Bon Appetit magazine’s Restaurant Editor, Andrew Knowlton, includes Dat Donuts as one of the “Top 10 Best Places for Donuts” in the country. Dat joins the ranks with Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, CA—a far cry from the South Side of Chicago, but arguably better as the “purists’” first choice.
A former Chicago Weekly writer and Features Editor like Katie Buitrago! All of us at the Weekly want to congratulate Katie on her excellent feature in the most recent Chicago Reader, “What sort of woman reads Playboy?” It’s about Peggy Wilkins, a forty-something Hyde Park resident and University of Chicago Library server technician, who has worked her way to the top of Playboy Magazine fandom. She’s even had to rent an second apartment above the one she shares with her boyfriend to store her exhaustive collection of magazines and posters. So what drives Wilkins’s passion? Read the article to find out!
A lot’s happening in Bridgeport at the moment. Bridgeport art collective Lumpen has launched a new “community newsletter,” the Bridgeport International. Check out their first issue online or in stores around the neighborhood, and make sure to read their endorsements for today’s primary. This Friday Lumpen is holding a combination zine release party/benefit concert for the Whale, the Pilsen artists’ society building that went up in flames in December. Meanwhile, Chicago freelancer John Greenfield wrote a comprehensive tour of Bridgeport for the latest issue of bike magazine Momentum.
Do some good for Haitian disaster relief–and your sweet tooth–by checking out the charity bakesale held tomorrow from 2-6 pm at the Medici on 57th Bakery (1327 E 57th St.) All proceeds are given directly to Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, and goodies will be available from individual volunteers and pro bakeries from across the city, including Bleeding Heart Bakery, Jimmy Jamm Sweet Potato Pies, and Luscious Layers Bakery. More info, including the full list of participating bakeries and items (gluten-free goods should be available too), is here.
Courtesy of Golden Age
Golden Age, a Pilsen gallery and “concept shop” whose exhibitions we’ve covered before, is moving to the West Loop, according to an announcement posted on their website yesterday. In our October 2008 feature on galleries in West Pilsen, co-founder Marco Kane Braunschweiler spoke highly of the neighborhood around Golden Age. “Where there’s open storefronts [around here], those storefronts often turn into galleries,” he told us. “It seems likely that there’ll be a lot more art spaces.” Things are looking a bit different in Pilsen these days, with galleries moving out or closing right and left.
Golden Age’s last open day at its current location will be Sunday, January 24, and they expect to open at their new (undisclosed) location in the West Loop late next month.
South of Roosevelt “resides an art community that is often invisible to the mainstream,” writes Andre Guichard in the first post on his new blog, Fine Art South of Roosevelt Road. As an artist and the director of Gallery Guichard in Bronzeville, Guichard is a tireless promoter of art of the African diaspora, and the blog promises to continue this work by introducing readers to more than one hundred artists and collectors south of Roosevelt. It will also include updates about art events and exhibitions.
The Chicago Art Department offers a chance to get educated during this week’s Second Friday gallery crawl in Pilsen. Its new exhibition Video Art 101 will teach basic video art concepts, addressing such questions as: What is unique about the medium of video? What are some of the basic techniques? What are some of the tools and how are they used? Stop by 1837 S. Halsted St. between 6 and 10pm this Friday to learn the answers.
Sebastian Ellefson at Backstory Café
Having any legal problems? Landlord-tenant disputes, DUI questions, concerns about your small business? Drop by Backstory Café tomorrow afternoon between 1:30 and 3:30 and attorney Sebastian Ellefson will be happy to provide you with legal advice for no charge. Ellefson, who got his BA from the University of Chicago in 2003 and his JD from the University of Minnesota in 2008, practices law in Bridgeport during the week, but starting last month he’s appearing at Backstory on the first Saturday of every month to help out those in need of legal consultations. Ellefson says the free consultations are “a way to get your name out there and use your legal powers for good.”
WBEZ’s Gabriel Spitzer has a piece today on the solar plant under construction in West Pullman, which when completed will be the largest urban solar power plant in the country. When we covered the plant last May, Exelon and SunPower had just announced their plans to build it and seek federal funding. According to the WBEZ story, the two power companies received a $60 million loan guarantee from the federal government, and about one third of the solar panels have already been installed. No word yet on when the plant will go online.
Maoist polemicist Raymond Lotta issued a reply to Keith Jamieson’s recent essay, Everything You Know About Communism is Right, and had it passed out in front of the University’s Cobb Hall today.
The reply argues that the atrocities carried out in the last century by Communist revolutionary governments are part of the “learning curve” of the revolutionary project, and corrects the claim that Stalin killed millions of people to reflect the mere 700,000 or so death sentences carried out between 1937 and 1938. He asserts that regardless of the atrocities of communism, people have been lied to about it, and that the record needs to be corrected. His rebuttal also corrects some factual errors from his recent speech.
One of Lotta’s fellow Revolutionary Communist Party members and polemicists (who is curiously unnamed on the flier) will be on campus to informally “take on all comers” next Tuesday, Dec 1, 11am to 3pm in Hutchinson Commons at the University of Chicago.
This week we ran a photo essay on the churches of Woodlawn. There were a number of them that we had no room for, or that Robin and Sam couldn’t find information on. They can be found here.
De Colores, a new restaurant, opened on Halsted on the edge of Pilsen just over a week ago. The menu is Mexican with an emphasis on fresh ingredients prepared from scratch. Our meal began with a smokey salsa that the chef had just worked out, and a citrusy tamarind agua fresca. The entrees came out complex, generously portioned, and deliciously rich.
The space also serves as a gallery, and our waiter told us that they were soliciting local music to replace the Massive Attack that was playing over their stereo.
De Colores will be offering free cooking lessons during the monthly Second Friday gallery crawls, starting this Friday at 8pm with salsa and homemade tortillas.
De Colores, 1626 S. Halsted St. Entrees $8-12. (312)226-9886.
Bizarre sign at the eastbound #55 bus stop at the Red Line:
6,900 DOOMS DAY C.T.A STRIKE !
Free copy of our latest issue to anyone with a plausible guess for what this means.
This week’s issue of the Chicago Weekly includes a Perspectives piece by University of Chicago alum Ryan McCarl about an attack on the UofC Men’s Cross Country team that left one student permanently injured. At press time we still didn’t have all the details on the attack, but since then we’ve found out the whole story.
Two weeks ago, on Friday, October 15, 15 members of the Men’s Cross Country team were running west along Garfield Boulevard, a route they’ve often run before. At about 3:50, when they reached Garfield and State, an eastbound green Buick sedan drove by and opened fire with paintballs. Second-year Andrew Wong turned to look at the car and was struck on the bridge of his nose by a paintball, which ricocheted into his right eye. His cornea was scratched and his iris was partially (and permanently) detached, allowing bright light into his inner eye. Wong went to the ER that night and has seen an ophthalmologist several times since then. Read the rest of this entry »
(Grahm M. Balkany / Gropius in Chicago Coalition)
The City of Chicago finished demolition on its first building designed by renowned architect and founder of the Bauhaus movement Walter Gropius on the Michael Reese Hospital campus, the Gropius in Chicago Coalition is reporting. The Friend Convalescent Home, one of eight buildings on the Michael Reese campus designed in part by Gropius, was bulldozed this week in spite of the outcry from Gropius fans and preservationists. Architecture critic Lynn Becker, for one, is furious. The site was originally selected for the Olympic Village, but of course, the IOC had other plans. Now, after a quashed proposal for a casino, there are rumors of some sort of housing complex being built on the site, but no actual plan or developer. So why tear everything down? Becker has an idea: Read the rest of this entry »
A bonfire on Saturday, October 24 shows support for the 61st Street Community Garden. (Sam Feldman)
The 61st Street Community Garden was founded about a decade ago as a shared garden for families. Each family or individual pays about $40/year for a 10′ x 10′ plot of land with few restrictions to grow. The Garden, however, is owned by the University of Chicago and was built on top of a vacant lot. Earlier this year, the University announced its intentions to demolish the garden so it could use the land as a staging ground for the construction of the new Chicago Theological Seminary campus. The individuals and community involved with the garden have had various conversations with the University about relocating or preserving the garden, but the University still plans to demolish it next month. There are a few events coming up to celebrate the garden and raise awareness about its closing. Both of them will be held at the garden.
After several years of stop and start, the Woodlawn Collaborative, a joint project between University of Chicago students and nearby community groups, officially opened last week in the First Presbyterian Church at 64th Street and Kimbark. The first occupant of the site is MAGIC, a Woodlawn-based neighborhood youth services organization, which will provide a safe study space for local middle and high school students.
Last spring the Weekly ran a story on the Collaborative’s long struggle to secure the space for use by student and community groups involved in the arts, education, and activism. Greg Gabrellas, one of the founders of the Collaborative and a student at the University, updated us on the project and emphasized that the opening is only the first step. “We still must create an organization, basically from scratch, that is comprised of student and community-based organizations working towards a common end.” The Collaborative has roughly 20 partner groups and hopes to expand programming through the fall and winter and begin running at full capacity by next spring.
The project’s mission to act as a catalyst to social change in Woodlawn is seeing its first results. “We can’t pretend that we can solve these urgent social problems ourselves; we will educate the next generation of artists, activists and intellectuals who can take a stab at it, perhaps in better conditions than our own,” Gabrellas says. He emphasizes that what the collaborative needs now more than ever is people. “There is a place for everyone: group leaders to shift their activities here, teaching artists to teach classes, economics majors to help us with our finances, and dedicated people to ensure that everyone who enters our facilities is safe and sound.” On October 30th the members will convene for their fall general meeting to discuss the transition into a full-time center.
This year’s Chicago Humanities Festival, which begins today, is devoted to a topic everyone can relate to: laughter. The kick-off begins appropriately on the South Side (where the roots of improv grow deep). Here’s the breakdown:
Despite the cold weather, Shawn Michelle’s seemed to be doing good business yesterday when we saw (and sampled) their ice cream truck parked in Kimbark Plaza in Hyde Park. They were back today as well. We’ll try to confirm whether they’ll be in the same place every weekend and for how long into the season they’ll be around—hopefully they’re planning to come back when the weather’s warmer, because that ice cream is good.
Update, 10/14: The plan right now is to have the truck in Kimbark Plaza 2pm-10pm, Wednesday through Sunday, and they’ll be year-round. They also said they’re working on some things like hot fudge to warm up the winter months.
Just the name of the Great American Cheese Collection is probably all the information you need before you start wondering where to find it. In case you’re still not hooked, here’s a little more: The warehouse is dedicated to small production cheeses from all over the country, with more than 67 producers and over 300 different cheeses in all. Many, the website claims, are among the finest in the world, something that owner Giles Schnierle would love to prove to you. This brings me to the best part—the warehouse is open every Saturday from 9am-1pm for tasting and shopping.
Great American Cheese Collection, 4727 S. Talman Ave. Saturdays, 9am-1pm. (773)779-5055