Nothing But Net: 171 Great Chicago Web Sites
Lost in front of the Web address bar? Search engines letting you down? We scoured the Web to find the sites that make the lives of Chicagoans better in the real world, winnowing the chaff from the wheat to give you the best real-estate search, the most active foodie forum, the top local news sources, and much, much more.
Just defining the criteria for this list flummoxed us. Fantasy baseball? Too frivolous. A cocktail database? Not Chicago-specific. Svengoolie's blog? Uh, no. We settled on listing those essentially local sites we thought would be most useful or interesting to people who live right here. (And we left off the most obvious, such as ChicagoTribune.com and SunTimes.com.) Of course, there's no way we could ever have checked out everything. What'd we miss? Tell us in the comments below.
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Illustration: Quickhoney
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Reader Comments:
Try www.ctunet.com and get the true facts on the daily education situation in Chicago!
Story about 171 Best Web Sites in Chicago should include www.choosechicago.com, but it doesn’t. Under travel, you have www.enjoyillinois.com, which is really a state site even though your criteria mentions Chicago sites. I am not complaining about enjoyillinois being on there. I just thought www.choosechicago.com should definitely have been on there.
www.choosechicago.com for great information on Chicago.
dood, just went on choosechicago.com. that web site is not even for people who live here. it's for visitors. as for ctunet.com, i prefer district299.com, which is already on this list.
Here is another Chicago-baseed web site that I found
out about on Gapers Block:
www.libraryofinspiration.com
(Contains addictive essays by Chicago writers on
literature, movies, and music).
Thanks for all the tips to the others. Kept me up
late last night!
how funny that your story on great web sites...still isn't online
The library of inspiration site has some good reading on it. Thanks for the info.
www.ctunet.com is a factual, news-oriented site. Granted, news just isn't as exciting as the National Enquirer or People. Then again, 299 isn't Vanity Fair either...especially when most of the posts are from George Schmidt who certainly isn't Dominic Dunne!!!
Check Out TheDailyBride.com it's a new Chicago Wedding Planning site that uses video.
secondcitycop.blogspot.com was ranked. What a great website to get some insight on CPD officers and what they have to go through.
Thanks for chosing Sharkforum.org as one of the best art sites! We work hard at it and the site is being remade at this very moment to be even better.
Mark Staff Brandl
What a great article! I especally enjoyed forgottenchicago.com. Their photographs are breathtaking.
The correct website for Rep. Fritchey's blog is www.johnfritchey.blogspot.com. It's as good an insight as you're going to find from an insider anywhere.
I am so glad that you posted the Chicago Latino Network website as one of the best sites, it is by FAR the best resource for Chicago's large Latino professional ommunity. It is so successful it has spawned very bad, laughable imitators but none compare to CLN.
Try CPD's gis.chicagopolice.org
You can examine individual crime incidents for two week time periods using the Crime Incident map or view crime summarized over longer timeframes by various geographies including community area and ward using the Crime Summary map. If you choose to summarize crime by Census Tract and click a tract number from the summary table you’ll see population and economic information related to that location.
Please check out www.thelocaltourist.com
It gives great things to do each and every weekend in the City. I enjoy receiving this update every single week.
Theresa Carter does a fantastic Job.
Check out www.thelocaltourist.com......it's a great website and Theresa Carter, who runs the site is super - she does an excellent job!!!
You missed www.thelocaltourist.com - you really need to add that to your internet article NOW!! It's a really great source for everything I need in Chicago!
In the sports area, I was surprised that you didn't list www.theheckler.com. These guys have been at it since I think at least the beginning of 2003. It is a hilarious LOCAL website that spoofs (like The Onion, or as the old Blue Line used to do for the Blackhawks) sports teams in Chicago. It is a riot and a must see for any sports fan!!
In the sports category, I was surprised not to see www.theheckler.com. These guys have been at it since at least 2003; what started as an "Onion" type of paper roasting the Cubs, it now includes all Chicago sports and is hilarious. Please check it out!!
For school and education topics in Illinois, a must-see website is the ILLINOIS LOOP, at http://www.illinoisloop.org/ With close to a million hits, the ILLINOIS LOOP is a vital resource for Chicago-area parents trying to understand and cope with puzzling fads, endless projects, diminished academics, strange math homework, depressing literature, and other quirks of modern schooling.
The article also listed a state-run site for getting the "report cards" for local schools. A much, much better source for the same information, but with many more capabilities, is run by a group at NIU. It's called the "Interactive Illinois Report Card", and it's at http://iirc.niu.edu/
We believe that the list missed an important website The Better Business Bureau www.chicago.bbb.org The BBB assists millions of local consumers to avoid the pitfalls of disreputable or otherwise unethical players in the marketplace. The BBB also provides a list of accredited businesses that consumers can trust. Checking the reliability of a company with the BBB, BEFORE making a purchase is one of the most valuable moves a savvy consumer can make.
Steve J. Bernas | President & CEO
president@chicago.bbb.org
better business bureau. got it. geez.
Pretty skimpy in the area of Chicago history. There are many great resources on the web. Check out http://chicagohistory-sharonwilliams.blogspot.com/ for lots of links to them.
www.Countrysidegazebos.com is the finest chicagoland supplier of outdoor gazebos!!
a site to check out if you want to find where your favorite beer is served across Chicago land is www.beerbin.com
they do a good job listing the beers available at certain bars. I just wish they had every bar!
I think you're off the mark with the parenting websites. Dancing Meatballs generally has boring stuff I wouldn't want to do in the first place, or I already know about it. I'm a big fan of GoCityKids.com, whose weekly newsletter I love. They're always up to date and on the mark, and ChicagoKids.com often has typos, or events they list are nonexistent when I call the venues for more information.
I am shocked - shocked, I say! - to hear that Goat Riders of the Apocalypse are a part of the list. It's a great website with a lot of fun Cubs content, but is it really better than some of the other Cubs blogs out there?
...granted, there is no website out there with a cooler name, but I'm just saying.
The February issue listed 171 great Chicago Web sites but left out
an extremely important area: job search. http://chicagojobs.com/ is
a great resource for Chicagoans seeking local employment.
I was disappointed that this site was not included as many of
your readers could either be looking for employment or
interested in changing jobs.
Real Estate was included as a category to help those
selling or purchasing so why not help wanted?
For the theatre section you should have listed www.TheatreInChicago.com it by far has the most info about all of the Chicago theatre that is going on in the city and the burbs.
A great website that should go under Arts & Culture is the Chicago-based video magazine www.getfreshcut.com. They do interviews with up-and-coming artists, musicians and filmmakers and their blog covers all sorts of new media stories.
Check out the Chicago Park District web site:
http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/
It's a great site for checking out what is going on in the parks around the city. Friends who are life long Chicagoans were not aware of current going-ons at Garfield Park Conservatory .... and much more.
Tommy K.
Loved this piece, Chicago, what a great town...and with so much to offer!
Thanks for the very informative article!
=]
www.getfreshcut.com is pretty cool. There's a real lack of good video sites in Chicago. But this one shows some promise.
Also, I heard that Eater.com and Racked.com are coming to Chicago this spring. Those will probably be pretty big...
I get all my tickets from a Chicago based company - www.JustGreatTickets.com. They have all types of event tickets (sports, concerts, and things to do with the family). What's nice about them is they don’t have hidden fees like some other vendors.
First off, how can there not be a tech section to this list?
Second of all, what list is complete without the best iPhone blog I've ever seen from RedEye? iPhone Therefore I Blog is like the premiere iPhone site anywhere!
You left of a great Entertainment News website The E-Biz is covers local and national stuff! It's my favorite!!!
http://thee-biz.blogspot.com/
weirdchicagoblog.com from the guys who do the Weird Chicago tours - for the best stories on the history and hauntings - the REAL stories, not the made-up ones that are going around.
http://weirdchicagoblog.com from the Weird Chicago tours guys, covering the history and mysteries of the city. Great tours, great new blog!
For a great webcomic about life in a midwestern office cubefarm, check out MyLifeInaCube.com Hilarious!
For a great webcomic about life in a midwestern office cubefarm, check out MyLifeInaCube.com Hilarious!
I just launched a new site you might be interested in... http://the-rv.com all about Roscoe Village!