Geoffrey Baer

Chicago is full of places that take your breath away, from gilded lobbies to verdant parks and eye-bending skyscrapers to glorious sacred spaces. Geoffrey Baer has seen a lot of these stunning locations while exploring the Chicago area for his WTTW documentaries, and his newest special takes you even further into The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago.

Chicago is full of places that take your breath away, from gilded lobbies to verdant parks and eye-bending skyscrapers to glorious sacred spaces. Geoffrey Baer has seen a lot of these stunning locations while exploring the Chicago area for his WTTW documentaries, and his newest special takes you even further into The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago.

Chicago is full of places that take your breath away, from gilded lobbies to verdant parks and eye-bending skyscrapers to glorious sacred spaces. Geoffrey Baer has seen a lot of these stunning locations while exploring the Chicago area for his WTTW documentaries, and his newest special takes you even further into The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago.

When your family piled into the car for a vacation, where did you go? Starved Rock? Lake Geneva? The Dells? Maybe the Indiana Dunes? Or Michigan’s Harbor Country? The road trip is a time-honored tradition. “Are we there yet?” is a familiar refrain, but with Geoffrey Baer behind the wheel, you’ll be asking, “Where are we going next?” WTTW takes Chicago on Vacation to the beloved lakes, resorts, and towns we go to escape life in the city—and the stops we make along the way. Through archival film, old home movies, testimonials, interviews, and beautiful new footage, Geoffrey explores these cherished destinations for rest and recreation now, and in generations past.

Explore the stories behind ten original American monuments and the historical moments that inspired them. In Ten Streets That Changed America, see how streets have connected the nation and divided communities. In Ten Modern Marvels That Changed America, meet engineers who have scoffed at the laws of nature and defied naysayers with amazing feats of engineering.

The story of the South Side of Chicago is a story of immigrants and of migrants, of workers and unions, of political dynasties and sports legacies, art and commerce, progress and struggle. It is a story of Irish, German, Italian, Polish, Chinese, Lithuanian, Croatian, Slovakian, Mexican and African Americans, of blue collars and brownfields, of White Sox and Black Sox – and of one Red Bridge. Above all, the story of Chicago’s South Side is a story of neighborhoods – a rich patchwork quilt of neighborhoods, each with its own origin story, identity, culture, and heroes. And while some South Side neighborhoods might seem defined by how much things stay the same, most demonstrate how much in Chicago continuously evolves. Explore some of the South Side’s neighborhoods and their stories.

In Biking the Boulevards, Geoffrey Baer bikes his way across Chicago, using the city's network of boulevards. The boulevards are wide, tree-lined streets, which connect Chicago's largest parks. This system of parks and boulevards was the first of its kind in the country - imagined nearly 150 years ago. Discover how these boulevards came to be and explore these magnificent parks, from Washington and Sherman Parks on the South Side, to Douglas, Humboldt and Garfield on the West. These green spaces are often overlooked, but they're every bit as beautiful as Chicago's famous lakefront parks. Geoffrey invites you to take a new look at the old neighborhoods that emerged along these boulevards in the 19th Century. Places like Bronzeville, Englewood, Back of the Yards, Lawndale, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square. Many of these enclaves have seen their share of hard times over the years, but hidden just beneath the surface…you'll find some remarkable surprises.

10 Buildings that Changed America presents 10 trend-setting works of architecture that have shaped and inspired our American landscape. These aren’t just historic structures by famous architects. These buildings have dramatically influenced our built environment in many ways – and in one case, for over two centuries.

10 Buildings that Changed America presents 10 trend-setting works of architecture that have shaped and inspired our American landscape. These aren’t just historic structures by famous architects. These buildings have dramatically influenced our built environment in many ways – and in one case, for over two centuries.

Did you ever wish you could travel back in history to find out what happened right on the spot where you’re standing? That’s exactly what WTTW Host Geoffrey Baer did. With his Chicago Time Machine, he peels back layers of fascinating stories all over Chicagoland, going back as far as 14,000 years. We’ve put all of these stories – and many more – together. Happy travels!

In an area barely ten square blocks, Geoffrey Baer traces the history of the skyscraper in the city where it was born. What makes a city, a city? Is it the buildings? The people? Is it what happened here 100 years ago — or what is happening right now? To find out, we invite you to join us in an urban adventure with WTTW host, writer, and producer Geoffrey Baer’s new multimedia tour through Chicago’s downtown Loop. Explore this site. Listen to the audio stories of the everyday people who inhabit the Loop. Take the tour yourself, with our audio download. Watch the show wherever you are. We know you’ll find one answer for sure. Chicago’s Loop is one of the great American city spaces. Discover its history, architecture, excitement — and most of all, stories.

In an area barely ten square blocks, Geoffrey Baer traces the history of the skyscraper in the city where it was born. What makes a city, a city? Is it the buildings? The people? Is it what happened here 100 years ago — or what is happening right now? To find out, we invite you to join us in an urban adventure with WTTW host, writer, and producer Geoffrey Baer’s new multimedia tour through Chicago’s downtown Loop. Explore this site. Listen to the audio stories of the everyday people who inhabit the Loop. Take the tour yourself, with our audio download. Watch the show wherever you are. We know you’ll find one answer for sure. Chicago’s Loop is one of the great American city spaces. Discover its history, architecture, excitement — and most of all, stories.

You are what you eat goes the old saying. So what can we learn about Chicagoans from the food on our plates? WTTW 11's Geoffrey Baer plays both taste-tester and tour guide, exploring the little-known stories behind Chicago's favorite foods.

In this sequel to WTTW's popular Hidden Chicago special, Geoffrey Baer explores dusty attics, deep tunnels and the candy aisle at Walgreen's in search of fascinating fragments of Chicago's past and little-known stories behind things we see and use every day.

Join us for a journey along our most famous front yard. The eyes of the world were on Chicago's Lakefront on election night 2008 as tens of thousands of people gathered there to celebrate with President-Elect Barack Obama. Chicago's lakefront is unique in the world. It's a seventeen-mile-long people's paradise that belongs to all of us. WTTW's popular on-air host, producer and Chicago Architecture Foundation docent Geoffrey Baer will re-trace his steps in Chicago's Lakefront, an all-new documentary tour shot in High Definition. Chicago's Lakefront debuted on WTTW11 and WTTWD on December 1 just a month before the start of the 100th anniversary year of Daniel Burnham's great Plan of Chicago, which transformed the lakefront into an unbroken ribbon of public parks.

Documentary showing some of the partially hidden history and art in the city of Chicago.

It's a part of Chicago that's full of surprises. It's home to a 28-square-mile forest with a rock canyon. It's where one of the Blues Brothers did time (along with thousands of other real-life convicts). And it's the setting for Chicago's most famous ghost story. It's home to major league soccer and minor league baseball. Chicago's largest Arab and Ghanaian communities are here. It's also home to a bustling industrial canal where salty mariners navigate a Panama Canal-sized lock past a hundred-year-old hydroelectric dam. This modern waterway follows the path of a 19th century canal that first connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. That earlier canal transformed Chicago from an isolated trading post on the edge of the American frontier into the fastest-growing city in the history of the world.

History of Chicago from the stage of the Chicago River.

It's a journey that starts at Blarney Island, a rowdy bar in the middle of a lake accessible only by boat, and ends sixty miles down the Fox River at Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, one of the world’s greatest examples of minimalist modern architecture. Between those two extremes you’ll discover a world of amazing history and colorful characters. Geoffrey Baer takes viewers on a trip along the historic Fox River from the Chain O’ Lakes in far northern Illinois, all of the way south to Aurora.

Join Geoffrey Baer for his newest engaging Chicago tour program, which covers Chicago's historic Western suburbs. Highlights include Brookfield Zoo, McDonald's headquarters, some Frank Lloyd Wright architectural treasures, Morton Arboretum, the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus, the original Kiddieland in Melrose Park, the annual Pet Parade in LaGrange, a famous Hillside cemetery where Al Capone is buried, and much, much more. Geoffrey’s fascinating trek takes you westward from Cicero to Naperville, and then returns east from Wheaton to Oak Park, visiting more than twenty-five fascinating communities.

Chicago is filled with Architectural wonders from the famous to the hidden treasures waiting to be discovered! Join Geoffrey Baer as he explores seven of the best Chicago has to offer! The seven wonders include: Amazing Hotels, The Ferris Wheel, Heavenly Buildings, Scraping the Sky in Style, Architecture for Animals, That Tiffany Town, The Making of Millennium Park and so much more!

Take a journey along the waterways, highways, and railways of Chicago's South Suburbs and Northwest Indiana. Starting in Gary, with a look inside the largest still mill in the Western Hemisphere, travel along the Lake Michigan shoreline to Chicago's Calumet Harbor and cruise the Calumet River to Blue Island. From there, visit Robbins, hop in a Model A Ford, and head south on the historic Dixie Highway through the beautiful communities of Homewood, Flossmoor, Olympia Fields, Chicago Heights, and many more.

History of the suburbs and towns Northwest of Chicago.

History of the suburbs and towns North of Chicago.

The ride of your life is just a turnstile away! Take a special journey as Geoffrey Baer explores Chicago's ethnic diversity from on-board the 'L.'! This guided front-row tour is a unique, elevated glimpse into the history, cultural life, and architectural features of the city's diverse neighborhoods. Learn the hidden secrets and intriguing stories of sites that may seem commonplace on your daily commute. Explore the hidden wonders of the downtown Loop, Bronzeville, Old town, Wrigleyville, Garfield Park, Bridgeport, Pilsen, Wicker Park, and many more!

Ten American homes designed by visionary architects, their eclectic clients and current homeowners are highlighted. Each home combined form, function and art to challenge the nature of a home and evolving relationship with it.