 2024.

Although my Open House Chicago tradition looked a bit different from the past, I still had a lot of fun doing my favorite things; I explored new places, talked to people and took photos. I suggest to anyone reading that you do the same soon for whatever it is that’s your favorite thing — you never know when it might become a tradition.