CHICAGO — Part of being a Chicagoan is hoarding secret spaces to show off to visitors and locals to prove how well you know the city.
This is also the guiding spirit of Lauren Viera’s new book, “The 500 Hidden Secrets of Chicago.”
“I definitely wrote it with locals in mind,” Viera said. “For tourists, any of these things are going to be exciting to discover. But I really wanted to surface things for locals that they might not have heard of.”
Viera has lived in Chicago for 20 years, covered it as a journalist for Time Out Chicago and the Tribune and written previous guidebooks. But even she made a few discoveries while researching the book, which was released in late October and is part of a series from Dutch publisher Luster.
“The 500 Hidden Secrets” does indeed contain 500 places to go and things to see and eat, plus trivia, all arranged in groups of five with headers like “5 unlikely art destinations” (Secrets 336-340) and “5 ways to enjoy the Chicago River” (Secrets 236-240). Although the publisher suggested the 10 major categories, Viera had a lot of leeway about what to include.
“A lot of guidebooks are hell-bent on cramming in must-visits, like the Bean and the Sears Tower, and it becomes a checklist to experience the city,” she said. “The design of this book makes it a nice thing to flip through and pick out something to do.”
One of the secrets she’s most excited about is a seven-ton hunk of metal lodged in the earth outside what’s now the site of the Chicago History Museum (Secret 284). This is not just any hunk of metal: It’s the remnants of an iron warehouse that melted together during the Chicago Fire and was buried for 20 years until a construction crew uncovered it in the 1890s. It was too big to move, so the crew left it where it was.
“For a while, it was hidden under a bush,” Viera said. “Recently, the Chicago History Museum built this trail, and the blob is finally featured on it. People obviously knew about it, but for a lot of people, it was a secret. They’d never seen it, they’d never heard about it. There are literal chunks of history and lore around the city.”
There were a few things Viera was tempted to keep to herself, but she felt honor-bound to share so other people could appreciate them. Case in point: the Formal Garden in the southwest corner of Humboldt Park (Secret 245). Viera noticed it while jogging through the park. It must have once been truly grand — there were colonnades and an empty patch where a reflecting pool used to be — but it had fallen into disrepair.
After investigating, Viera discovered it had been designed by the landscape architect Jens Jensen in 1908 and there had been some effort to fix it up in the late 2010s, but the pandemic had put an end to that. Viera hopes the book might spark interest and someone will continue with the restoration.
Viera selected her lists with an eye for spots that might be off the beaten tourist path, with the goal of getting tourists out of Downtown and locals to explore unfamiliar neighborhoods. Locations range from Pullman to Rogers Park, although the majority are clustered in and around the Loop and the Near North and Northwest sides.
Viera tried to stay immune to the buzz surrounding new openings, particularly with bars and restaurants, and highlight places that were likely to remain open. She didn’t always succeed: Owen & Engine and the Signature Room closed unexpectedly between the time she handed in the manuscript and the book’s publication.
One of Viera’s goals was to get readers to reconsider places they might have written off or forgotten, like the Duke of Perth, the longstanding Scottish pub in Lakeview (Secret 112), or Italian Village in The Loop (Secret 24), which some diners might dismiss as a relic of prom nights past but which Viera suggests might be a fun option for a date.
“There are places in the back of your mind that you haven’t visited in a long time,” she said. “There are new ways to experience them.”
A second edition of the book is coming out in 2025. Viera is already compiling new secrets to include.
“The 500 Hidden Secrets of Chicago” is available for purchase at local independent bookstores, as well as a few other locations featured in the book, including Reckless Records, Gene’s Sausage Shop, Marz Community Brewing and Buddy, the gift shop at the Chicago Cultural Center.
There will be a book party 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at the Comfort Station, 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave.
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