Millennium Park

Millennium Park is a 24-acre rooftop garden built on top of a parking garage and railroad tracks — one of the most ambitious pieces of urban infrastructure in American history, delivered four years late and $325 million over budget, and worth every dollar and every delay. The park transformed Chicago's front yard from a railyard wasteland into a world-class public space that's become the city's most popular destination.

Beyond the Bean, the park's major attractions include the Crown Fountain — two 50-foot glass towers that project video faces of Chicago residents who periodically 'spit' water at delighted children in the shallow reflecting pool between them. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry, is an outdoor concert venue whose stainless-steel ribbons frame the stage like a Baroque explosion, and the trellis of steel pipes extending over the Great Lawn carries speakers that give every seat in the 11,000-capacity audience the acoustic quality of an indoor concert hall.

The Lurie Garden, tucked behind the Pritzker Pavilion, is a designed landscape that traces Chicago's transformation from prairie to city — native prairie plants on one side, cultivated garden on the other, separated by a 'shoulder' hedge representing Carl Sandburg's description of Chicago as 'City of the Big Shoulders.' It's the park's quietest space and its most thoughtful. Free yoga classes, concerts, and film screenings run through the summer, making this one of the great free attractions in any American city.