10 Stories to Read Right Now
The death of the Illinois GOP, a farewell to Coach Q, and some long-overdue love for Chicago artists
Ad Categories: City Life
A Chicago Neighborhood Name Generator
Chicago's neighborhood names are far more pastoral than befits this hard, gritty city. Roseland, Englewood, Forest Glen, Edgebrook — they draw from nature to describe places where little nature remains. A few even live up to their billing: Edgewater is at the edge of the water, you can see the lake from Lake View, and a … Read more
Chicagoans of the Year
An intrepid filmmaker. A community activist. A children’s rights lawyer. A pioneering health advocate. A Cinderella basketball squad. A rising literary star. This year’s eclectic class of honorees bring energy, smarts, and soul to their work in equal measure.
Steve James
America to Me, Steve James’s 10-part TV series about Oak Park and River Forest High School, feels at times less like a documentary about race and education than a fascinating conversation that you don’t want to end. “We didn’t just follow students around,” says the filmmaker and Oak Park resident. “We talked to them.” And … Read more
Jahmal Cole
The idea behind My Block, My Hood, My City, Jahmal Cole’s fast-growing civic education nonprofit, is almost ridiculously simple: Take teenagers from underresourced Chicago schools on monthly field trips to explore the city. Based on empirical evidence that education-based travel can spark students’ curiosity, ambition, and later success, the treks are centered on activities that … Read more
Maria Woltjen
Late this spring, when the news media began widely reporting that U.S. Border Patrol agents were carrying out an official policy of separating undocumented children from their parents, a public outcry erupted and activists sprang into action. At that moment, Maria Woltjen could be forgiven for thinking, What took you so long? As the director … Read more
Shelly LeGere
Like a time bomb, anaphylactic shock must be defused before it destroys. There’s only one way to do so: a shot of epinephrine. But 13-year-old Annie LeGere didn’t have the lifesaving drug with her when, in August 2015, she started to have trouble breathing at a sleepover in her hometown of Elmhurst. No one knew … Read more
Loyola Ramblers
People would tell me, ‘Chicago is a pro sports town. You’re not going to get anywhere with college basketball,’ ” says Porter Moser, coach of the Loyola University men’s basketball team. “But I thought, Why not us?” Never mind that the last local college team to make the NCAA Final Four was DePaul in 1979 and, … Read more
Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai never set out to write a sweeping epic about Chicago during the height of the AIDS crisis. That underdocumented chapter of the city’s history was supposed to be merely the backdrop of a single character, a gay man living in 1980s Boystown, in her third novel. But as Makkai got deeper into researching … Read more
The Four Best Holiday Markets in Chicago
These seasonal fairs fuse shopping with entertainment (and booze!) to take the chore out of gift scrounging.