🖨️🏙️ Ink, Iron & Industry — A Printer’s Row Walk! 🚶‍♀️📚

🖨️🏙️ Ink, Iron & Industry — A Printer’s Row Walk! 🚶‍♀️📚

*Brand-New Tour! A South Loop Architecture & History Walking Tour*

✨ Brand-new tour alert! Join us for a Sunday-morning stroll through one of Chicago’s most fascinating historic districts—where books, newspapers, catalogs, advertisements and ideas once rolled off the presses and traveled across the country.

Have you ever walked through Printer’s Row and wondered about the stories behind its towering brick lofts, early skyscrapers, old publishing houses and railroad buildings? Now is your chance! 😊

We’ll begin at the magnificent Monadnock Building and walk south through the historic South Dearborn and Printer’s Row corridor. Along the way, we’ll explore Chicago School architecture, the rise of metal-frame skyscrapers, printing and publishing, Linotype technology, industrial loft buildings, adaptive reuse and the railroad connections that helped make Chicago a national center of commerce and culture.

Come walk, learn, explore and meet fellow history and architecture lovers! 🌇

🎤 Led by your passionate, ever-curious guide — that’s me! 😊

Perfect for architecture lovers, history buffs, book lovers, photographers and anyone who enjoys being a tourist in their own city!

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📍 TOUR DETAILS 🗓️ Sunday, October 4, 2026 ⏰ 10:45 AM–approximately 1:15 PM 🚶 Approximately 1.5–2 miles at a casual pace 📍 Start: Monadnock Building 53 W. Jackson Blvd. 🏁 End: Dearborn Station 47 W. Polk St. 💰 $20 per person — due at the start of the tour 💵 Cash preferred (exact change appreciated) \| PayPal\, Zelle & Venmo also accepted 🌦️ Outdoors • Casual pace • Rain or shine

🚗 Parking note: This is a one-way walk. Dearborn Station is approximately 6 blocks south of the Monadnock Building—about a 12–15 minute walk back to the start, depending on your route and pace. If you are driving, consider parking somewhere between Jackson Boulevard and Polk Street so you are not too far from your car afterward.

This is primarily an exterior architecture and history walk. We are not planning to go inside buildings, although a brief stop inside Grace Place/Grace Chapel may be possible if access is available.

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🔎 TOUR HIGHLIGHTS 🏛️ Chicago School architecture and early skyscrapers 🧱 The Monadnock, Fisher, Old Colony and Manhattan buildings 🖨️ Chicago’s printing, publishing and typesetting history 🔠 Linotype technology and the revolution in printing 📚 Printer’s Row’s historic loft buildings and book culture 🏢 R. R. Donnelley, Lakeside Press and national publishing 🚂 Railroads, freight and historic Dearborn Station 🏙️ Historic preservation and adaptive reuse in the South Loop

📸 Not a dedicated photo walk — but you'll definitely want your camera!

Stops may change depending on time, weather and the pace of the group.

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**🏛️ SOME OF THE STOPS (*\Stops and order are subject to change.)* 🏛️ Monadnock Building 🏢 Fisher Building 🏢 Old Colony Building 🏛️ Manhattan Building 🖨️ Caxton Building 🏢 Old Franklin / Conkey Building 🏙️ Morton Building 🔠 Peterson Linotype Building 🖨️ Regan Printing House 📚 Printers Block / Plymouth Court 🔠 Mergenthaler Linotype Building 🏢 Moser Building 🏢 Pope Building 📖 Lakeside Press Building 🚂 Transportation Building ⛪ Grace Place / Grace Chapel 📚 Rowe Building / Sandmeyer’s Bookstore 🖨️ Donohue Building 🧱 Donohue Annex 🏢 New Franklin Building 🏭 Borland Manufacturing Buildings 🚉 Dearborn Station — our ending point

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🌟 WHY PRINTER’S ROW? Printer’s Row is one of Chicago’s great historic districts — a neighborhood shaped by the city’s explosive growth, architectural innovation and its role as a national center for printing, publishing and transportation.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, printers, publishers, typesetters, paper dealers and related businesses filled the blocks south of the Loop.

The buildings they left behind give Printer’s Row its distinctive character: tall brick façades, enormous windows, industrial details and some of Chicago’s earliest skyscraper…