This week’s feature is on the redevelopment of Hyde Park’s Harper Court, which aims to turn the 45-year-old retail complex into a mixed-use district over the next five years. Also in this week’s issue: a look at the community garden at 65th and Woodlawn, which brings neighbors together and produces fresh produce in an area often labeled a food desert. Yah’s Cuisine gives Soul Veg a run for its money as the best vegan soul food on the South Side. The University of Chicago’s MFA candidates display their work at the DOVA Temporary gallery in Hyde Park and Roxaboxen in Pilsen. This Saturday, the fifth annual Art in Action festival brings together UofC students and Woodlawn community members for a day of free food, art, and workshops. The Woodlawn Children’s Promise Zone aims to duplicate the success of the famed Harlem Children’s Zone. And Russian artists Ilya and Emilie Kabakov got their first glimpse of clips from a new documentary about themselves at the UofC’s Film Studies Center last week.
For this week’s feature, we sat down with Bill Gates and examined the impact the world’s second-richest man has made on the South Side and the world. Photographer Justin Kern posts breathtaking shots of Chicago and the American landscape daily on The Windy Pixel, a photoblog he shares with Mike Boehmer. The Renaissance Society’s latest exhibition is a two-story structure containing works by three Romanian artists. Former United States Poet Laureate Mark Strand gave a reading on the University of Chicago’s campus last week, and he took a few minutes afterward to speak with the Weekly. And the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo that took over McCormick Place two weeks ago gave comics fans three days of panels, vendors, and guest stars.
This week’s issue of the Weekly is all about visual art on the South Side and why it matters. The feature includes profiles of galleries and interviews with artists all over the South Side, plus a preview of Lumpen’s eleven-day Version festival and an exploration of Bridgeport’s Third Fridays gallery nights.
The feature in this week’s issue is on Moneythink, a nonprofit founded and run by University of Chicago undergrads that teaches local high schoolers financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Teamwork Englewood is trying to raise neighborhood participation rates in the census above the abysmal 2000 rate. Logsdon 1909’s latest gallery exhibition features works from two very different mixed-media artists. The Opportunity Shop, a monthlong communal art space that occupies vacant storefronts in Hyde Park, is back, this time in a former Hollywood Video on 53rd Street; we also wrote about it last December, when it was located in former MAC Property Management offices on 55th Street. At Little Black Pearl, kids and artists are collaborating on murals for the future Logan Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Chicago. St. Sabina’s Catholic Church and the Black Star Project call together 1,000 men of action to repair the black nuclear family and fight gang violence. And last Saturday, the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America celebrated twenty years of fighting for human rights and economic well-being in the Americas.
You (yes, you!) can vote to get a fruit orchard planted in Chicago. The Communities Take Root initiative is going to donate a fruit orchard to five lucky winners throughout the country. Seven Illinois sites are eligible, and five of those are Chicago Park District parks:
- Jackson Park, 6401 S. Stony Island Ave.
- Washington Park, 5531 S. King Dr.
- Douglas Park, 1401 S. Sacramento Dr.
- Humboldt Park, 1400 N. Sacramento Ave.
- Garfield Park, 100 N. Central Park Ave.
Communities Take Root is a partnership between Edy’s Fruit Bars and the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation to provide fresh fruit to communities as well as the environmental benefits of fruit trees. The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation has been to Chicago before—they planted 22 fruit trees in Kilbourn Park in 2008, creating the first mature public fruit tree orchard in a major metropolitan city. FTPF is an international organization and has done work in Brazil, India, and Kenya with the eventual goal of planting 18 billion fruit trees worldwide. In the United States, FTPF primarily targets low-income communities and often partners with schools and Native American reservations.
Chicago is one of the few major cities on the list of candidates, but despite our population advantage, none of the CPD parks are currently in the top ten. Cast a vote for your favorite here.
This week’s feature is on the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, a nonprofit organization based in Hyde Park that offers writing workshops to people all over the city and publishes their work in the Journal of Ordinary Thought. Chicago-based artist Nance Klehm blurs the line between art, activism, and environmentalism in her wide-ranging projects, which include a community apple orchard in Little Village and two huge earthworm compost sites at a homeless shelter in the South Loop. In the Perspectives section, Andrew Foster plays with the concept of a “Human Library” to show the divisions between people in and around the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. Pilsen art collective No Coast explains why we can’t have nice things through the collages and mixed media work of artist Marvin Astorga. Contra dance comes to the International House tonight and tomorrow, and beginners are welcome. And a service at Rockefeller Chapel for victims of gun violence brought together mourners of all faiths last week.
INRIX just released the 2009 edition of its National Traffic Scorecard, and unsurprisingly the news isn’t good for Chicago. For the fourth year in a row, Chicagoland is the third most congested metropolitan area in the country, behind only New York City and Los Angeles. INRIX also found that five of the country’s 25 worst traffic bottlenecks are located on the Dan Ryan Expressway between the Cermak and Taylor exits—a distance of about a mile and a half. No wonder traffic tends to back up there at all hours of the day.
The feature in this week’s issue is our annual Hyde Park housing guide, an invaluable resource for anyone looking for an apartment in Hyde Park. For more advice, see our guides from previous years. Elsewhere in this issue, I wrote about the current controversy at Shimer College, the tiny Great Books school on IIT’s campus, where the student body, faculty, and staff are up in arms against new president Thomas Lindsay, who is threatening the school’s tradition of communal governance. Weekly editor Harry Backlund writes an essay, “Report from Obamaland,” about the Secret Service-patrolled space surrounding our President’s house. A chain of barbecue joints along I-57 aren’t just good spots to grab a meal while headed out of town, but destinations in their own right. This weekend at Mandel Hall, a festival of Spanish music shows there’s a lot more to Spain than flamenco. On Saturday, the Hyde Park Art Center puts on a multimedia music and puppet show inside its exhibition “Notes to Nonself.” Author Michelle Alexander spoke last week at the Experimental Station about systematic racial discrimination in the criminal justice system and her book “The New Jim Crow.” And a Queer Intercollegiate Alliance-planned flash mob at the Art Institute last Thursday didn’t really get the whole “f lash mob” thing right.
This week’s cover story is a must-read: a profile of Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Hyde Park’s independent alderman and a candidate for Cook County Board President. Also in this issue: Gloria Henderson opens a popcorn shop under the Metra tracks in Hyde Park after years of setbacks. Abundance Bakery on 47th Street offers a wealth of baked goods. Experimental music collective the Exponential plays at the Chicago Art Department in Pilsen this Saturday night. John Paro, a student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, has recorded an album, “Med School Rock,” to help medical students learn their material. And Katherine de Shazer is teaching a weekend class at St. Mary of Perpetual Help on Byzantine Russian icon painting.
This week’s feature is about the Chicago Arts District’s recent decline. Is Bridgeport the new Pilsen? Read and find out. Elsewhere in Pilsen, Ciao Amore serves up exceptional Italian food and photographer Xavier Nuez displays his eerie long-exposure shots of urban decay. Court Theatre’s new play “The Mystery of Irma Vep” is a satire of Victorian gothic horror and much more. The University of Chicago’s Objectivist Club had an outing to the Art Institute last weekend to discuss aesthetics and the failings of modern art. Meanwhile, Cornel West gave a fiery speech at St. Sabina Catholic Church.
The feature in this week’s issue is on Chicago Community and Workers Rights (CCWR), a new immigrants rights organization based in Little Village that’s trying to fight the use of E-Verify by employers. A photo essay reveals the range of Woodlawn’s churches, from the beautiful to the historic to the typical. Tomorrow the Chicago Storytelling Guild is holding a festival at the Experimental Station, part of the annual worldwide Tellabration. Weekly writer Keith Jamieson, who liveblogged Raymond Lotta’s talk last week, explains what’s wrong with Communism. Lagniappe brings delicious Cajun food and jazz to Auburn Gresham. The theme for this year’s installment of Lumpen’s annual Select Media Festival is “Super Bad Ass.” Mash-up magician Girl Talk performs at the University of Chicago tomorrow night. And the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s new chamber ensemble debuted at the International House last Saturday.
Newcity’s annual Best of Chicago issue came out yesterday, and among the winners are several South Side stalwarts that have previously appeared in our pages. Abuelo’s won Newcity’s Best reason to avoid the long lines at Xoco award. For Best Amerindian-African food, Newcity chose Garifuna Flava, a family restaurant in Marquette Park serving food from Honduras and Belize. Nightwood, a trendy new Pilsen eatery, was the audience’s choice for Best new restaurant. For Best new bar or club, Newcity’s pick was the Shrine, Joe Russo’s African-themed venue in the South Loop, which we covered just last week. And in the only non-food-and-drink pick, the Smart Museum’s “Heartland” exhibit won Newcity’s Best art exhibit award.
Update: The Chicago Reader’s Food Issue also came out last Thursday, and it named several South Side restaurants as Best New Restaurants of 2009, including Han 202, Nightwood, and, in an Honorable Mention, Abuelo’s Mexican Grill.
This week’s cover story is on a new hip-hop opera that premieres tonight at the DuSable Museum of African American History. The Creative Reuse Warehouse, a project of the Resource Center, collects surplus materials from businesses and sells it for cheap to teachers, the city, and anyone intrepid enough to trek down to its Riverdale warehouse. Han 202 in Bridgeport offers a five-course prix fixe menu, combining the ambience of an upscale restaurant with the taste of Chinese takeout. We cover the Renaissance Society’s current exhibit on Poland and the Polish diaspora, the Smart Museum’s new show of prints and other works from artists in eighteenth-century Rome, and Logsdon 1909’s latest round of dreamy, ethereal paintings and sculptures. And last weekend brought both a StarCraft tournament and a brunch for art students from all over the city on the University of Chicago’s campus.
Hankering to wear your dandy all-tweed outfit? On a bike? We’ve got just the event for you. The Bonfire Night Tweed Ride is tomorrow, Saturday, November 7 to celebrate Guy “Guido” Fawkes for the traditional celebration of Bonfire Night! The Tweed Ride meets at 1 PM at the Chicago Ale House, located at 2200 W. Lawrence Ave, and will follow a 17-mile route through the North and South sides to end at Bubbly Dynamics in Bridgeport for a traditional effigy bonfire. Stops include Duke of Perth, Weeds, English, Grace O’ Malley’s and Skylark. The ride does require at least one article of tweed, though, and feel free to bring clothing for the effigy or other combustibles!
This week’s issue features our second annual guide to 24-hour dining on the South Side. Last year’s guide is also worth checking out, in particular Austin Gross’s review of Kevin’s Hamburger Heaven. This issue we also reported on the Shrine, an African-themed club/music venue in the South Loop run by nightlife impresario Joe Russo. New Pilsen restaurant Abuelo’s serves some of the best Mexican food I personally have ever had. Japanese-Czech puppeteer Nori Sawa comes to Hyde Park this weekend for a performance and two shadow puppetry workshops. Famed jazz musician Joe McPhee stops by the University of Chicago campus for a performance at Bond Chapel before appearing at the Umbrella Music Festival. And Hyde Park’s Sacred Harp singers performed their style of shape-note music last Saturday.
This week’s issue is now out online and in print, and here are some of the highlights: last week a University of Chicago student was shot in the eye with a paintball during a cross country run, and his vision may never fully recover. The Chicago Scholars Foundation helps kids pay for college, but more importantly it helps them apply to, work through, and graduate from college. Ray Elementary School, like many Chicago public schools, doesn’t have an art program, but now thanks to a University of Chicago student group it does have art tutors. The Yes Men, a group of performance artists and political pranksters who have successfully impersonated representatives from government agencies and major corporations, will be at the Co-Prosperity Sphere tonight. And a Halloween costume parade for dogs last Sunday may have been the cutest thing Hyde Park has ever seen.
The Tribune reported today on a new study that shows South Siders are more “extroverted and agreeable,” while North Siders are more neurotic—what the Tribune calls a “Bill Veeck versus Woody Allen divide.” The study’s author, Kevin Stolarick, is a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, where he works under “Creative Class” theoretician Richard Florida. It’s notoriously difficult to make accurate and reliable personality tests, so Stolarick relied on self-categorization: the study was conducted online and participants rated themselves from 1 to 5 on 45 traits like carelessness, imagination, and efficiency. Stolarick explained the South Side’s high levels of cheerfulness as being due to historical African-American migration from the friendly Deep South, and he reassured North Siders that “neurotic” doesn’t mean crazy.
In other news from the Tribune, some are suggesting the University of Chicago as the future site of Barack Obama’s presidential library, but Obama isn’t one of them.
This week’s issue is now available in print and online, and here are some of the highlights: an agricultural high school on the far Southwest Side teaches kids subjects like hydroponics, horticulture, and animal science alongside more traditional classes like art and chemistry. The South Shore Opera Company of Chicago, founded almost a year ago to bring opera to the South Side, is holding a fundraiser concert with pieces from popular musicals. Nightwood brings chic organic dining to Pilsen. antena’s Halloween exhibition, “Zombies: A Mindless Affair,” focuses on the literal and metaphorical living dead. And jazz piano legend Chuchito Valdés plays Mandel Hall tomorrow night.
Fenger High School
The death of Fenger High School honors student Darrion Albert has ignited much discussion of youth violence and even brought U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education (and former CPS head) Arne Duncan to Chicago to address the issue. Despite the attention, it’s been hard to really grasp the reasons for the fight leading to Albert’s death. News reports have been lacking in detail and politicians seem interested mostly in dodging blame.
Salon.com recently published a letter from an anonymous seventeen-year-old Fenger High Student that gives more insight into the situation than anything I’ve read or heard previously.
This week’s issue is out in print and online now, and here are some of the highlights: we found out the story behind the Great American Cheese Collection (mentioned here a few posts ago). Dream Theatre Company’s new play, “The Black Duckling,” opens tonight. Pianist Amy Briggs performs a work written for two hands and a nose this Saturday as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival’s Hyde Park kick-off this Saturday. Three University of Chicago seniors and one alumna have founded an online magazine to give Chicago the New Yorker it currently lacks. In this week’s Perspectives, Helenmary Sheridan argues that urban agriculture isn’t just a faux-rustic pastime; in the food deserts of the South Side, it can mean “a well-tended and organically-grown ‘fuck you’ to those who would keep even bread from the people. And the University of Chicago’s Department of Visual Arts is collaborating with the Hyde Park Jazz Society and others to bring back the jazz that once made the neighborhood a musical destination.