Archive Dive

Archive dive: How recycling got its start in Chicago

by Brianna Wellen on January 7, 2019 at 4:12PM

"The committee hearing on Hansen's proposal was kind of a joke," says White. "Burke was the only committee member who attended, and after a while he started talking on a telephone.

Archive dive: the year 1971 in review

by Brianna Wellen on December 17, 2018 at 1:17PM

Exactly 47 years ago today, on December 17, 1971, the Chicago Reader published its very first year-in-review piece titled "Our Panel of Experts Present their Awards for 1971." An "exotic" juice smoothie from a stand in the Randolph Street train station was named the best non-restaurant meal.

Archive dive: How Soul Train, the show that put black music on TVs across America, got its start in Chicago

by Brianna Wellen on December 10, 2018 at 1:37PM

Jake Austen explored the book and the history of the series in the 2008 article "Soul Train Local." Compared to the national version, Chicago's Soul Train was low-rent.

Archive dive: Revisiting the canal that made Chicago what it is today

by Brianna Wellen on December 3, 2018 at 1:32PM

Even the mischievous boys who filled the ceremonial wheelbarrow with mud before the scandalized eyes of their elders knew the significance of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal: it would connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, almost 100 miles to the west, thereby linking the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River for navigation. It would bring forth a crop of thriving towns from the prairie soil.

Jessica Disu didn’t always consider herself a police abolitionist, but an appearance on Fox News in 2016 made her the face of the movement. In a Reader article that same year she said, “our police is not working—we need to replace it with something new.”

Archive dive: how grassroots groups around Chicago put police abolitionist ideas into practice

by Brianna Wellen on November 26, 2018 at 10:56AM

The idea of police abolition in the city gained national attention when Jessica Disu unintentionally brought up the issue during a heated discussion on Fox News. From there it became clear that many local groups were ready to stand with her.

Archive dive: A report from Morton, Illinois, the self-declared pumpkin capital of the world

by Brianna Wellen on November 19, 2018 at 11:00AM

The Nestle USA plant in Morton produces Libby's Pumpkin using proprietary seeds to produce pumpkins with more meat, fewer seeds, less water. Inside the factory, somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of the seasonal workers come from tiny La Soledad.

Members of the 1990-’91 Chicago Bulls celebrate the 20th anniversary of their championship season during halftime of a March 2011 game. Hodges, center, holds the trophy.

Former Chicago Bulls guard Craig Hodges was dropped in 1992 for suspicious reasons

by Steve Heisler on June 4, 2018 at 6:00AM

," Hodges told the columnist. "Then you have us playing in here—how much money did we make here last night?

A courtroom sketch of Judge Nicholas Ford presiding over bond court in 2002

That time a Cook County judge ruled on the case of a man he himself put in prison when he was still a prosecutor

by Maya Dukmasova on May 25, 2018 at 6:00AM

In 2006 the Reader's John Conroy—who broke the Burge torture scandal in 1990—reported a remarkable story about Judge Nicholas Ford, who ruled on a request for a postconviction hearing from a man he himself put behind bars, a man who claimed that the confession Ford used to prosecute him was coerced out of him with electric shock by one of Burge's close associates. Lawyers who defend police-torture victims in Chicago long ago reached a harsh conclusion about Cook County's criminal judges: most have a vested interest in refusing to acknowledge police brutality.

Exit at its current location on North Avenue

A look back at a punk club doorman and his buffet of food offerings

by Aimee Levitt on May 23, 2018 at 6:00AM

Mostly Steve sits. He chats with passersby and shares stories about the good old days.

A note from the harsh macho underground

by Aimee Levitt on May 21, 2018 at 6:00AM

I wish you would enlighten us, your readers, with more information on the Harsh, Contrary, and Macho Chicago Underground Music Scene that you always talk about in your column. Who are these bands?

Chicago Reader

Bleader

» topic: Archive Dive