Back by popular demand, the Michigan Avenue Fish Hotel recently opened for a second season. Located footsteps from the door of the McCormick Tribune Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum, Bridgehouse visitors can stop by this “living exhibit.”

First installed in summer 2005, Friends of the Chicago River’s Michigan Avenue Fish Hotel was a pilot project that had one very simple goal, to see if fish would utilize a constructed floating garden for food, shelter, and protection in an area where such amenities are sorely lacking. The Michigan Avenue Fish Hotel proved successful. By the end of the summer the underwater resort was so popular, it was difficult to count all of the fish visitors.

The Michigan Avenue Fish Hotel is a river improvement project of Friends’ Adopt A River Downtown program. In partnership with the City of Chicago, Adopt A River Downtown brings together many of Chicago’s corporations who work together to foster the vitality of the Chicago River as it flows through the heart of downtown Chicago. Corporate adopters include: Ace INA, The Boeing Company, General Growth Properties, Nuveen Investments, Two North Riverside Plaza, Winston & Strawn and Unitrin.

The Michigan Avenue Fish Hotel has been popular with humans too. When it was launched last summer, the project received worldwide attention as an innovative way to provide habitat in an urban river environment where steel walls and heavy boat traffic challenge fish and other aquatic animals. The project received international press in places as far away as India and Australia.

Come see the Michigan Avenue Fish Hotel before or after your visit inside the McCormick Tribune Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum.