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Self-paced
Our virtual tours are designed for classrooms outside Chicago and for anyone who can’t make it to a stop in person. Same scripts, same primary sources, same youth-led commentary. Open one in a browser and walk through the history at your own pace.
In production
The first three virtual tours are in production with a target launch this fall. We’ll publish a beta to our educator list first — if you teach high-school history, civics, or geography, sign up to get early access and help us test it with your students.
Join the educator betaEach stop pairs a present-day photograph with a HOLC map fragment, a 1950s aerial, or a city planning document from the period.
Three-to-five minute commentaries by our youth researchers — the same script used on the in-person tour, with optional captions.
Click through to the actual surveyor notes, deed restrictions, and city ordinances that shaped each block.
Stops can be assigned individually or in sequence. A teacher mode hides the navigation chrome and reveals discussion prompts.
Each tour mirrors a stop on our self-guided Chicago walking tours.
Tour 01
Eight stops along the eastern edge of HOLC area D28, from the corner where the Home Owners' Loan Corporation drew the line in 1938 to the disinvestment you can still see today.
Tour 02
A mural-by-mural reading of the political art on 16th Street, set against four decades of displacement pressure on Chicago's largest historically Mexican-American neighborhood.
Tour 03
What the University of Chicago demolished, what it built, and what the neighborhood organized to defend, traced across six blocks of the South Side.
Take the in-person walking tour first, then use the virtual version as the classroom follow-up.
See walking tours