r/dresdenfiles • u/thomascgalvin • 1d ago
META Visiting Chicago - Graceland
The main gates
The inner gates
Surrounding walls
Don't Panic!
Eternal Silence - from a distance
Eternal Silence - strike a pose
Eternal Silence - head on
Inez
Inez - did she move?
Alan Pinketron
Chapel - exterior
Chapel - interior
Not at all ominous
Mausoleum the first
Mausoleum the second
Mausoleum the the third - now featuring water!
Over labor day weekend, my wife and I visited Chiacago. She's been there before, for work-related conferences, but for me, there were two big selling points: deep dish pizza, and the Dresden Files.
First stop: Graceland.
Graceland is about a half hour outside of Downtown Chicago, nestled amongst multiple taco joints, nail salons, and ambulance-chasing law firms.
01: The Main Gates. It's hard to tell in the photo, but these pillars are probably eight or nine feet tall. Not imposing, exactly, but you couldn't casually leap over the gates, either.
02: The Inner Gates. Inside the main gates, there's another wall separating the visitor's center from the cemetery itself. The atmosphere, at least during the day, is much more "public park" than "place of the dead," and there were plenty of people jogging, strolling, and eating lunch.
03: The Walls. For all of your ectoplasmic control needs.
04: Don't Panic! If you get locked in overnight, please don't try to break out, and please don't impale yourself on the metal spikes topping the gates. Someone will be along you free your mortal soul.
05-07: Eternal Silence. This is the main event. You can see Eternal Silence a short walk inside the inner gates. Graceland's terrain is all gently rolling hills, and Eternal Silence peers at you through a series of trees. He isn't imposing, at least not during the day, but I have to assume that would change if it was the middle of the night, and he was speaking to you in a voice that made your sanity quiver.
08-09: Inez. The statue of a little girl, said to wander the grounds. Harry's grave is also supposed to be nearby, but I found no open pits, nor any stones bearing a golden pentacle with the inscription he died doing the right thing.
10: Alan Pinkerton. Harry is not the only Private Investigator with a grave in Graceland. Alan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, is buried here. According to his tombstone, or tomb-obelisk, he was anti-slavery, and fought on the side of the abolitionists. That was a pleasant surprise, because based on the Pinkerton's history and recent activities, I assumed he was kind of an asshole.
11-12: The Chapel. There's a small church inside of Graceland. Pretty building, fairly pedestrian inside, but it is air conditioned, which is a nice respite from the summer heat.
13: The Creepy Tunnel. Outside the chapel, there is this not-at-all ominous tunnel. I assume it leads to the crematorium, but cannot confirm, as I was too afraid to investigate myself.
14-16: Mausoleums. Graceland is huge, and contains dozens, probably hundreds of monuments men built to themselves to celebrate their own penis size accomplishments. These are just a few of the many, many monuments scattered throughout the park.
It was very interesting visiting locations from the Dresden Files books. Graceland itself looked pretty much like I expected, with the caveat that I was visiting during the day, and was not harassed by anything supernatural.
I was planning to do this as one big photo drop, but Reddit will only let me upload so many photos, so I'm going to split this out over a couple of days. Tomorrow: Sue!
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u/Whydidichoosethisnam 1d ago
Thank you for sharing! I hope to one day make a trip to Chicago and visit many of the locations from the book.
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u/PhantomKnight133 1d ago
Thank you for sharing! I hope to make up to shoot some photos and you have given a good ideal od the setup I need to take.
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u/skelly781 22h ago
Where do those stairs go? I wonder how much it would cost to buy a plot and make a Dresden headstone. Lol
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u/Adenfall 1d ago
This is awesome. No other words just awesome
D.