Why Do You Love Chicago?
Use this form to add one of your favorite things to our collections.
(Or if you prefer Twitter, consider using the #whyilovechicagoin4words hashtag.)
Ad Categories: City Life
Our Starchitect Has Soul
Jeanne Gang’s most important work is woven into the fabric of the city.
Even Our Street Names Are Tough
Illustration: Hawk Krall Wacker. Cermak. Pulaski. Hoyne. Gunnison. Lunt. They sound like fists hitting meat.
The Black Mount Rushmore
Photos: (JORDAN) Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune; (WINFREY) Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times; (OBAMA) Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune What’s great about Chicago for me, being black and from the South Side? It’s knowing that Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Michael Jordan—the triumvirate of modern black icons—spent their formative years here. Knowing that our streets and people and restaurants … Read more
The Wood Back Porch
Photo: trippchicago/Flickr Chicago wrote an autobiography and called it the wood back porch. The city’s long history in the lumber industry explains the use of wood, and its even longer history of trying to keep people safe from fires—specifically a building ordinance requiring a second exit in every household—explains the porches’ ubiquity. Wood porches doubling … Read more
The Japanese Garden in Jackson Park
Photo: Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune Waterfalls, azaleas, and burbling streams—this park-within-a-park near the lakefront in Woodlawn is my own urban Shangri-la. Situated on Wooded Island—which, along with the adjacent Museum of Science and Industry, is one of the few remaining vestiges of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition—the garden exudes pristine tranquility, with prim gravel paths that … Read more
A Library’s Treasures at Your Fingertips
Illustration: Hawk Krall For the trouble of filling out a simple form, you can don gloves and get your hands on some of the Newberry’s prized possessions, including: a 1623 Shakespeare First Folio medieval Christian devotional books The Red Man’s Greeting, a protest booklet sold by Potawatomi chief Simon Pokagon at the 1893 world’s fair … Read more