Thanks for joining us for the Walk for Literacy, presented by the Literacy Alliance!

At the Chicago Literacy Alliance (CLA), we bring together literacy organizations to build capacity, align services, and advocate for learners of all ages in all communities. Our mission is to improve literacy in Chicago by driving collaboration and increasing the impact of our community’s literacy organizations. We envision a 100% literate Chicago, where the transformative power of literacy is accessible to all.

As a reminder, participants should complete their 5k between July 18- 24. Walkers are free to make their own route, or plan a route based on some of Chicago’s literary landmarks provided below.

Thanks for supporting the CLA!

1 Literacenter

641 W Lake Street, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60661

Home of the Chicago Literacy Alliance and the first non-profit coworking space dedicated to literacy.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Poetry Foundation

61 W. Superior St. - River North

Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in 1912, and in 2011 the architecturally stunning Poetry Foundation building opened in River North to give both the magazine and the foundation a new home. It’s certainly the center of poetry in Chicago, and is often considered the same for the rest of the world. The building features ‘a public garden, a 30,000-volume library, an exhibition gallery, the Poetry Foundation’s programming offices’, and is an overall great place to while away your lunch hour. A visit to this literary landmark, or even a spin around their website, will confirm in you the new belief that poetry isn’t dead.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Newberry Library

60 W. Walton St. - Near Northside

This hidden gem on the Near North Side has been Chicago’s premiere independent research library since 1887. It has a collection of more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscripts and 500,000 historic maps, making it the perfect place for all your research needs. The Newberry hosts an annual book sale, educational programs and much more. Lit lovers may also recognize it as the place of employment for Henry DeTamble, the main character in Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home

339 N. Oak Park Ave. - Oak Park, IL

Ernest Hemingway made a name for himself all over the world. You can throw a stone on any street in Paris and hit a café with a ‘Hemingway ate here’ sign. The oldest restaurant in Madrid immortalized his regular table and uses it as a tourist attraction during walking tours. But none of it would be possible without Oak Park, . It’s a short trip, lying just outside the city limits, but you can still get there on the Green Line. Highlights around town include the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Home and the Hemingway District.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

American Writers Museum

180 N. Michigan Ave. - Loop

The first and only museum in the that is dedicated to great American Writers will open on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile in 2017. Its extensive and active online presence has revealed the museum’s design plans and organizational goals. The American Writers Museum will be a new and much- needed space for celebrating great authors and promoting a love for reading and writing.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Museum of Science and Industry/Jackson Park

5700 S. Lake Shore Dr. - Woodlawn

Travel back in time to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, when Chicago made its cultural mark on the world stage. Erik Larson’s acclaimed true-crime thriller, The Devil in the White City weaves together the stories of Daniel Burnham, the architect behind fair, and Dr. H. H. Holmes, the first known American serial killer. While Holmes’ “Murder Castle” and most of the fair’s buildings are long gone, you can still visit the fair’s scenic setting in Jackson Park in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Across the park’s lagoon lies one of the last remnants of the fair — the Museum of Science and Industry was once home to the Palace of Fine Arts.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Hall Library

4801 S. Michigan Ave. - Bronzeville

From the 1930s to 1950s, the George Cleveland Hall branch of the in Bronzeville served as a central meeting place for the Black Renaissance movement, guided by branch head Vivian Gordon Harsh. Writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, , and more were frequent visitors. The branch still runs children’s programming that began in 1932, and the library receives over 10,000 visitors each month.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Carl Sandburg House

4646 N. Hermitage - Ravenswood

Stormy, husky, brawling, / City of the Big Shoulders…” At 4646 N. Hermitage in Ravenswood, on an otherwise ordinary residential side street, is a two-flat where Carl Sandburg wrote his famous poem “Chicago.” It has only a small little sign to acknowledge its huge literary significance. Sandberg didn’t live there for long, staying in the apartment during a brief stint for the Chicago Daily News, but the impact of “Chicago” reverberates all the way into the present.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Lorraine Hansberry House

6140 S. Rhodes Ave. - Woodlawn

In 1937, real-estate developer Carl Hansberry bought the house at 6140 S. Rhodes Ave, only to have his Woodlawn neighbors protest and throw a brick through the window. Hansberry brought his fight against the racist housing covenant meant to keep his family out of Woodlawn all the way to the Supreme Court, and won. Daughter Lorraine Hansberry would go on to write A Raisin in the Sun, making the house also a literary site. The house was granted landmark status in 2010 by the Chicago City Council.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Yellow Brick Road

1667 N. Humboldt Blvd. - Humboldt Park

Humboldt Park was home to author L. Frank Baum penned “The Wizard of Oz” in 1899 (though the author’s residence has since been demolished). The 70-foot long section of sidewalk is now paved with yellow bricks, a nod to one of the most famous stories in American popular culture, thanks to nonprofit developer Bickerdike. An upright rounded wall will also feature an Oz-themed mural commission from Chicago-based artist Hector Duarte.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Union Stockyard Gate

W. Exchange and Peoria St. - Bridgeport

This site commemorates the centennial of the novel The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair. The book exposed the unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry and is said to have influenced President Theodore Roosevelt in passing the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. This rugged limestone gate, which marked the entrance to the stockyards, survives as one of the few visual reminders of Chicago's past supremacy in the livestock and meatpacking industries.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

The Bridges of Chicago, Wacker Drive

333 Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60601

The bridge was designated a landmark in recognition of the use of bridges as a symbol by such authors as Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, and Upton Sinclair. The Michigan Avenue Bridge stands as a landmark for all Chicago bridges and honors the city’s rich literary heritage.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team

Harold Washington Library 400 S State St, Chicago, IL 60605

Named for Chicago’s first African American mayor, this massive mainstay on has housed the central branch of the Chicago Public Library since it opened in 1991.

Sources: BookRiot. American Library Association, and the CLA team