By hydrothermal reactions of a newly designed ligand, 2-(p-tert-butylphenyl)-1H-imidazole-4, 5-dicarboxylic acid (H 3 BuPhIDC) with Cd(II) or Zn(II), three metal-organic frameworks, [Cd(μ 3 -HBuPhIDC)(H 2 O)]·2H 2 O (1), [Cd(μ 3 -HBuPhIDC)(4,4′-bipy) 0.5 ] (4,4′-bipy = 4,4′-bipyridine) (2), and [Zn 2 (μ 3 -HBuPhIDC) 2 (CH 3 OH) 2 ] (3), have been obtained and characterized by elemental analyses, IR spectroscopy, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. In 1, small countless diamond grids form a mesh structure and then are bridged through μ 3 -HBuPhIDC 2− linkers building a 3-D framework. Compared with 1, 4,4′-bipy participates in the construction of a 3-D structure of 2. Polymer 3 shows an interesting 3-D open architecture, which contains infinite 1-D octagonal channels built by left-and right-handed helical chains. Thermal and solid-state photoluminescence properties of the polymers have been investigated.