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Top Attractions in Evanston

Ladd Arboretum

The Edward R. Ladd Arboretum is an arboretum located at 2024 McCormick Boulevard, Evanston, Illinois, occupying 23 acres in a narrow three-quarter mile stretch between McCormick Boulevard and the North Shore Channel on land leased from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. The first tree, a ginkgo, was planted by the Evanston Review in the memory of Edward Rixon Ladd, its founder, publisher, and editor. The Arboretum was formally dedicated the following year, on June 10, 1960, after many other trees were planted. The arboretums collection is arranged by plant family . Gardens include the Meadow Garden, Prairie Restoration Area, Cherry Tree Walk, Nut Tree, Rotary International Friendship Garden, Womens Terrace, gazebo, and bird sanctuary. The Evanston Ecology Center is the arboretums nature education facility. The Center features natural history exhibits of fossils, seeds and mounted animal specimens, and offers weekend, after school, summer camp, school and adult nature programs.

Canal Shores Golf Course

Canal Shores is an 18 hole par 60 golf course located in a suburban residential neighborhood on the east side of Evanston and Wilmette, Illinois. Founded in 1919 on the banks of the North Shore Channel of the Chicago River, the course is 3,904 yards in length featuring a narrow and tree-lined fairway and two over-the-water holes. Eleven of the holes are located in Evanston, Illinois and 7 holes are in Wilmette, Illinois. Canal Shores is located within walking distance of the Central Street El and Union Pacific North Central Street Metra Line and offers free parking. Course History Peter N. Jans, a golf professional and Evanston civic leader, championed the reclamation of the undeveloped canal banks for a golf course in North Evanston. Todd Sloan, who also laid out the back nine of the Racine Country Club in Wisconsin, is credited as the architect of the present day Canal Shores golf course which has been renamed several times during the past century. The course was built on the site of the previous location of the Evanston Golf Club, which relocated due to the construction of the North Shore Channel drainage project. The course is substantially built on public property while being managed and funded by the Evanston Wilmette Golf Course Association, a volunteer organization composed of golfers and neighbors in the city of Evanston and village of Wilmette. In the 1970s brothers Joel and Bill Murray worked as caddies and concession workers on Canal Shores Golf Course. Bill and his brother Brian Doyle Murray based parts of their movie Caddyshack on experiences gained at this course. In August 2014 Joel Murray hosted the Tour of Duty Golf Classic at Canal Shores, a benefit to assist first responders.

Welsh-Ryan Arena

McGaw Memorial Hall was built through the generosity of Northwestern University trustee and donor Foster G. McGaw, founder of the American Hospital Supply Corporation. The building, named in memory of McGaws father, Presbyterian minister and missionary Francis A. McGaw, to house sporting events and large-scale meetings. With a seating capacity of about 13,000, McGaw Memorial Hall was one of the three largest auditoriums in the Chicago area at the time of its construction. Designed by the architectural firm of Holabird Root Burgee and built of reinforced concrete, McGaw Memorial Hall contained 54,000 square feet of interior space. The lighting system, consisting of 180 mercury vapor lights, was said to simulate “pure daylight.” Partitions, portable bleachers, and a removable basketball floor made the building suitable for a wide variety of uses. While the intent was to provide a space large enough to hold the entire student body of Northwestern University at once during convocations and other such campus occasions, the auditorium was also used by the North Shore Music Festival and, soon after its opening, by the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches. This event, held from August 15-30, 1954, featured a convocation address by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1983 Northwestern completed extensive renovations on the interior of the McGaw Hall. In recognition of major contributions to the work, the principal interior spaces of the building have been named Welsh-Ryan Arena and the Ronald J. Chinnock Lobby. The arena itself was renamed in honor of the principal donor, Patrick G. Ryan, president of the Board of Trustees, and of his wifes parents, Mr. Mrs. Robert J. Welsh, Sr. The McGaw Fieldhouse is a practice facility within the building, which in 1997 was renovated to allow practice space for basketball and volleyball. In 2007, the Brown Family Basketball Center was constructed within the McGaw Fieldhouse to include new locker rooms and team lounges for the mens and womens basketball teams, as well as offices for their respective coaching staffs. Welsh-Ryan Arena is an 8,117-seat multi-purpose arena in Evanston, Illinois, United States. It is home to the Northwestern University Wildcats basketball, volleyball and wrestling teams. It is located to the north of Ryan Field on the Northwestern campus. McGaw Memorial Hall hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1956. Patten Gymnasium, formerly located on the main campus at Northwestern, hosted the first NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament in 1939 and was later torn down in order to build the Technological Institute in its place, which was completed in 1942. A smaller Patten Gymnasium was built to the north of the original site, which still stands and is mostly used for student recreation, intramural sports, and club sports. For years, Welsh-Ryan Arena was the only basketball arena in the Big Ten Conference that did not seat at least 10,000. Its capacity is more than 4,500 seats fewer than the next smallest arena in the conference, the Crisler Center at Michigan. Welsh-Ryan lost its status as the Big Tens smallest arena in 2014 when Rutgers joined the conference. The Scarlet Knights facility, the Louis Brown Athletic Center has a listed capacity of 8,000.

Ryan Field

Ryan Field is a stadium in Evanston, Illinois, United States on the campus of Northwestern University. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the Northwestern Wildcats football team. The field opened in 1926 and holds 47,130 people. Prior to 1997, the stadium was named Dyche Stadium, for William Dyche, Class of 1882, former Evanston mayor and overseer of the building project. In 1997, the field was renamed Ryan Field in honor of the family of Patrick G. Ryan, who was then the chairman of Northwesterns board of trustees. The renaming was made by the other members of the board in recognition of the Ryan familys leadership and numerous contributions to Northwestern, including the lead gift to the Campaign for Athletic Excellence, Northwesterns fundraising drive for athletic facilities.

George B. Dryden House

The George B. Dryden House is a historic house located at 1314 Ridge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. The house was built in 1916 for George B. and Ellen A. Dryden. George was a successful Chicago businessman, while Ellen was the heiress of George Eastman; together, the couple was worth over $9 million. Architect George W. Maher designed the Georgian Revival house. While Maher was better known as a Prairie School architect, the Drydens requested a Georgian design inspired by Ellen's memories of Eastman's home. The three-story house features an entrance portico supported by four Corinthian columns and topped by a pediment. The house is faced with brick and features quoins at the corners and keystones above the windows. A wooden frieze and cornice run below the base of the roof, which begins below the third floor and features several projecting dormers. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1978.

Evanston S.P.A.C.E.

Evanston S.P.A.C.E. is a small concert hall and venue for music performance and live recording, and a podcast production facility, as well as serves similarly for the visual arts and literary events located at 1245 Chicago Avenue in Evanston, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago, in close proximity to the CTA Purple Line mass transit elevated train station Dempster, just south of Dempster Avenue. It opened in spring 2008, along with Union Pizzeria, an affiliated restaurant in the same building. It is a notable small concert space in the Chicago area, that seats about 250 people at candle-lit small round tables and as standing spectators. The SPACE has over the years played host to the most renowned folk music artists in the Western World; for example, only in 2014-2015 winter timeframe to Suzanne Vega, Leo Kottke, Justin Townes Earle and Robyn Hitchcock, among many tens of events. S.P.A.C.E. is an acronym for the Society for the Preservation of Art and Culture in Evanston.

Theatre & Interpretation Center

The Northwestern University Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts exists as an operational and administration component of the Northwestern University School of Communication with the specific charge of producing, managing, funding and administering the performing arts productions of the School of Communication, Department of Theatre and Department of Performance Studies, including programmatic responsibility for theatre, music theatre and dance. The Theatre and Interpretation Center was built in 1980 and renamed in 2015 to The Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. The building contains a 450-seat thrust stage theater (Ethel M. Barber Theater), a 350-seat proscenium theater (the Josephine Louis Theater), two smaller black box theaters, a dance performance space, full theatrical production facilities, and offices for the center. Its plain white exterior walls and boxy, utilitarian shape stand in stark contrast to the nearby University Library, and earned it the nickname "The Box The Library Came In" among Northwestern students. The Wirtz Center's website can be found at [1].

Patten Gymnasium

Patten Gymnasium is a multi-purpose gymnasium in Evanston, Illinois. The original building, designed by George Washington Maher, opened in 1910 and was home to the Northwestern University Wildcats Basketball Team until 1940, when it was demolished and rebuilt farther north to make room for the construction of the Technological Institute. It was used for twelve years before Welsh-Ryan Arena opened in 1952. The current, ivy-lined building has the original doors and statues from the old gym. It currently is the home to the womens fencing team. Patten is the home to the Intramural Sports program. It has offices and locker rooms for the womens lacrosse, field hockey, and mens/womens soccer teams. It is named for James A. Patten, former Evanston mayor, philanthropist, commodities broker and NU board of trustees president. In 1999, the swimming pool area, which had been unused since 1987, was renovated and transformed into the Gleacher Golf Center. At the time that it opened, the Gleacher Center was the only facility of its kind in collegiate golf, featuring a 2,000-square-foot pitching and putting green with an adjacent sand trap. The original, 1,000 seat arena hosted the first NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Championship game in 1939. Presently the sculptures "Physical Development" and "Intellectual Development" by the artist Hermon Atkins MacNeil, affectionately nicknamed "Pat and Jim" and also known as "The Athlete and the Scholar", which had been exhibited in front of the original Patten Gymnasium starting in 1916, are now placed as sentinels at the sides of the successor gymnasiums front entrance.

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university with campuses in Evanston and Chicago in Illinois, United States, as well as Doha, Qatar. Composed of twelve schools and colleges, Northwestern offers 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees. Northwestern was founded in 1851 by John Evans, for whom the City of Evanston is named, and eight other lawyers, businessmen and Methodist leaders. Its founding purpose was to serve the Northwest Territory, an area that today includes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota. Instruction began in 1855; women were admitted in 1869. Today, the main campus is a 240-acre parcel in Evanston, along the shores of Lake Michigan just 12 miles north of downtown Chicago. The universitys law and medical schools are located on a 25-acre campus in Chicagos Streeterville neighborhood. In 2008, the university opened a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar with programs in journalism and communication. Northwestern is a large research university with a comprehensive doctoral program and attracts over $550 million in sponsored research each year. In addition, Northwestern has one of the largest university endowments in the United States, currently valued at $9.78 billion. In 2015, the university accepted 13% of undergraduate applicants, making Northwestern one of the most selective universities in the country. Northwestern is a founding member of the Big Ten Conference and remains the only private university in the conference. The Northwestern Wildcats compete in 19 intercollegiate sports in the NCAAs Division I Big Ten Conference.

Evanston Central Street station

Evanston Central Street is the northernmost of the three commuter railroad stations in Evanston, Illinois, United States. It is an elevated station at Green Bay Road and Central Street, surrounded by a neighborhood of stores, restaurants and multi-story apartment buildings. Just north of the station, the tracks descend to grade and pass through Wilmette on ground level. Evanston Central Street station is served by Metra's Union Pacific/North Line, with service south to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and as far north as Kenosha, Wisconsin. The station is 13.3 miles (21.4 km) from Ogilvie Transportation Center. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Evanston Central Street is in zone C. There are two platforms: northbound trains stop at the west platform, and southbound trains stop at the east platform. Evanston Central Street has a station house on the east platform. The station house contains a ticket booth as well as a coffee and pastry shop named "Upstairs Cafe" owned and run by three Evanston women, two of whom are professional bakers. The station house is open from 5:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. and a ticket agent is present during these hours on weekdays. This is the closest Metra station to Northwestern University's sports complex at Ryan Field. The 15th hold fairway and 16th hole tee box of the Canal Shores Golf Course adjoin this Metra station. Chicago Transit Authority's Central station on the Purple Line is less than a mile to the east. A highly unusual incident occurred at this station on August 23, 2006, when a train bound from Kenosha to Chicago ran out of fuel, apparently due to employee error.

Evanston Davis Street station

Evanston Davis Street, also called simply Evanston, is a commuter railroad station in downtown Evanston, Illinois, United States. It is served only by Metra's Union Pacific/North Line with trains going south to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and as far north as Kenosha, Wisconsin. In Metra's zone-based fare system, Davis Street is in zone C. The station is next to the Davis station of the Chicago Transit Authority's Purple Line, where CTA and Pace buses terminate. Between the two stations is 909 Davis Street, a six-story building, with a kiss-and-ride loop for car drop-off. Davis Street station, at Davis Street and Maple Avenue, has two elevated platforms. Northbound trains stop at the west platform and southbound trains stop at the east platform. The ticket agent's office is on the east platform. At ground level, there is a restaurant called Chef's Station. Just to the east of the Davis CTA station is the 12-story Sherman Avenue Garage. This is the closest Metra station to most of the buildings on Northwestern University's Evanston campus, with the notable exception of Ryan Field, which is closer to the Central Street station.

Evanston Main Street station

Evanston Main Street is the southernmost of the three commuter railroad stations in Evanston, Illinois, United States. It is served solely by Metra's Union Pacific/North trains, which go south to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and as far north as Kenosha, Wisconsin. Travel time to Ogilvie is typically 23 minutes, but can be as high as 26 minutes during rush hour. In Metra's zone-based fare system, the station is in zone C. The station does not contain a ticket agent booth; passengers must purchase their tickets on board the train. The station is located on Main Street between Chicago Avenue and Custer Avenue, with CTA's Main station immediately to the east. It is one of two Metra stations in Evanston to provide direct transfers to the CTA rail system, the other being the Davis Street station. The neighboring area contains multi-story apartment buildings and the Main Street Station Shopping District. Main Street station also houses a cultural center known as Evanston Arts Depot, which houses the offices of the Custer's Last Stand festival and has performance space for Piccolo Theatre.

Seabury-Western Theological Seminary

Seabury-Western Theological Seminary was a seminary of The Episcopal Church, located in Evanston, Illinois. It ceased operations as a residential seminary granting the Master of Divinity degree in May 2010, and in January 2012 it moved from Evanston to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America headquarters near O'Hare Airport. In 2013, it became part of the Bexley Hall Seabury Western Theological Seminary Federation with Bexley Hall. Seabury-Western was formed in 1933 by a merger of Western Theological Seminary of Evanston (founded in 1883 in Chicago), and Seabury Divinity School of Faribault, Minnesota (founded in 1858). The new seminary endeavored to hold in tension the "High Church" and "Low Church" identities of its predecessors. However, for most of its history, SWTS occupied a place within Anglican churchmanship akin to that of The General Theological Seminary in New York: a liturgical bent toward Anglo-Catholic practices and an acceptance of modern theology and social tolerance. In the fall of 2008 the seminary stopped accepting seminarians for the traditional Master of Divinity degree. In 2009 Seabury's property was acquired by Northwestern University with Seabury allowed use of the property for five years. In January 2012 Seabury formally left the Evanston site, functionally ending its presence as residential seminary, and the various buildings are now used by the Northwestern University, moving its remaining offices to the national headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) near O'Hare Airport. In March 2012, the boards of Seabury-Western and of Bexley Hall Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, voted to federate. Roger Ferlo was named as the federation's first president. The Bexley Seabury Federation offers the Master of Divinity degree at its campus in Columbus in a partnership with Trinity Lutheran Seminary. The federation also offers the Doctor of Ministry in Congregational Development in Chicago and offers the Doctor of Ministry in Preaching through the Association of Chicago Theological Schools. The Diploma of Anglican Studies is offered in both Columbus and Chicago.
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