NEW ISSUE! We're giving you ideas for 12 lake escapes. You'll be dreaming about your next road trip when you read about everything from the ideal spot for sweeping coastal views to a pastry paradise.
On December 4, 1969, 21-year-old Fred Hampton was killed in a raid on his West Side apartment. Remembering the Black Panther chairman and community organizer, 50 years on:
In 1970, Roger Ebert walked out of a movie he’d been reviewing for the
@Suntimes
and into a Lincoln Park bar. There, a mailman named John Prine was performing. Ebert wrote about Prine's set instead, giving the singer his first review:
Jason Benetti became the White Sox play-by-play broadcaster in 2019. "I assumed Jason was deeply tired of being held up as an Inspirational Story. He is — sort of. And yet his disability is a significant part of what drives him," says writer Peter Sagal.
In our November cover story,
@DeMar_DeRozan
of the
@chicagobulls
talks about his killer offseason workout, what he likes about playing for Coach Donovan, and why he always sits in the third row of an SUV.
“There used to be 50 bars between here and Oak Park Avenue,” he said. “Now, there’s maybe four. There’s hardly any bars left of Western. There used to be 3,000 bars in the city of Chicago. Now there’s maybe 1,000.”
The Chicago flag is a bold, simple design that has come to symbolize the city over which it flies.
The Illinois flag, on the other hand, looks like a bunch of random clip art pasted into a Google doc.
The youngest African American woman ever to serve in the House of Representatives came into Congress with a class of "big personalities." Her softer approach isn't going unnoticed. And part of it is certainly tactical.
With a paid staff of four and more than 200 volunteer drivers and overnight hosts,
@MidwestAccess
helps at least 120 women a month with the logistics and cost of traveling to Illinois for a safe, legal abortion.
Political consultant Tom Bowen doesn’t mince words about Mayor Johnson’s handling of the press during his first year: “Beyond incompetent and probably the worst administration of the past 40 years.”
A Chicagoan of the Year, Christina Whitehouse is a bike lane revolutionary. Read about how the founder of
@bikelaneuprise
has galvanized a movement and created policy change to protect the wellbeing of cyclists.
The two-time WNBA MVP on why she won’t coddle men in broadcasting, how being voted most overrated by her fellow players motivates her, and what advice Kobe gave her before a big game.
“You go through so much in your career and it’s not that you want to give up,” Kahleah Copper says. “But it’s like, Damn, when is it going to be my time?”
For the
@chicagosky
star and 2021 WNBA Finals MVP, that time has come.
"Walking Chicago," a new book out this week, features 35 different routes throughout the city. The day before it hit bookshelves, we took a stroll with author
@robertloerzel
on his home turf.
The cofounder of
@ctaaction
Fabio Göttlicher wants you to know that Chicago’s public transit system is in trouble.
Read about the group raising hell about the L:
Nobody expected J.B. Pritzker to be a strong governor. He was a wealthy dilettante, a hotel heir born into an outrageously large fortune that he used to buy the Democratic nomination.
But during the COVID-19 crisis, he’s become indispensable.
Jeremy E. Joyce launched Black People Eats to counter what he saw as a lack of coverage of black-owned businesses by local media and popular food bloggers.
THE PROBLEM: A cash bail system that tends to leave poor people in jail
THE FIX: An app that allows you to donate bail money — automatically, a few cents at a time
One of our 2018 do-gooders:
“We deserve to have quality events like people on the North Side do. You have 100 festivals on the north side. We’ve got two.” How Eric Williams launched the Silver Room Block Party:
“You see systemic racism when you have Ukrainian refugees getting different treatment than refugees coming from the global south.”
As chair of City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate, Sigcho-Lopez will be key to finding homes for migrants.
"I like spending time with comedians. They’re the only people who are more unhappy than musicians."
@JeffTweedy
on parenting, addiction, and the one thing he still keeps private:
"Parks and Rec was for me not a diversion. It was church, because it offered salvation, in the promise of change."
@petersagal
on the show that got him through a divorce:
Two years ago, he was a Homewood cop. Now
@MustafaAliWWE
, the
@WWE
's first wrestler of Pakistani descent, wants to help fix the world from the sport's biggest stage.
They come from all over the city and from every field, but those who made the list have one thing in common: They’ve got clout, and they know how to use it.
The 50 Most Powerful Women in Chicago:
On Monday nights, a South Side pastor carries out a simple, healing ritual, reports Peter Nickeas: He leads prayer in a parking lot for anyone who might benefit.
"It was as if Chicagoans were ready to hold a public forum on the entire history of policing in this city. Yes, this protest was about George Floyd. But it was also about Laquan McDonald, Hadiya Pendleton, and Rekia Boyd."
Today is the 50th anniversary of DJ Terri Hemmert being
@93XRT
... “I’ve paid my dues and then some, but I’ve learned from every single experience,” she says.
Read the full interview:
.
@LenaWaithe
on
@SHOTheChi
: “I want to humanize these young black males. That way, people can’t ignore it when they hear another statistic about them being shot or killed. This is my protest.”
With their staggered façades, wildly geometric entrances, and 1960s flair, the low-rise gems along Peterson Avenue are as fascinating as any skyscraper
“I’ve been close to the finish line for a while now. I don’t think I’ll finish until I drop dead.”
Friday marks 50 years that
@93XRT
DJ
@terrihemmert
has been at the station. Click below to find out what that means to her:
Lincoln Park was Chicago’s first neighborhood to gentrify—and it set the tone for displacement across the entire North Side. A new book by
@DanielKayHertz
explores the history:
After the
@LoyolaChicago
@RamblersMBB
qualified for the NCAA tournament, one man told Sister Jean he was returning to the Catholic Church after 40 years.
Is relief for renters on the way? The push to end a statewide ban on rent control means that Chicago, for the first time, could limit rent hikes.
We've got takes from both landlords and renters 👇
In 1970, Roger Ebert walked out of a movie he’d been reviewing and into a Lincoln Park bar, where a mailman named John Prine was performing.
From 2012,
@whet
on how Ebert helped discover Prine, who died tonight of complications related to COVID-19:
Over the span of five days in 1989, Keith Haring worked with Chicago Public Schools students to paint a mural stretching 488 feet. Now, the rarely seen masterpiece is coming to the Chicago Cultural Center.
Drug addiction. Gun charges. Sex addition. Suicidal thoughts. Shoplifting. The rapper
@VicMensa
opens up about what he's been through in this astonishingly raw and candid interview.
To live in Chicago is to have an opinion on which Harold’s Chicken Shack is the best. Our food critic,
@dropkickjeffy
, visited all 20 of the beloved chain’s local outposts and ranked them.
Emma Tai, executive director of the political advocacy organization United Working Families, made a decades-long effort to elect a progressive mayor. And in the process, she abandoned a community organizer’s mindset of only going after winnable targets.
The 1919 race riot cast a pall over Chicago for decades to come. In this oral history assembled by
@robertloerzel
, witnesses recount the events in their own words.
When a group of U. of C. students started an urban planning memes Facebook group, they thought it was a niche topic. Now it has 61,000 members and 20+ spinoffs.
What’s the secret to a happy marriage? To a fulfilling career? To preventing your kids from repeating your stupid mistakes?
@petersagal
put these and other burning questions to 10 Chicagoans over the age of 65. What he discovered might surprise you.