There is a street in the South Loop—Dearborn from Polk to Harrison is only one block long—that is one of the most charming blocks in the city. I say the South Loop […]
Essay: Taking a Walkabout on Printer’s Row, a Neighborhood Within a Neighborhood
Review: Visualizing and Honoring Black America, the Story W.E.B. Du Bois Told at the 1900 Paris Exposition
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America—The Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Edited by Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Britt Rusert Princeton Architectural Press Black Lives 1900: W.E.B. Du […]
Review: Why Chicago Is Chicago, A History of the Chicago Portage, by Benjamin Sells
A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads That Made Chicago and Helped Make America By Benjamin Sells Northwestern University Press Let me tell you: I’m a huge Chicago history nerd, and […]
Review: Controlled Burn–Raks Inferno Makes a Safe but Sizzling Return to In Person Shows
It’s been a long while since things were “normal.” And the last time we set foot in the Newport Theater, it was over a year ago and cold out. Very cold. The […]
Review: Hope, Nature, and Racism, Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago, by Brian McCammack
Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago By Brian McCammack Harvard University Press For African Americans who took part in the Great Migration in the first half of the […]
On the Road: Get Your Kicks, Land of Lincoln Style–A Route 66 Journey
As everyone knows, Historic Route 66 gets its start at the corner of Adams Street and Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago and then winds its way through the country to Los Angeles. […]
On the Road: Drizzle and Blues in Grafton, Wisconsin
Is Wisconsin the furthest state from the Mississippi Delta? Culturally, perhaps. Yet the land of butter burgers and cheese curds played a big role in preserving the blues. While 78 rpm records […]
Big Wheel, Keep On Turning–Chicago Auto Show Returns to McCormick Place for Slightly Altered 2021 Show
The Chicago Auto Show was one of the last events we covered in 2020 before the pandemic hit, and the new July edition of the Chicago Auto Show that opens tomorrow will […]
Headquarters Beercade Reopens in River North with New Menu, Drinks and Great Games
It’s been a long time for a lot of things, hasn’t it? The pandemic put all sorts of things on hold, or changed them forever, from favorite restaurants and bars we used […]
Preview: The Newport Theater’s “Peek-Easy” Debuts a Series of Saucy and Safe Live Mini-Shows Tonight with a Raks Geek Takeover
Today’s a momentous day for Chicago. Stage 5 COVID-19 restrictions officially lift, leaving everyone with more options than ever for things to do with their weekend. It feels a little strange, doesn’t […]
Frida Kahlo: Timeless Opens Today at Glen Ellyn’s Cleve Carney Museum of Art
Whether you’ve studied Frida Kahlo and her works intensively or she exists as merely a name and notion in your mind, there’s a few concrete things that come to mind at the […]
Preview: NERD ALERT!! Bring Your Friends and Your Pets for the Virtual Chicago Nerd Comedy Fest
Way back when, when I was, I guess, a “cub” writer, I was unofficially assigned the “nerd beat.” This was in no small part due to the fact that my senior editors […]
