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
Photos: Courtesy of Second City February 1971 “The first time I saw him I thought he was some sort of auto mechanic who’d wandered into the theater,” Second City alum Joe Flaherty recalled. Belushi, the 21-year-old son of an Albanian immigrant from Wheaton, brought a febrile energy to the storied improv group. His experience helped … Read more
Photo: George Quinn/Chicago Tribune December 20, 1976 “Chicago will never be the same,” Frank Sinatra reportedly said when he heard the news that the 74-year-old son of Bridgeport had died of a heart attack at his doctor’s office. Chicagoans could hardly dispute the truth of that observation, whatever they thought of the mayor and the … Read more
Signing his first contract with general manager Rod Thorn Photo: Ray Foli/UPI via Chicago Tribune June 19, 1984 On the day he was selected — as the third pick, lest we forget our good fortune — Jordan sounded modest in a TV interview: “I just want to go in and contribute the best way I could.” But as teammate … Read more
Photo: Phil Greer/Chicago Tribune July 12–16, 1995 Seven hundred thirty-nine dead. That so many could have perished in a modern city in a First World country defied belief. Even as bodies piled up at the Cook County morgue — many of them elderly residents of the South and West Sides — city officials seemed unable to grasp the gravity … Read more
Chicago police Officer Michael Miljan, left, and Medicare Pharmacy employee Mary Butler inspect boxes of Tylenol in 1982. The deaths of seven area residents who ingested Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide remains one of the nation’s biggest unsolved murder cases. Photo: Stan Policht/Chicago Tribune September 29–October 5, 1982 Most Americans of a certain age remember … Read more
