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Hawthorne is an awesome old-school track in all of its gritty glory. Definitely go!
Haven't been myself for abt. 8 years, but highlights at my last visit were....
1) Great selection of old winner's circle & Hawthorne Gold Cup photos all around the clubhouse.
2) The outdoors "nosebleed" seats in the grandstand third floor have to be the steepest trackside seating I have ever encountered. Definitely go up there to watch the start of a route race. You are practically looking down on the starting gate from directly above and you will hear the pre-race chatter like you are in the gate with the horses.
3) In a perverse way, I enjoyed the apocalyptic outdoors view from the back mezzanine (people went out there pretty much just to smoke when I visited). It looks directly out onto where the old Sportsman's Park used to be (yes, the two tracks were once side by side, I believe separated by the city limits borders of Cicero & Stickney). It was converted to an auto racetrack in the 1990s, and then left to decay/ruin.
A heads up: You can take public transportation to & from the track if you are staying in downtown Chicago, but numerous people at the track warned me away from going back into the city via the shuttle buses & trains after dark. Cab ride was only about $30 on an early Saturday evening w/ no traffic and well worth the money in terms of saving time (and perhaps from a safety standpoint too). I am very used to being around "sketchy" racetracks at night, but Hawthorne was the one track in my life where I had won abt. $700 and felt compelled to go into a men's room stall, take off a shoe, and hide the money in my sock until I got back to my hotel.
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