Photo: Candice C. Cusic/Chicago Tribune June 10, 1971 With 130 restaurants and 7,500 employees at its 2019 peak, Rich Melman’s Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises is the King Kong of Chicago restaurant groups. And it all started in Lincoln Park with burgers, a salad bar (some say the country’s first), and a name composed of the … Read more
Photo: Soul Train Holdings October 2, 1971 Until Entertainment Tonight surpassed it in 2016, Don Cornelius’s Chicago-born music-and-dance showcase — billed memorably as “sixty nonstop minutes across the tracks of your mind” — was the longest-running syndicated program in American TV history. By the time it went national a year after premiering on WCIU, it was already a huge … Read more
Photo: Chicago Police Department November 24, 2015 Photo: Law Offices of Jeffrey J. Neslun Sixteen shots. In an instant, they transformed a CPD claim of self-defense against a Black 17-year-old into what eventually would be deemed second-degree murder. Police brutality had been documented in Chicago before, but this was different. The killing — and what many saw … Read more
Photo: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune July 23–24, 2005 It’s the most famous music festival in America, and after moving from city to city for years, Perry Farrell’s rollicking and increasingly slick brainchild came to Grant Park and stuck around, bringing in millions for the city annually ever since. It’s become the biggest cultural event of … Read more
Photo: Paul Natkin/Contributor January 15, 1990 Winfrey’s decision to ditch WLS-TV marked the moment she became more than just America’s most beloved TV personality. She was a mogul now. Film production (Beloved, Precious, Selma), made-for-TV movies (Tuesdays With Morrie, Their Eyes Were Watching God), radio, and of course The Oprah Winfrey Show — the West Loop studio’s … Read more
Photo: Chicago Tribune January 13–14, 1979 Forecasters predicted just a few inches of snow. Chicago was blanketed with 20. The city’s response was the real disaster: Plows didn’t arrive on clogged residential side streets until a week later. CTA trains bypassed ill-maintained stops in Black neighborhoods. Mayor Michael Bilandic’s tone-deaf responses to criticism — he compared himself … Read more
Photo: William Yates/Chicago Tribune December 21, 1978 “If the devil’s alive, he lived in this house,” said one of the investigators. Twenty-six boys and young men, buried in a suburban crawlspace, with seven other bodies discovered nearby. As more details about the killer came out — the part-time job as a kid’s party clown, the handcuffs and … Read more
Blagojevich just after his 2011 sentencing Photo: Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune December 9, 2008 The feds showed up at the governor’s Ravenswood Manor home in the early-morning hours, and by the time the arrestee had gotten dressed — Nike jogging suit, running shoes — and had been whisked away, word was out. Chicagoans were no strangers to hinky politicians, but … Read more
Charlie and Lisa Trotter at the opening of Charlie Trotter’s restaurant. Photo: Gerald West/Chicago Tribune August 17, 1987 No one talked about foodies, celebrity chefs, or farm-to-table in 1987. That all changed after Trotter opened his namesake restaurant in a brownstone at 816 West Armitage Avenue. “On his watch,” wrote former Chicago dining editor Carrie … Read more
Photo: Anthony Jacobs/Getty Images November 4, 2008 “It’s been a long time coming,” Obama told a cheering crowd of 240,000 as John McCain was preparing to concede, “but tonight … change has come to America.” It was America’s moment, to be sure, but Chicago owned it. Obama was one of ours, a South Sider, and … Read more
