Custom Placements: City Life Lead
The Best Place in the City to Watch Boats
Come for the smoked fish at Calumet Fisheries, stay for the lifting of the 95th Street Bridge.
What Does Division Street Divide?
In Streetwise Chicago, the 1988 definitive guide to the origins of our city street names, authors Don Hayner and Tom McNamee came up mostly empty on Division: “There seems to be no satisfactory explanation for how this street got its name, but one story is that it was so named because it divides Goose Island, … Read more
Riding the Lakefront Trail, Part Two: The South Side
Our bike ride continues down the path, from Soldier Field to South Shore Drive, with stops at a prairie and Promontory Point.
Carol Ross Barney
The architect, 74, on the Chicago Riverwalk, why design matters, and the joy of being pushy
Riding the Lakefront Trail, Part One: The North Side
We bike along the path’s humble beginnings in Edgewater, past a bird sanctuary and old-school bait shop, to its flashy stop along Navy Pier.
A Short History of Chicago’s Wildlife Celebrities
The foxes who took up residence in Lurie Garden and the peregrine falcon who dive-bombed downtown pedestrians to protect her ledge-nesting chicks are just the latest critters to enthrall us.
Long Ago, Before 312 and 773, Chicago Had Telephone Exchanges
In a time before cell phones, a call required a few letters and numbers that directed your call to the right neighborhood.
There Is No Place Like the Blackstone Library
Perhaps Timothy Beach Blackstone was motivated by competitiveness with fellow industrialist Andrew Carnegie, or by civic boosterism, but he believed a library should be a work of art in itself.
The Neighborhood Names That Have Disappeared
Places like Bricktown, Pacific Junction, and Whiskey Point now only exist on internet maps.