Just for the extremely great location, we're in Wework at Fulton Market; I would rent the coworking space there before I would pay for the coworking membership at 1871.
Both spaces are, in my opinion, pretty extremely douchey. Wework probably a little more so.
It's a co-working space specifically for hardware startups. May not be super relevant to you, but the shop on the second floor is pretty fun to fiddle around in.
To be clear, we would not charge you to use one of our desks.
There are now dozens of co-working spaces in Chicago, with all sorts of amenities, specialties, sizes, etc.
1871 is the flagship, created by and supported by the city/government and rich tech leaders. But it is far from the only community in town available to you.
Think about what you need first and go from there.
If you're just looking for a place to work on nights and weekends, there's plenty of excellent coffee shops around our beautiful city that you can use instead.