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West Loop

Discover Chicago’s West Loop: Connie Fairbanks’ Walking Tour Explores House Music, Disco Demolition, Burlesque, and More

By Tom Barnas
10/2/2025

Connie Fairbanks Is Giving You the West Loop Like You’ve Never Seen It Before

The West Loop isn’t just Chicago’s buzziest neighborhood—it’s a living time capsule, pulsing with the grit, grind, and glamour of the city’s past. And nobody knows it better than Connie Fairbanks. The Chicago author and West Loop lifer has walked these streets for nearly three decades, documenting their transformation from a no-frills industrial corridor to a cultural playground of music, food, architecture, and reinvention.

Fairbanks’ final walking tour of the season—created in partnership with the Chicago History Museum—isn’t just a stroll. It’s a backstage pass to the city’s soul. Think of it like a setlist of Chicago history, with every stop another track that shaped the sound, style, and swagger of the West Loop.

Here’s your sneak peek:

  • House Music’s birthplace, where a genre that defined Chicago—and the world—was born.
  • The famous Powder Donut and its origins
  • Barny’s Market, once the beating heart of immigrant commerce and fresh produce hustle.
  • The shadow of the Ziegfeld Follies, Chicago’s answer to Broadway spectacle, where glamour lit up gritty blocks.
  • Sports and chaos collide at the site of Disco Demolition, a cultural explosion that shook music history.
  • Film buffs will geek out at movie locations that transformed the West Loop into Hollywood Midwest.
  • The last bathhouse in Chicago, once a refuge on the edges of Skid Row, still whispers of the city’s forgotten past.
  • The storied Garment District, where stitches and sweat turned into fashion’s raw DNA.
  • And of course—the burlesque district, where neon and desire once owned the night.

Fairbanks weaves it all together with a deep dive into the neighborhood’s wild arc: from meatpacking plants and wholesale warehouses of the early 1900s, to the movers and shakers on Ashland Avenue, to the grit of Madison Street’s Skid Row, and now—21st-century skyscrapers, chef-driven restaurants, and corporate HQs with rooftop views.

“I’ve lived here for 28 years,” Fairbanks says. “I’ve seen the West Loop evolve, and I want people to feel its heartbeat—the stories, the architecture, the culture. This isn’t just a neighborhood, it’s a timeline of Chicago itself.”

If you want the real Chicago—the one that thrums with house beats, street grit, and historic swagger—catch Connie Fairbanks’ last tour of the season before the curtain falls.

Book a tour NOW!

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