Best of Chicago 2016
on June 23, 2016
showing 1 to 27 of 27
From its flatness to midwestern niceness, let us count the ways.
on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Reader staff and our favorite Chicago writers reflect on what they appreciate about the city and why.
Chicago’s in good company on the president’s enemies list.
by Ben Joravsky on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
As part of my ongoing effort to join Mayor Rahm Emanuel's crusade to say good things about Chicago, I'm happy to note that Donald Trump hates our fair city. In fact, I'd say Chicago ranks near the top of the list of people, places, and things that Trump really, really loathes—somewhere between Alec Baldwin and Rosie O'Donnell.
Chicago wouldn’t be Chicago if it hadn’t been a refuge.
by Jeff Nichols on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Mystery—never being able to completely comprehend that which has captured your heart—is an important component of falling in love. Chicago's immigrant past and present may well be why no one can quite figure this city out.
Pancake-flat topography made the city a center for engineering innovations.
by Bill Savage on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
A Lou Mitchell's pancake. A pool table at Chris's Billiards.
And here’s what it will be like.
by Mike Sula on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
It's 50 years from now. Boston is an archipelago, Los Angeles is a bay, and New York is under the sea.
Where Chicagoans go when they want to chill
by Aimee Levitt on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Chicago apartment buildings have fire escapes in the back, the story goes, because after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 the new city fire code stipulated that every apartment have at least two means of escape. The alley system allowed plenty of room for solid staircases in the back of the buildings instead of rickety metal structures in the front, as in New York.
The Little Village shopping district reportedly generates more revenue than any other commercial corridor in the city save Michigan Avenue.
by Robin Amer on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Little Village is a port of entry for Mexican immigrants, and the neighborhood's roughly two-mile 26th Street corridor from Sacramento to Kostner is crammed with around 500 local businesses that cater to their tastes: butcher shops, pharmacies, and more than 100 restaurants offering everything from mangonadas—fresh sliced mango spiked with chile and lime and drizzled with savory tamarind sauce—to toddler-size mariachi suits and live doves. "It's the nostalgia market," says Jaime Di Paulo, executive director of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce.
The 4100 block of South Berkeley Avenue might be beautiful, but it has a troubled history.
by Maya Dukmasova on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
One day while researching a mixed-income housing development in the south-side neighborhood of Oakland, I wound up on the 4100 block of South Berkeley Avenue—a quiet residential street lined on the east side by colorful two-story cottages and capped at the north end by a garden filled with whimsical wooden sculptures. This stretch of Berkeley stands out for its unique collection of houses by architect Cicero Hine.
These authority figures exhibit a lethal combination of kindness to children and a death stare reserved for me-first motorists.
by Jonathan Messinger on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Last year, in the fog of the morning hustle to get my son to school, I saw something that bolted the day clear: a seven-year-old girl lying on the side of the road, right on the corner of school property, a handful of adults clutched over her. Just before 8 AM, a drunk driver had struck her and her sister on their way to school.
Those wascally wabbits thrive despite the city’s harsh winters.
by J.R. Jones on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Three years ago my wife and I rented an old bungalow in Avondale, and when we moved in, we discovered the street was lousy with rabbits—the eastern cottontail, to be exact, one of the most common species in the U.S. On one side of our house lay a weedy area that the rabbits used for cover, and on the other side stood a grassy open plot that they treated as their personal country club. When I came home at night, there would always be one in our front yard, giving me the hard stare, twitching its nose if I spoke, and hopping away if I made a move askance.
The monthly seminars have been around for a long time, but they’re perfect for the present.
by Deanna Isaacs on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Perhaps, in this Trump-addled era, you're finding yourself more than a little concerned about the direction civilization is going? Disturbed by vanishing jobs, rising plutocracies, melting polar ice caps, not to mention numerous other serious threats to a good night's sleep and a reasonable life for future generations?
The unconventional rest stops are a distinctive feature of the U.S. roadway system.
by Jake Malooley on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
We were a road-trip family. Every few weeks, no matter the season, my mother, little sister, and I would pack up the sedan and depart from the small north-central Illinois town where I was raised.
Without it, riding the subway would be even worse than it already can be.
by Kevin Warwick on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
While Chicago is blessed to have access to a relatively high-functioning train system, it's still hard not to get beaten down by the monotony and grind of the public-transit gauntlet. Weary-eyed and apathetic—oftentimes compounded by whatever weather-beaten slog it took to get from point A to point B—we wriggle through thickets of humans during rush hour in hopes of finding some shred of somewhere to sit, just enough for a butt cheek.
The railway’s “balcony” seating is city life in miniature.
by Tal Rosenberg on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
When I take a day trip outside the city limits, I often drive—but I prefer to fly and take the train at the same time. After all, an $8 weekend pass on the Metra is only a fraction of the price of a tank of gas, and I get to be up high . . . well, not in the sky, but it's the closest thing we've got to flying cars.
Extended train trips are alternatives to the frantic pace of contemporary life.
by Ryan Smith on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
If I were to meet President Donald Trump, I'd tell him all about my recent train ride west. On the second afternoon of a memorable 31-hour journey to Whitefish, Montana, my girlfriend and I sat together on a pair of swiveling seats while avidly gazing out a window of the observation car on the second floor of the Empire Builder, the Amtrak line that stretches from Chicago to Seattle.
Most commonly available in majority black neighborhoods on the south side, the standout sandwich is unfortunately overlooked.
by Ernest Wilkins on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
The two titans of the steak sweet are Taurus Flavors, established in 1966, and Home of the Hoagy, which opened in 1969. Both of these venerable institutions are located in predominantly black neighborhoods (Avalon Park and Morgan Park, respectively), and they're kept alive almost exclusively by the patronage of people in those communities.
Watering holes off the beaten path provide homes away from home.
by Julia Thiel on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Long before Starbucks started claiming the title of the "third place"—a space besides home and work where people gather—the corner bar was already filling that role. The third place, according to Ray Oldenburg (who wrote a book on the subject, called The Great Good Place, published in 1989), fosters community and social interaction by providing a comfortable, welcoming space for both regulars and occasional visitors to congregate.
It costs more to live in a city as large and diverse as Chicago, but these international markets help you get your money’s worth.
by Philip Montoro on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Immigrants enrich every square inch of Chicago's food culture—including my grimy little kitchen. Though I'm a garden-variety mixed honky from Texas, my favorite recipes are all Indian and Thai.
This annual industry convention is more overwhelming than Willy Wonka’s factory tour—but you’re much less likely to get turned into a giant blueberry.
by Leor Galil on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
It was a May midafternoon on the first day of this year's Sweets & Snacks Expo, and I was catching my breath and charging my phone when I accidentally met the biggest celebrity at the whole three-day event. I was in the Jack Link's pavilion, one of the largest at the expo, with my friend Sarah Joyce, a photographer and founder of GlitterGuts.
The short-lived 1980s police drama was created by Michael Mann and shot largely in Chicago.
by Lee Bey on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
It's the middle of the night near Cermak and Canal, and the police lieutenant is angry. There's a dead body, fresh out of the South Branch.
Shopping at K-Pop of Chinatown is as close as you can get to Shinee and BTS without a concert ticket.
In May a seven-member boy band from Seoul called BTS (aka Bulletproof Boy Scouts) won the Top Social Artist prize at the Billboard Music Awards, defeating Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Shawn Mendes, and Selena Gomez. It was a milestone moment in K-pop's crossover into the Western marketplace, as was the chart performance of BTS's second album, Wings, which in fall 2016 debuted at number 26 on the Billboard 200—higher than any previous K-pop release.
Corporate consolidation has flattened out the big commercial outlets, but low-power and college stations still have plenty of personality.
by Peter Margasak on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Last year I moved from Evanston to Albany Park, and serendipitously my radio options changed. For decades I've appreciated the wide-ranging, unconstrained programming on local college and community stations, but I never spent much time actually listening to them, even during the years I hosted an international-music program on Loyola University's WLUW.
The broadcaster might have switched sides, but he’s beloved by everyone in the city.
by Kate Schmidt on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
I became a baseball fan at the back end of the bar of the Deadwood, in Iowa City, Iowa. It was 1985, the Cubs had just missed getting into the World Series the year before, and a quasi-boyfriend from Chicago initiated me, teaching me the basics of stats and keeping score.
It’s worth the price for a quality fedora.
by Tony Adler on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
When I bought my beautiful brown-felt fedora from him a few years ago, Optimo owner Graham Thompson was still operating out of a combination storefront and factory on Western Avenue in Beverly, where the hat-making happened on premises. Things have changed.
The sudden unseasonable temperature spike is cause for citywide celebration.
The winter of our political discontent brought Chicago some incongruously mild weather. The National Weather Service logged no measurable snowfall in the city during the months of January and February for the first time in the 146 years it's been keeping such records.
Pleasantries help Chicago remain a beautiful, complicated city that works.
by Megan Stielstra on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Here's the most Chicago thing I've ever seen: I was driving down Lake Shore Drive, traffic at a near standstill, and in the lane next to mine, a truck was trying to steamroll a small car in front of it: riding its bumper, slamming the horn—general dick moves. I could see the truck driver's face.
As loved ones leave the city, consider the pros of sticking around.
by Laura Pearson on June 22, 2017 at 11:00AM
Live in any city long enough and you'll experience a never-ending series of departures—people, whom you know to varying degrees, deciding to move on: roommates, coworkers, the family across the hall, the woman who cut your hair, the guy you went on four dates with, friends near and dear or peripheral. They go to smaller cities, other towns, far-flung countries, and, of course, the coasts.
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