History Map Shows Off Chicago, Warts And All

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Most Chicagoans with an eye for history may know that the White City for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition was in Jackson Park, or that John Wayne Gacy lived on Summerdale Avenue in unincorporated Norwood Park Township.

But did you know that Afghan president Hamid Karzai once owned a restaurant in the heart of the Boystown strip of Halsted Street? Or that John Dillinger underwent plastic surgery in a home on Pulaski Road in Logan Square? Or that Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel's Ravenswood house is only about four blocks south of the home where Carl Sandburg wrote his most famous poem, "Chicago?"

Thanks to a new interactive map by the apartment search site Domu, you can find out all that and more about Chicago history, from every corner of the city and suburbs.

The Chicago History map features about 500 entries placed as markers on a Google map. The entries are divided into a dozen categories from famous residences and schools with famous alumni, to murders, mobsters and bizarre oddities.

The World's Columbian Exposition even has its own category, with the sites marked for all the fair buildings.

Domu says you can learn about everything from the 1915 accident that flipped the S.S. Eastland (on the Chicago River near LaSalle Street) to the first Chess Records studio where Chuck Berry auditioned in 1955 (formerly at 4750 S. Cottage Grove Ave.)

You can also find all sorts of historic theaters and nightclubs – from the Beehive, 1503 E. 55th St. in Hyde Park, where jazz legend Charlie Parker played his last gig, to the Rendez-Vous Café, a jazz club at the northwest corner of Clark and Diversey where Glenn Miller played in 1925 (it's a Jamba Juice now.)

On the darker side, the map lists infamous sites from H.H. Holmes' murder castle in Englewood to the Far South Side house where Richard Speck killed eight student nurses.

On the lighter side, you can follow the route of the parade sequence in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," find the Wicker Park storefront that stood in for Championship Vinyl records in "High Fidelity," or track down multiple sites in "Dark Knight" and "The Blues Brothers."

And in sports, the map shows the exact seat at Wrigley Field where Steve Bartman interfered with a foul ball during the 2003 National League championship finals.

The map also documents everything from sites notable at the time of the city's founding to the locations of events in the news in recent months.

And CBS 2 and WBBM Newsradio 780's old headquarters at 630 N. McClurg Ct. even get a mention for the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960.

The map was just unveiled Monday, but Domu says it is already working on future versions of the map, which will include architecturally significant buildings and landmarks.