A lineup of two-flats Photo: Ian Spula It is Chicago’s answer to the Brooklyn brownstone, the Georgetown row house, and the London townhome. Except the two-flat remains affordable, still performing the duty to which it was first called in the early 20th century—that is, serving as both shelter and source of rental income for striving … Read more
Columbus Park, circa 1935 Photo: Courtesy of the Chicago Park District “We all need the living green or we’ll shrivel up inside,” the Chicago landscape architect Jens Jensen once said. “To make the modern city livable is the task of our times.” I think of those words when I stroll through Columbus Park, a 135-acre … Read more
Photo: Darwensi Clark In a crowded city, a place to be alone should be cherished. Growing up near Loyola Beach in Rogers Park, a queer kid and a loner, I found my relief on this pier. I would walk to the end, look back at the city, and attain peace and perspective. It was like … Read more
Deep TunnelPhoto: Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune Chicago is home to some of the greatest engineering feats in the world. Like the skyscraper? Yeah, that. But some of our most impressive technical accomplishments have come not from reaching toward the sky but from wallowing in the muck. First, we had to build a sewer system in … Read more
Photo: justinwkern/Flickr Nearly every significant moment of my grown-up life has somehow involved Lake Shore Drive. Not once, not twice, but three times my wife labored in the back seat of our Honda as I raced south to the University of Chicago hospital, pressing the pedal and my luck as far as they would go. … Read more
An ode to Chicago Avenue
Jamie Kalven’s Invisible Institute keeps the police accountable.
There is almost too much to look at from this bridge. Spin around on a single spot and you can give yourself a master class on 20th-century American architecture: the neoclassical wedding cake of the Jewelers Building, the art deco jazz of the Carbide & Carbon Building, the organic Brutalism of Harry Weese’s church, the … Read more
A family enjoys the skyline from Promontory Point Photo: Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune Chicago, you punish us with your harsh winters, your face-slapping winds, your bone-chilling blizzards. Why do we stay with you, C, when you treat us this way? But then. You melt the snows, you thaw the ice, and you hold out your hand. … Read more
