Historic Michigan Boulevard District

The Congress Plaza Hotel is located on South Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in Chicago at 520 South Michigan Avenue. Its eleven story edifice was originally designed by architect Clinton J. Warren as an annex to the Auditorium Theater across the street. The two buildings were linked by a marble-lined underground passage called Peacock Alley. After opening for business in 1893, for the World's Columbian Exposition, the hotel underwent two major expansions and renovations, first in 1902 and then again in 1907 which brought the total complex up to 1 million square feet (93,000 m2). The design and construction of these two additions were overseen by the firm of Holabird & Roche. The hotel now features 871 guest rooms and suites. Through the 1930s the hotel was run by hotel industry pioneer Ralph Hitz's National Hotel Management Company. At this same time, part of the hotel was used as the location for a Benny Goodman NBC Radio Show. Following the outbreak of World War II, the Government purchased the Congress Hotel and used it as a training school for U.S. Army Air Forces. It reopened for civilian use in time for the summer political conventions of 1944. At this time, John J. Mack was president of the Michigan-Congress Hotel Corporation.In 1950, the Pick Hotel Corporation bought the hotel and oversaw a major renovation of the entire hotel, which included new suites and restaurants.Another modernization project began in the 1960s, which added a ballroom and escalators.The hotel is not currently affiliated with any national chain. It has been owned by a group of investors led by Albert Nasser of Tel-Aviv, Israel, since 1987.The hotel is frequently noted as one of the most haunted buildings in Chicago. The podcast "And That's Why We Drink" used stories of the haunted activity of the hotel as a topic in their February 19, 2018 episode (episode #55).

The Theatre Conservatory of Chicago College of Performing Arts is a theatre arts conservatory based in Chicago, Illinois at Roosevelt University. The school offers Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in acting, Musical Theatre, and Musical Theatre Dance Emphasis as well as a Masters of Fine Arts in Directing offered during the summer. The conservatory currently holds classes and productions out of two theatres, the O'Malley Theatre and the Miller Studio Theatre. Both of which can be found on the Roosevelt University campus.

Magdalene is an outdoor 2005 sculpture by Dessa Kirk, designed specifically for the triangular garden in Congress Plaza, east of S. Michigan Avenue at East Ida B. Wells Drive, in Chicago's Grant Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The statue is part of the Chicago Public Art Program.Kirk created the sculpture specifically for this site. In the springtime, tulips line the female figure's feet, and in the summertime the sculpture becomes part of the surrounding garden, as vines and flowers fill up the skirt of her dress. Kirk has similar installations in Columbus, Indiana; Three Oaks, Michigan; and Anchorage, Alaska.

A theater company formed in 1912, the Chicago Little Theatre spearheaded and lent its name to a historic, popular wave in American Theater, the Little Theatre Movement. Founded in its namesake city by Ellen Van Volkenburg and Maurice Browne, the company was an art theater formed in opposition to the commercial values which held sway at the time. The company performed work by contemporary writers and Greek classics, as well as pioneering puppetry and puppet plays. Poetic dramas, restrained acting and new concepts in scenography were hallmarks of the Chicago Little Theatre.

Chicago Musical College is a division of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

The American Conservatory of Music (ACM) was a major American school of music founded in Chicago in 1886 by John James Hattstaedt (1851–1931). The conservatory was incorporated as an Illinois non-profit corporation. It developed the Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and had numerous student recitals. The oldest private degree-granting music school in the Midwestern United States, it was located in Chicago until 1991. That year, 1991, its board of trustees—chaired by Frederic Wilbur Hickman (born 1927)—voted to close the institution, file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, liquidate the assets, and dissolve the corporation. The conservatory closed at the end of the semester, in May 1991.An organization based in Hammond, Indiana, uses the name "American Conservatory of Music" and identifies as the reorganized continuation of the Chicago institution. It also has a base in Belize.

The ten-story Fine Arts Building, also known as the Studebaker Building, is located at 410 S Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in Chicago in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. It was built for the Studebaker company in 1884–5 by Solon Spencer Beman, and extensively remodeled in 1898, when Beman removed the building's eighth (then the top) story and added three new stories, extending the building to its current height. Studebaker constructed the building as a carriage sales and service operation with manufacturing on upper floors. The two granite columns at the main entrance, 3 feet 8 inches (1.12 m) in diameter and 12 feet 10 inches (3.91 m) high, were said to be the largest polished monolithic shafts in the country. The interior features Art Nouveau motifs and murals by artists such as Martha Susan Baker, Frederic Clay Bartlett, Oliver Dennett Grover, Frank Xavier Leyendecker, and Bertha Sophia Menzler-Peyton dating from the 1898 renovation. In the early 20th century, the Kalo Shop and Wilro Shop, firms owned by women and specializing in Arts and Crafts items, were established in the Fine Arts Building.Currently, true to its name, it houses artists' lofts, art galleries, theatre, dance and recording studios, interior and web design firms, musical instrument makers, and other businesses associated with the arts. It also holds offices of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Jazz Institute of Chicago, the Grant Park Conservancy, the World Federalist Association, and the Chicago Youth Symphony, and the venerable Artists Cafe. The Fine Arts Building was designated a Chicago Landmark on June 7, 1978.

Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both the late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university enrolls around 6,000 students between its undergraduate and graduate programs. Roosevelt is also home to the Chicago College of Performing Arts. The university's newest academic building, Wabash, is located in The Loop of Downtown Chicago. It is the tallest educational building in Chicago, the second tallest educational building in the United States, and the fourth-largest academic complex in the world.

The Music Conservatory was founded in 1867 as the Chicago Musical College, a conservatory. In 1954, the Chicago Musical College became part of Roosevelt University. In 1997, the Chicago Musical College joined with the university’s theater program to become the College of the Performing Arts; and in 2000, it was renamed The Music Conservatory of the Chicago College of Performing Arts. The Music Conservatory is organized into departments coordinated by the director. Curricula with a major in piano, string (including guitar), wind, or percussion instruments, voice, orchestral studies, composition, music education, and jazz studies lead to the degree of Bachelor of Music. An individualized program of studies in music combined with course work in a second discipline leads to the Bachelor of Musical Arts degree.

The Auditorium Theatre is a music and performance venue located inside the Auditorium Building at 50 Ida B. Wells Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Inspired by the Richardsonian Romanesque Style of architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the building was designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan and completed in 1889. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed in the theatre until 1904 as well as the Chicago Grand Opera Company and its successors the Chicago Opera Association and Chicago Civic Opera until its relocation to the Civic Opera House in 1929. The theatre currently hosts performances by the Joffrey Ballet, in addition to a variety of concerts, musicals, performances and events. Since the 1940s, it has been owned by Roosevelt University and since the 1960s refurbished and managed by an independent non-profit arts organization.

The Auditorium Building in Chicago is one of the best-known designs of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Completed in 1889, the building is located at the northwest corner of South Michigan Avenue and Congress Street (now Ida B. Wells Drive). The building was designed to be a multi-use complex, including offices, a theater, and a hotel. As a young apprentice, Frank Lloyd Wright worked on some of the interior design. The Auditorium Theatre is part of the Auditorium Building and is located at 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive. The theater was the first home of the Chicago Civic Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It currently hosts the season performances of the Joffrey Ballet. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 1970. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975, and was designated a Chicago Landmark on September 15, 1976. In addition, it is a historic district contributing property for the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Since 1947, the Auditorium Building has been part of Roosevelt University.

The Buckingham Building is a 27-story skyscraper located at 59-67 E. Van Buren St. in the Loop neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The building, which opened in 1930, has historically served as a mixed-use retail and office building. Chicago architects Holabird and Root designed the building in the Art Deco style. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 10, 2000.