Sale of the Week—First Resale at Trump’s Tower

By Dennis Rodkin

List Price: $1,025,000
Sale Price: $890,000
The Property: Less than a month after the hotel floors opened at Trump International Hotel & Tower, a 21st-floor hotel-condo unit has become the first residence in the 92-story building (which is still under construction) to be resold by...

Ça Commence!

Salut from Paris, where I'll be covering the Women's Ready-to-Wear Fall 2008 collections all week for this blog.

If you don't follow the twice-yearly marathon that is Fashion Week (there are actually four consecutive fashion weeks—New York, London, Milan, and then Paris), allow me to set the mood of this season and recap what we've seen so far. Umm, okay, the truth is, it isn't easy to sum up the mood yet, before Paris, which is when the major ideas emerge and things start to gel. Fashion director Stacey Jones flew in from Milan last night, and we tried to hash out what we've seen at the shows so far...

Week 40: Cervix Industry

My parents have been living in the basement for a week now, and Sarah's womb has been painfully quiet the whole time. Every time I go downstairs, Tom and Lois are sitting on the couch, eating peanuts and watching Law & Order. And every time Sarah goes down there, they jump up with excited anticipation, and when they realize she has come to simply put in a load of laundry, they sigh. Audibly. They don't mean any harm—they just want to meet the baby, too—but their presence seems to have spooked Sarah's cervix. The pressure is overwhelming. "I feel like every day I don't produce a child, I'm letting everyone down," Sarah said...

Horton Hears a Hooray!

By Rebecca Little

The Hottest State

In 1995 Chicago suffered a heat wave that killed 739 people. Now, Pegasus Players and Live Bait Theater have teamed up to adapt sociologist Eric Klinenberg’s book about the disaster, Heat Wave, for the stage. Heat Wave, the play, written by Steven Simoncic, examines responses to the catastrophe, from the mayor to the paramedics. Previews run Friday the 22nd through Sunday the 24th at Truman College’s O’Rourke Center (1145 W. Wilson Ave.; 773-878-9761); the play officially opens Monday the 25th and continues through April 6th. Tickets are $15 to $25. For more on the show, read associate editor Nora O’Donnell’s interview with Klinenberg and Simoncic and check...

The Weekend Starts Thursday

Valentine's Day is sufficiently behind us. In case you were wondering, The Boyfriend did a great job with his surprise plans. We dined at NoMi, at a table overlooking Michigan Avenue. Calling it "romantic" doesn't even cut it. And my last-minute gift for him: tickets to Citizen Cope, whose music The Boyfriend introduced me to, and who plays the Vic this Saturday. See, even I can be sentimental—sometimes.

Moving forward, there's no shortage of potential celebrity sightings and events this weekend. When it rains it pours...

On the Market—To the Manor Reborn-Winnetka

By Dennis Rodkin

List Price: $3,997,000
The Property: In 2002, Marge Johnsson bought this red brick manor house—which had been designed nearly 100 years earlier by the architect Howard Van Doren Shaw—as the freshman rehab project for Magnolia Restorations, the company she was then launching. “I wanted to do it the way Shaw would...

Gluten-Free Goodies

By Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby

Bubbly Cuisine

When Alinea alums enter kitchens elsewhere, it’s always interesting. Andrew Brochu, 26, a veteran of Grant Achatz’s kitchen, has been named the exec chef at jazz lounge Pops For Champagne (601 N. State St.; 312-266-7677)—a seemingly unlikely place for an Alinea disciple. “I am working with the wine director to make sure that everything is Champagne-friendly,” says Brochu. “A lot of seafood, a lot of light flavors, nothing too sharp that will overwhelm the Champagnes.” For example, Brochu developed intriguing small plates such as Bollinger-poached lobster with smoked paprika risotto, pickled fennel, and lobster broth; and desserts such as chocolate cake with raspberries, milk pudding, violet gel, and...

Housing Bulletin—Kerry Wood Takes a Loss

By Dennis Rodkin

Kerry Wood has sold his house in Chicago’s Old Town Triangle for $1,201,000. That’s $2,000 more than he was asking at the time it sold, but $94,000 less than he paid for it in 2004—which means the Cubs pitcher took a 7 percent loss on the property.

In October 2004, Wood and his wife, Sarah, paid $1,295,000 for this house on a narrow 19th-century street a few blocks west of Lincoln Park. Built in 1876 (most likely by German immigrants), the seven-room, three-bedroom house has been...

Ominous News

Snap is officially scared. According to Chicago Tribune's Theater Loop blog, American Girl Place will be closing its basement theater show in September "to find new entertaining experiences for our guests" that won't include live performers.

This can only mean one thing: puppet shows...

Week 39: Department of No Labor

Every time my phone rings at work, I think, Here we go. I look at the calendar: This is the day. I look at my clothes: This is what I'm going to be wearing in all the pictures. Usually, it's someone calling to ask my least favorite question: "Has the baby come yet?"

No, it hasn't. Thanks for reminding me.

It's easy to forget that Sarah's due date was an estimate—not an appointment. In most cases, post-term pregnancies aren't really "late"; they stem from miscalculations of the time of conception...

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