350 N. ORLEANS ST.
CHICAGO, IL 06054
RIVER NORTH AT MERCH. MART
The Holiday Inn - Chicago Mart Plaza is a first class hotel in the heart of downtown Chicago, attached to the Merchandise Mart. This fantastic location puts it in the center of Chicago's vital and energetic business district. People travel from all over the Chicago area to feel the excitement of River North The New Chicago, and this hotel is in the middle of it all. Whether you are entertaining business clients or simply enjoy a relaxing vacation, the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza is exactly where you want to be. The hotels' guest rooms are large, tastefully decorated and soundproofed for the convenience of our guests. 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.
