Stride StoriesRunning tour · Chicago
Wicker Park and the 606
1.8 mi run
How it works. Press start and go. As you reach each place, a narrator tells its story, timed to your pace. Your music drops down while a story plays and comes back after. Tours download to your phone and play without a connection.
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The stories on this route
The 606
Look at the sloping concrete walls that carry this trail, and the bridge over each cross street. You're on top of an old railroad.
Hoyne Avenue mansions
Look at the houses along here: big, free-standing, Victorian. They were built by newly affluent immigrants. Whether by choice or through prejudice, these families lived apart from Chicago's traditional elite. The blocks of Hoyne and Pierce hold some of the largest and best Victorian houses in the city.
Nelson Algren's house
Look up at the top floor of number 1958. It's a private home, so enjoy it from the sidewalk. From 1959 to 1975, that third-floor flat was home to Nelson Algren. His novel The Man with the Golden Arm had won the National Book Award, and became a film starring Frank Sinatra. Algren loathed it.
Wicker Park
Look for the bronze statue on the west side of the park: a life-sized, smallish man in a large hat, holding a broom. Meet Charles Wicker.
Flat Iron Building and Northwest Tower
Look at the three-story wedge on the south side of North Avenue, its narrow end pointing at this six-way corner of Milwaukee, North and Damen. Milwaukee Avenue cuts diagonally across Chicago's grid, and its corners often get a wedge-shaped 'flatiron' building. This is the Flat Iron Arts Building.
Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source
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