Mary Jeanne Kwasny, Northwestern University

JSM is in Chicago this year. It happens about once every 20 years, so Chicago statisticians are absolutely giddy! There is tons to do in Chicago, but here are a few ideas for shorter trips/outings in and around the city for you and your family or friends either before JSM, after the sessions, or when you just want to take a break to let some really good ideas sink in.

Chicago is walking friendly—especially near the lake (Grant and Millennium parks). If you are not going far, Divvy Bikes are also a great way to get around. The bus and train (“L” for elevated, as the first trains were elevated around the Loop and still are) lines can be great modes of transportation. For longer trips, consider renting or borrowing a car—the city has Uber, Lyft, and several car-sharing programs such as Zipcar.

If you want to stay in the downtown area, there is plenty to do. Grant and Millennium parks have many free activities throughout the summer. The Grant buy generic ativan Park Music Festival in Millennium Park has free activities and concerts on most Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Friday, July 29, and Saturday, July 30, it will be moved to other venues to make way for Lollapalooza. However, Jay Pritzker Pavilion will host Rachmaninoff Rhapsody Wednesday, August 3. The Family Fun tent has a pre-concert lecture at 5:30; the concert is from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. If you are still here on Friday, August 5, Mozart Mass in C Minor will be the event.

If classical music isn’t your beat, then the Millennium Park Music Series might be more interesting. Monday, August 1, will showcase Jose Volzales (Swedish indie folk singer) and Tall Heights (vocal harmony with folk-inspired cello and acoustic guitar), while Thursday, August 4, will see Sinkane (solo artist who blends krautrock, free jazz, and funk rock with Sudanese pop) and Mark de Clive-Lowe (a veteran of the UK’s broken beat movement, blending jazz, electronic dance music, funk, and percussion-heavy music) at the Pritzker Pavilion.

We don’t just have music; we have movies, too! Tuesday, August 2, the 1961 award-winning adaptation of West Side Story will be shown at the Pritzker Pavilion.

Of course, just wandering around the parks is fun, too. Buckingham Fountain is a major Chicago landmark. It runs daily from 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m., with a water display every 20 minutes. Beginning at dusk, it is also lit up. The final display begins at 10:35 p.m. There are many public art exhibits around Grant Park, as well.

The Art Institute of Chicago (on the west side of the park) has miniature rooms among other classic works of art from Renoir to O’Keefe. The modern art wing is new since the last JSM in Chicago—and it is linked to the new Pritzker Pavilion by way of Nichols Bridgeway. Then, you can take Gehry’s BP Pedestrian Bridge over to Maggie Daley Park, where you can find a rock wall and many other fun things to do. Or go west (away from the lake) over to Cloud Gate, otherwise known as “the bean.”

You can find just about any tour for what you like—there are Segway, walking, boat, bike, trolley, or bus tours focused on architecture, food, chocolate, cupcakes, coffee, bars, the 1893 world’s fair, or mob hangouts. Or try something different—a smartphone-guided city scavenger hunt!

The Chicago River and Navy Pier have many attractions in the summer. If you want to watch fun for a cause, August 4 is the Windy City Rubber Ducky Derby. Support Special Olympics Illinois by adopting a duck, and then come watch a giant dump truck dump thousands of rubber ducks into the Chicago River!.

We have fireworks! Navy Pier lights up the night with fireworks on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. and Saturday at 10:15 p.m. all summer. There is much to do at Navy Pier, and it is a short walk (under Lake Shore Drive) from the Sheraton Hotel. The Chicago Children’s Museum, Crystal Gardens, Shakespeare Theater, food, and shopping can all be found here. Consider taking a ride on the new 196-foot Ferris Wheel, playing miniature golf, or riding a carousel.

What’s the point of visiting a city on a great lake without enjoying a boat ride? The Chicago Architecture Foundation runs a river boat tour that is informative and fun as it takes advantage of views from the river (and/or lake) and the cooler breezes those waterways afford. Want to hit the boats, but not necessarily be lectured to after hours of sessions? Not to worry, there are boat rides just for fun! Wendella Boats have some that leave the river, and you can pick from speedboats to more luxury liners out on Navy Pier that head out for dinner and fireworks cruises.

Museum Campus—including the Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium—is a great place to spend a day or afternoon. It is on the southeast end of Grant Park (closer to the convention center). There are plenty of hands-on exhibits. See how much you would weigh on Mars, or check out one of the Skyshows at the planetarium. Meet Sue, the T-Rex, or look at the gem rooms in the Field Museum. Over at the Shedd, you can meet the new dolphin (born April 18 at 25 pounds) and other animals in the Oceanarium, and maybe even see a show at the 4D theater.

A little further north of the downtown area, you will find Lincoln Park. This neighborhood contains the Lincoln Park Zoo, Lincoln Park Conservatory, an outdoor theater, a rowing canal, the Chicago History Museum, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, the North Pond Nature Sanctuary, North Avenue Beach, playing fields, and prominent statues of General Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln (interestingly, there are no statues of Grant in Grant Park). The Lincoln Park Zoo is one of the oldest zoos in the country, as well as one of the few free ones! It hosts all the usual lions and tigers and bears (not the football team—those guys play just south of McCormick Place in Soldier Field). It is truly an experience to look up at a giraffe and see the John Hancock Building in the background.

When you are in the city where skyscrapers were born, it’s nice to get a bird’s-eye view. Although many tourists go to the Willis (Sears) Tower for great views and glass boxes, I would not ignore the John Hancock’s views. Nearby to the John Hancock, you will find some nice restaurants, as well as Water Tower Place (shopping and food) and the old Chicago Pumping Station (one of the few structures that survived the Chicago fire). This part of Michigan Avenue is referred to as the “Magnificent Mile,” and once you walk down it, there will be little doubt as to why.

If you want, hop a cab or take a ride on the #6 or #2 bus south to Hyde Park and check out The University of Chicago, the site of the first controlled nuclear reaction, Oriental Institute, Smart Museum of Art, DuSable Museum of African American History, and one of my favorites: the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). The MSI is a fun place for the family. How can it not be with exhibits like “Numbers in Nature: A Mirror Maze” and “Brick by Brick,” and interactive Lego exhibit? The museum also houses a U-505 submarine, a coal mine, flight and ride simulators in the Henry Crown Space Center, a tornado, a baby chick hatchery, trains, and Yesterday’s Main Street.

Hungry for hamburger, hamburger, hamburgers? Chips, no fries? We have the original Billy Goat Tavern right under Michigan Avenue north of the river. See the location made famous not only on Saturday Night Live by John Belushi, but also by the owner for cursing the Chicago Cubs when the team would not let him take his goat into the game.

Blue Man Group has been here for a while—as has Second City Comedy Club (breeding ground for comedians who wind up on SNL). Kingston Mines can’t be beat for blues, but keep an eye on the time. It is open until 4 or 5 in the morning, so staying until closing is not the best idea if you are attending a roundtable at 7:00 or sessions at 8:30!

Chicago is widely known for having great food. In the mood for ethnic food? And by “ethnic,” I mean just about any ethnicity you can imagine! Many cities have Chinatowns, but we have new and old sections of Chinatown, Koreatown, Greektown, Ukrainian Village, and many more neighborhoods. DNA info Chicago lists the best restaurants (as rated by Yelp!) for African-American, Polish, Irish, Mexican, Assyrian, Swedish, Puerto Rican, Ukrainian, Chinese, or Greek.

Want to get a baseball game in? JSM just missed the crosstown classic, but the Cubs are playing the Mariners July 29–31 and the Marlins Aug 1–3. The Sox are away until August 5, when they play Baltimore.

Can’t get enough statistics? Believe it or not, every Tuesday night is Chi Hack Night! Every week, there is a 10–15-minute presentation by a government agency, nonprofit, company, or group that has made use of open data or built a civic technology application. The goal of these presentations is to showcase the different uses and opportunities, as well as challenges and successes, in the civic technology movement. After the presentation, the format of the event is similar to that of a hackathon, where breakout groups self-organize to work on civic apps, discuss policies and their implications, learn technical skills, and network with a welcoming and diverse community at the intersection of technology and government (6–10 p.m. on the 8th Floor of the Merchandise Mart).

These are just some ideas for short trips around Chicago. Really! I just found an indoor skydiving place in Lincoln Park. I know what I’m doing Thursday night!