Friends of Downtown is the voice for intelligent planning and urban design for downtown Chicago. Founded in 1981, we are recognized as a vital and influential component of the city’s design and building process.

Friends of Downtown directly influences planning and development decisions through debate, public advocacy, and cooperation with other civic organizations. We create awareness of important issues affecting downtown, enabling citizens to develop their understanding and voice their opinions of Chicago’s physical and social environment.

Members throughout the metropolitan area are committed to ensuring that downtown Chicago remains the well-designed, vibrant, economic heart of the city.

For information on joining Friends of Downtown, send us a quick e-mail.

Friends of Downtown
PO Box 1635
Chicago 60690
Phone 312 458 9454

Click here to get e-mail notifying you of Friends of Downtown events.

Brown Bag Luncheons
Friends of Downtown’s popular lunchtime programs are usually held the first Thursday of the month, in the Chicago Cultural Center. Click here for a summary of recent programs.

The next Friends of Downtown Brown Bag presentation
Thursday, August 6th at 12.15 pm
Chicago Cultural Center
Millennium Room

The Underbelly of Chicago
Besides the subway, what other infrastructure is lurking below Chicago’s downtown streets? Many of us who were residents or workers in downtown Chicago on April 13, 1992 found out part of the answer to that question. Earlier that morning, some 124 million gallons of murky Chicago River water poured through a crack into a little-used, all-but-forgotten 47-mile network of freight tunnels under the central business district. After filling the tunnels, the river water rose into the basements of many downtown buildings, knocking out electric power and natural gas service. Friends of Downtown decided that it was time to revisit that story with the intention of learning more about what infrastructure lurks below the surface of our fair city.

Join Herb Berg of HBK Engineering as he sheds light on Chicago’s underbelly, returns to the day of the flood and expands our knowledge of the inner workings of our city below street level and out of sight.