Things to See and Do in Oak Park

Oak Park is its own village, right on Chicago's western border, and it's the best half-day trip you can make from downtown without a car. People come for two names. Frank Lloyd Wright started his career here, and Ernest Hemingway was born here. Between Wright's studio, Unity Temple and blocks of Prairie-style houses, it's the place to go if you care at all about American architecture.

Getting there

The CTA Green Line runs from the Loop straight into Oak Park, and it's the easiest way to go. Get off at Oak Park (100 S. Oak Park Ave.), the stop closest to the Hemingway birthplace. Harlem/Lake, the end of the line, is the other stop for downtown Oak Park. An L ride is $2.50. See our transportation page for passes.

The other option is Metra. The Union Pacific West Line runs from Ogilvie Transportation Center in the West Loop, not Union Station as the old version of this page said, and it takes 16 to 20 minutes to the Oak Park station. Fares have changed since the $2 we quoted in 2010, so check Metra's fare page, and look at the schedule before you go, since the trains don't come as often as the L.

Once you're there, the Wright and Hemingway sites are all within walking distance of each other. Pace buses connect at the Oak Park Green Line station if you'd rather ride.

Frank Lloyd Wright

The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, 951 Chicago Ave., was Wright's home and workshop from 1889 to 1909, the first 20 years of his career. It's where he and his associates worked out the Prairie style. The only way inside is a guided tour, and tours run daily from 10am to 4pm. Tickets range from $24 to $38 depending on the tour. The Inside and Out ticket, which pairs the house tour with a self-guided audio walk of the neighborhood, is the one to get. The historic district around the studio has more Wright-designed houses than anywhere else in the world, and the audio walk takes you past a lot of them. Book ahead in summer.

Unity Temple, 875 Lake St., is the other one to see. Wright built it between 1905 and 1908 on a small budget, using reinforced concrete to save money, and it's his only surviving public building from the Prairie years. It's still home to a Unitarian Universalist congregation, which makes it the oldest Wright building still used for what it was built for. In 2019 it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of eight Wright buildings in the listing, along with the Robie House in Hyde Park. Guided tours run Monday through Saturday, and tickets range from $18 to $40.

One correction to the old version of this page. The Winslow House, which Wright designed in 1893, is at 515 Auvergne Place in River Forest, the next village west, not in Oak Park. It's a private home, so you can only see it from the street.

Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in a second-floor bedroom of the Queen Anne house at 339 N. Oak Park Ave. His grandparents built it in 1890, and he lived there for his first six years. The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park bought the house in 1992, restored it to look the way it did in the 1890s, and has run it as the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum since 2001. Docents lead 50-minute tours. It's open Thursday and Friday 1 to 5pm, Saturday 10am to 5pm and Sunday 1 to 5pm, and the foundation recommends reserving ahead. It's an easy walk north from the Oak Park Green Line station.

The old version of this page also sent you to a separate Hemingway Museum. That museum was in the Oak Park Arts Center at 200 N. Oak Park Ave., and it closed in October 2017. The foundation moved the most valuable pieces of its collection into its archive at the Oak Park Public Library and plans to build a writing and research center next to the birthplace. The house where Hemingway spent his high school years, at 600 N. Kenilworth Ave., is privately owned, so it's a from-the-sidewalk stop only.

Nearby, but not in Oak Park

A couple of things the old page listed are in other places, and one is gone.

• The Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Ave., is in Chicago's Garfield Park neighborhood, not Oak Park. It's one of the biggest greenhouse conservatories in the country, and it's right on the way. Get off the Green Line at Conservatory-Central Park Drive. It's closed Mondays and Tuesdays, open until 8pm on Wednesdays and until 5pm Thursday through Sunday. Check its site for tickets.
• Brookfield Zoo Chicago, as it's been called since 2024, is in the village of Brookfield, a few miles southwest. It's the biggest zoo in the Chicago area, with about 511 species on 216 acres. Without a car, take Metra's BNSF Line to the Hollywood station. If you only have one zoo day, the free Lincoln Park Zoo is much easier to reach.
• Maywood Park, the harness-racing track the old page mentioned, was in Melrose Park. It closed in 2015 and was replaced by an Amazon distribution center in 2020.

Where to eat

Downtown Oak Park, around Lake Street, Marion Street and Oak Park Avenue, has plenty of places to eat between tours. Citrine Cafe, 100 S. Oak Park Ave., right by the Green Line station, cooks Mediterranean food with Serbian roots, some of it in clay pots in a brick oven. It's dinner Tuesday to Sunday, with brunch on weekends. For deep dish, Giordano's has an Oak Park location, and the pizza guide compares it with the others.

For more trips out of the city, see easy day and overnight trips from Chicago and neighborhoods to visit using public transportation. If Wright is the reason you're here, the Gold Coast has the Charnley-Persky House, which he worked on as a young draftsman for Louis Sullivan.

Photo by magama.krakow