Reasons to love Chicago

Best of Chicago 2016

on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

From the Chicago accent to the Grid, let us count the ways.

The Grid helps Chicago navigate the city’s streets—and its history

Edward Brennan’s system of street naming and numbering makes the city’s present and past comprehensible.

by Bill Savage on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

The Grid is Chicago's circulatory system: the residential and commercial streets, secondary arterials, grand boulevards, and teeming expressways, the gangways and alleys. It is the system of street naming and numbering that makes Chicago comprehensible and easily navigated.

Long live the 1990s Bulls

Deathless memories of Jordan’s team help us cope with Chicago basketball’s dysfunctional present.

by Ben Joravsky on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

I was sitting in a bar in Los Angeles last year, watching the NBA finals, and the bartender said to me: "So you're a Bulls fan, eh?" "How did you know?"

Central Time is right on

The time zone is steady, reasonable, and forgiving—not unlike Chicagoans.

by Jude Stewart on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Relocating to Chicago from Connecticut five years ago gave me pause. My unease had less to do with the city than its time zone.

In praise of the cheap seats at White Sox park

The Cubs are the team to watch this year, but the upper deck at U.S. Cellular Field remains the best place to see a game.

by Kate Schmidt on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

It wasn't just the elotes or the enticing smell of fried peppers and onions that got me. It was the diverse crowd of fans wholly intent on the ballgame. It was the summer of 2000 and I'd just moved to Chicago.

The disappearing Chicago accent is layered with local history

Da dialect of da Daleys is becoming increasingly rare.

by Edward McClelland on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

In the parking lot of a grocery store in Beverly, I heard the most Chicago sentence ever spoken. "Yeah," said a middle-aged man who could only have spent his entire life in the city's most Irish neighborhood, "dey're buildin' a new Cat'lick church out dere in Orland Park."

Comfort Station is a calming cure for Logan Square whiplash

A visit to this longstanding cultural hub is the perfect antidote to overstimulation.

by Brianna Wellen on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Walking down the stretch of North Milwaukee between Diversey and Fullerton is enough to give you whiplash. To your left, there's a farmers' market; to your right, a movie theater; to your left, an arcade; to your right, a giant mural; to your left and your right and your left and your right again, a craft cocktail bar—I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it.

In praise of Chicago’s Grid-defying diagonals

The city’s crosstown streets follow their own rules.

by Daniel Kay Hertz on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

There were supposed to be more of them. It was in the Plan.

The Des Plaines River Trail is a real slice of nature in the big city

This 58.6-mile forest-preserve trail gives urban cyclists a much-needed taste of the wilderness.

by Robin Amer on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Chicago has manicured parks and an expansive lakefront, but where does one wander if one wants to get lost in the woods? The options are slim for everyone, but the problem is particularly acute for long-distance cyclists, who ride for miles through the grittiest and most dismal parts of the collar counties to get anywhere vaguely green and remote (or anywhere with hills, for that matter).

Drunken tattoos are indelible reminders to delight in life’s absurdity

Drinking before inking isn’t always a party foul.

by Sarah Nardi on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

In college my roommates and I would congregate around the breakfast table, well north of noon, to take inventory of our various UPIs. Not to be confused with UTIs, unidentified party injuries are the bumps and bruises sustained during the previous night's bacchanalia.

Life lessons learned in the middle of the Kennedy Expressway

All the entertainment and insight you need is on an el platform, surrounded by automobile traffic.

by J.R. Jones on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

For more than a decade I rode the Red and Brown Lines to work, peering down at cars and pedestrians as my train groaned into the Loop. So when I moved recently to Avondale, along the Blue Line, I was startled and strangely excited to be waiting for my train on a platform smack in the middle of the Kennedy Expressway.

Explaining Chicago to New Yorkers is supremely gratifying

It’s a delight to watch the slow-dawning revelation that another American city might give NYC a run for its money.

by Rebecca Makkai on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

I'm often in the position of introducing Chicago to New Yorkers who've never before spent time here. Writer friends land on a book tour; old college pals pass through for family weddings; publishing colleagues come by on business.

Chicago’s diversity is legible on its signs

Public written language speaks to the character and composition of neighborhoods and communities.

by Darryl Holliday on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

There is an actual "Chicago" typeface—that sans-serif abomination designed for Apple computers in 1984. Remember your first-gen iPod?

Reading the subtext in bathroom graffiti

Sometimes what people write on walls is nastier than it is funny, but it can tell you a lot about the culture and history of a neighborhood.

by Leor Galil on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

You can tell a lot about a place of business by its bathroom. Are the facilities pleasantly lit, or are they so dim you can barely see the outline of your own body parts?

Chicago alleys are full of utilitarian wonder

The city’s 1,900 miles of backstreets make Chicago the “Alley Capital of America.”

by Ryan Smith on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

There's no alley equivalent of the Magnificent Mile. The 1,900 miles of backstreets that crisscross Chicago's Grid—more than in any other municipality in the U.S.—are only beautiful for their utility.

The hotel lobby isn’t a way station, it’s a destination

Come for the comfortable chairs, stay for the people-watching.

by Aimee Levitt on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

The first time I hung out at the Palmer House, it was prom night. A couple of friends were in from out of town for a conference and were staying there, so it felt OK to take up a few chairs in the lobby.

The Lucky Horseshoe is Chicago’s most distinctive gay nightlife spot

The male strip club in Boystown is an acquired taste—but there’s no reason to feel ashamed about it.

by Jason A. Heidemann on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

When it comes to gay nightlife in Chicago, the Lucky Horseshoe occupies a category all its own. Known to regulars as "the ’Shoe," the Boystown joint at the corner of Halsted and Belmont is the city's only bar featuring a daily lineup of male dancers.

Bringing back the close-up magic that Chicago gave the world in the 1920s

The Chicago Magic Lounge in Uptown aims to be a clubhouse for the sleight-of-hand artists keeping the craft alive.

by Kevin Warwick on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Until I found a comb-bound catalog of "Tricks gathered from the four corners of the World" in a second-hand store in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 2014, I didn't have much clue about the history of Chicago magic—much less know that the city had pioneered its own style. Printed in 1940 by the National Magic Company (once located downtown in the Palmer House), the tattered volume features whimsical, colorful illustrations of vintage tricks on its cover (a rabbit out of a box, Chinese linking rings, et cetera).

Fifty years after Dr. King’s march in Marquette Park, racial integration remains elusive in Chicago

The park no longer is a symbol of bigotry, but it isn’t a success story either.

by Steve Bogira on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

For decades, southwest-side Marquette Park was a national symbol of racial bigotry. It's no longer that today, but neither is it an emblem of togetherness.

Mold-A-Rama memories harden like molded plastic

The 1960s-era souvenir machines are about dwelling in the perpetual rather than the past.

by Wendy McClure on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

You don't go looking for a Mold-A-Rama. That's not how it works.

Chicago’s North Shore fuels architecture fantasies

The curving streets of the affluent north suburbs are lined with midcentury-modern marvels and the locations of John Hughes movies.

by Laura Pearson on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Ask a child to name the most annoying things adults do for fun, and "drive around looking at houses" might top the list. When I was growing up, my parents would, without warning, take a meandering route home from the mall, church, or Sam's Club to gawk at real estate on unfamiliar streets in previously unexplored neighborhoods of southwest Michigan.

Open House Chicago, where real estate dreams come true

Or at least they do for one weekend.

by Aimee Levitt on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

My mother is a nosy woman, especially about houses. She likes to peer into windows.

The Harold Washington Library rehearsal rooms offer DIY music therapy

An amateur pianist finds peace and quiet inside the practice spaces of Chicago’s central library.

by Jake Malooley on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Inside a snug, spartan room at the Harold Washington Library Center, Shimon Marcucci had fine-tuned what probably amounted to several albums' worth of music before I'd ever played a note there. For four years, the middle-aged bureaucrat turned amateur composer had spent his lunch break on the eighth floor of Chicago's mammoth central library, soprano saxophone in tow.

Reveling in Chicago’s predawn tranquility

In the magic threshold between night and day, the city is a diorama subject to study.

by Ben Austen on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

The summer after high school, I delivered bagels in the mornings, leaving the south side for work at 4:30 AM, when the entire city remained idled in sleep. Except maybe for Santiago, who'd been boiling and baking the bagels since midnight.

A grudging appreciation of Chicago’s rats

There are some reasons to love—or at least respect—the universally reviled pest.

by Mike Sula on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Earlier this year, I was waiting for a bus in front of a gas station in Albany Park when I noticed an elderly woman milling around in the decorative ground cover that passes for green space in the parking lot. She was tossing fistfuls of torn bread onto what I then noticed was a cratered moonscape of holes in the ground.

In praise of being a regular

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name (or at least your face).

by Tony Adler on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

We no longer have a mayor at my local coffeehouse. There used to be a guy—a genial Hal Holbrook type—who filled that unofficial position.

Tastee-Freez makes friendships better than its food

Logan Square is gentrifying fast, but everybody’s still welcome at the Freeze.

by Leor Galil on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

A few years ago I was walking past Tastee-Freez, a fast-food joint on Armitage near California, when I saw workers boarding up the shacklike shop's windows. I couldn't help myself—I shouted "No!," almost like Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

The Thompson Center is Chicago’s endangered, postmodern Pantheon

If Governor Rauner has his way, Helmut Jahn’s remarkable creation will be a thing of the past.

by Deanna Isaacs on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a great little poem for the official opening of what was then called the State of Illinois Building, on May 6, 1985. It was part of her job; as the state's poet laureate, she'd been asked to produce something in honor of the occasion.

Chicago’s most uncomfortable theaters can offer exceptional theatrical experiences

Close quarters, minuscule budgets, and structural limitations can work wonders when it comes to creating intimacy and forcing invention.

by Zac Thompson on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

If it's true that wisdom comes from suffering, then Chicago theatergoers must have some of the wisest butts on earth. I'm not talking about devotees of the big commercial theaters in the Loop, where the seats boast such hedonistic excesses as back support and stuffing.

V103 is too good for FM radio

If it didn’t have commercials it would also be better than most satellite stations.

by Tal Rosenberg on June 23, 2016 at 4:00AM

When I was a child, I listened to childish things. I put a B96 bumper sticker on my mom's car in grade school, I was glued to Loveline and Q101 all through middle school, and I studied classic-rock radio with naive devotion in high school.

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Reasons to love Chicago

Best of Chicago 2016

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