Go behind the scenes at free Open House Chicago tours

Want to take a free, behind-the-scenes trip to the top of the Sears Tower?

No, not Willis Tower, that super skyscraper looming over downtown Chicago, but the Original Sears Tower on the site of the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. headquarters on the city's near West Side. Built in 1906, the 14-story tower once housed radio station WLS, call letters for “World's Largest Store,” as Sears was at the time.

Now undergoing restoration, the tower is closed to the public, but on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 15-16, it, and more than 100 other usually restricted spaces, will welcome visitors during Open House Chicago.

The Open House concept is new to Chicago, but the idea has been kicking around since 1992 when London held its first tours. Now more than 20 cities around the globe hold an annual Open House, including New York City and Toronto. Organizers in Chicago expect its debut Open House weekend this year will draw more than 50,000 people.

Here's how it works: Get yourself to one of five Chicago buildings serving as hubs for tours in their neighborhoods and hop aboard a shuttle to each site. Travel to as many hubs and visit as many sites as you like; it's all free. Take your time. At most sites, tours are self-guided. Access is first-come, first-served, although members of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which is hosting Open House Chicago, get priority passes.

The sites cover a hodgepodge of uses: factories, schools, cultural institutions, offices, stores and places of worship. Some are noteworthy for their history or architecture. Through most of them runs a seam of sustainability on two fronts: community — focusing on developments that have brought rundown neighborhoods back to life, and environment — buildings utilizing “green” construction techniques.

For example, Homan Square, which includes the Original Sears Tower, is a 55-acre development in North Lawndale where more than 20,000 people were employed in a huge complex that spit out 300 million Sears catalogs. It was ravished by riots in the 1960s and experienced high unemployment after the Sears facility shut down. The crime rate soared. Now it is a complex of single-family homes and apartments, office buildings, shops, a community center and a park district facility.

During Open House Chicago, the tower and community center will be open as well as Power House High School, formerly the massive power plant providing heat and electricity for the Sears headquarters. It sat vacant until 2009 when it was renovated as a charter high school using energy-efficient methods. Many of the building's original mechanics remain. Open House visitors will visit the Great Hall of the Power House, now used as the school auditorium and cafeteria.

Other Open House sites to visit include:

Ÿ The Emil Bach House in Rogers Park is sure to be among the most popular — and will likely draw the longest lines to get inside. The Prairie Style home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1915 is not normally open to the public. Next door, the Cat's Cradle Bed and Breakfast also will be open for tours. The American Four Square home was built in 1919.

Ÿ Goettsch Partners, an 85-person architecture firm, occupies the top floor of the Santa Fe Building in the Loop. Visitors will gather around the sky-lit atrium and gaze out striking round windows overlooking Millennium Park and lakefront museums.

Ÿ Garfield Park Conservatory, hit by hail damage from June storms, was built from 1906-1908 in a design by Jens Jensen, who envisioned it as landscapes under glass. Open House visitors will be given access to production greenhouses being repaired. Nearby sites include the baroque, gold-domed Garfield Park Field House and Inspiration Kitchens, which provides culinary job training for the disadvantaged in a “green” building rehabbed from an engraving factory.

Ÿ Little Black Pearl Art & Design Center was a drive-through liquor store in Bronzeville. The redesigned and expanded complex now offers art education; tours will visit studios and workshops.

Ÿ Meyers Ace Hardware was once the legendary Sunset Café, a South Side jazz club where Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey played. Visitors will see the stage area, now used as the store's office space.

Ÿ La Villita Community Church in the Hispanic Little Village neighborhood is a nondenominational church and community center in a repurposed Masonic temple. Open House visitors will see the chapel, a third-floor gymnasium where the YMCA runs a program for at-risk youngsters and, in the basement, a boxing ring where champions train in the Chicago Youth Boxing Club.

Ÿ Christy Webber Landscapes is known for plantings at both Chicago airports and Millennium Park. Visitors will take a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility's green roof and planting areas in a West Side eco-industrial park.

Ÿ The Mayne Stage opened in 2008 in the former Morse Theater, once a vaudeville house, then synagogue and shoe repair store in Rogers Park. A multimillion-dollar renovation transformed it into an entertainment spot for live shows and dining in the Act One Pub. Visitors will have access to the backstage area and recording control room.

If you go

<b>Information: </b>Visit <a href="http://www.openhousechicago.org" target="_blank">openhousechicago.org</a> for details about Open House Chicago and a list of sites or call (312) 922-3432, ext. 0.

<b>When: </b>Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 15-16. Hub locations are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., but times at individual sites vary; some are not open both days.

<b>Where: </b>Tours depart from five hubs:

• Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Ave., Garfield Park/North Lawndale sites

• La Villita Community Church, 2300 S. Millard Ave., Little Village sites

• Little Black Pearl Art & Design Center, 1060 E. 47th St., Bronzeville/Black Metropolis sites

• Santa Fe Building, 224 S. Michigan Ave., downtown sites

• Warren Park Field House, 6601 N. Western Ave., Rogers Park/West Ridge sites

<b>Cost: </b>Tours and shuttle from hub locations are free