Crooked, narrow streets carry you into Old Town, one of Chicago's oldest surviving neighborhoods. German immigrants settled this area in the mid-1800s, and St. Michael's Church before you, completed in 1869, became their spiritual anchor. When the Great Fire roared north in 1871, it gutted the church, leaving only the walls and tower standing, and the bell crashed down.
The congregation rebuilt within those scorched walls, and local lore holds that if you can hear St. Michael's bells, you are truly in Old Town. The neighborhood's crooked, narrow streets followed old paths and survived the grid, giving it a village feel rare in this gridded city. In the 1950s and 60s it became a bohemian quarter, and The Second City comedy theater opened nearby in 1959, launching generations of American comedy.
Notice the tall brick tower of St. Michael's, a fire survivor, rising above the low rooflines nearby.