2300 LINCOLN PARK WEST
CHICAGO, IL 60614
LINCOLN PARK
The Belden-Stratford is a first class hotel near downtown Chicago, across from Lincoln Park. The hotel is a Chicago landmark and has been completely and beautifully refurbished and enhanced with all the accoutrements of luxury living. Our idyllic location, across from the Flower Conservatory and Lincoln Park Zoo, puts you steps from the lake and public transportation. The dramatic two-story Grand Lobby reflects exquisite European elegance and is perfectly accented with Empire period furnishings. The guest rooms are luxurious and some feature wrap-around views of the surrounding area. The timeless elegance of the Belden-Stratford will remain with you forever. The hotel is minutes to fine dining, shopping and entertainment.
Downtown Chicago puts on what is perhaps the finest display of modern architecture in the world, from the prototype skyscrapers of the 1890s to Mies van der Rohe's modernist masterpieces, and the second tallest building in the world, the quarter-mile-high Sears Tower. The compact heart of Chicago is known as the Loop, because it's circled by the elevated tracks of the CTA "El" trains. For a first impression of downtown, start your explorations by seeing the energy, drive and unmasked greed exposed in the trading pits of the various commodity marketplaces. Half the world's wheat and corn (and pork belly futures) are bought and sold amid the cacophonic roar of the Chicago Board of Trade, housed in a gorgeous Art Deco tower. From the entrance at 141 W Jackson St, where it intersects with LaSalle Street, take the elevator to the fifth-floor visitor gallery (Mon-Fri 8am-1.15pm; free), where displays trace the evolution of the various frantic shouts and signals by which trade is actually carried out. A similarly energetic ballet goes on from the early hours on Chicago's stock options exchange, the largest in the US. At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, three blocks away at 30 S Wacker Drive (Mon-Fri 7.30am-3.15pm; free), precious metals, currencies and commodities are bought and sold to the tune of some $50 billion a day. The best time to visit the exchanges is just before the close of trade, when the pressure is at its peak and tempers are most frayed.
