Two Hours of Loop Interiors, From Mosaics to Art Deco
A two-hour guided walk into Loop interiors that stay open to the public and easy to miss from the sidewalk.
The Loop keeps a lot of its ornament indoors, behind doors that thousands of people use every day without looking up. This walk stops inside them.
Two hours, about 1.25 miles on foot, with a guide from Inside Chicago Walking Tours. The interiors are public lobbies, open to anyone who walks in. What a ticket buys is the route, the order, and someone who can read the ornament out loud.
Both ends of the route are fixed. It opens inside the Chicago Board of Trade and finishes inside the Chicago Cultural Center. In between, the guide works through a set of Loop buildings, and the operator says weekday and weekend versions vary slightly depending on what is open that day.
Travelers who went in 2025 counted five or six interiors. Groups on this route are capped at 20.
Original Chicago Architecture Interiors Tour: Dazzling InteriorsA two-hour guided walk through Loop building interiors, starting at the Chicago Board of Trade.www.viator.comThe Board of Trade Opens the Walk
Meet in the plaza in front of 425 S. Financial Place, next to the large metal horse sculpture. The plaza sits at the foot of the Board of Trade, the building that closes off the south end of LaSalle Street.
Holabird and Root finished it in 1930: 45 stories of gray Indiana limestone, the windows recessed so far they nearly vanish. A faceless aluminum Ceres, sculpted by John Storrs, stands on the pyramidal roof. Indoors the Art Deco detail hides in plain sight, corn and wheat worked into the grillwork, the balconies, the door frames and the ceiling moldings. There is a museum on the first floor and a historic safe deposit vault below it.
The Rookery, and the Days It Is Closed
The Rookery is on this route most days. Burnham and Root finished it in 1888, eleven stories built around an interior light court, and in 1905 Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to remodel that court and the lobbies. He faced the ironwork in white marble and gilded it with arabesques.
The Rookery is skipped on Sundays, when it is closed, and on Saturday tours starting after 2:00 PM. On Sundays the company substitutes an interior it shows only on Sundays. Book a weekday or a Saturday morning when the light court is the draw.
Who Is Leading, and Why That Matters Here
Inside Chicago Walking Tours started running interiors walks in 2014. Hillary Marzec founded it after years guiding Chicago boat tours, and she researches and writes the routes herself. Her background is a master's in comparative literature and more than a decade of improv and sketch comedy, and she hires guides out of teaching, theater and comedy.
Travelers keep naming their guide in reviews, and at least six different ones come up. Marc R wrote in September 2025 that his guide memorized the names of all sixteen people in the group. A reviewer in October 2025 described Jessica asking the group questions before and after each building. Another in May 2025 said a large group made it hard to hear in some rooms.
Before You Book
- One booking can carry up to 9 travelers, and one traveler can book alone. An adult has to be on the booking.
- Child pricing runs ages 5 to 10, adult 11 to 64, senior 65 and over.
- The listing marks the walk wheelchair accessible and rates all areas and surfaces accessible, at a level suitable for all physical fitness levels.
- Tours run in all weather. A reviewer in November 2025 pointed out that much of the two hours is spent indoors, out of the Chicago wind.
- A local guide is included. Gratuities are not.
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time. The operator asks guests to be at the meeting point five minutes before the start, and calls anyone who has not checked in by then.
📍 The pin marks the Chicago Board of Trade Building at 141 W. Jackson Boulevard. The meeting plaza is the 425 S. Financial Place side of the same building, next to the horse sculpture.
The walk finishes inside the Chicago Cultural Center, which leaves you on Michigan Avenue with Millennium Park across the street and the rest of the afternoon open.