506 W. HARRISON ST.
CHICAGO, ILL 60607
DOWNTOWN
The Holiday Inn and Suites is a first class hotel, located in the heart of downtown Chicago. The hotel is 25 minutes from the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Brand new, spacious and elegantly appointed guest rooms are what guests have come to expect. Each room is fully equipped with all the amenities a business traveler or leisure traveler could possibly need. With a great location and personalized service, the hotel provides everything you're looking for in a hotel - and more. The hotel staff is friendly and professional, catering to the individual needs of the 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.
