Twelve years ago, when the late Gary Comer visited his former elementary school, he was brought to a room where ten new computers sat unused because the school lacked the funds to power them. Today, Paul Revere Elementary is outfitted with a wireless network, new software programs, and a $10 million investment.

Comer, the son of a railroad employee, graduated from Paul Revere Elementary in 1942. In 1963, he started Lands’ End Clothing Company, and in 2002, he sold it to Sears for $1.9 billion. Of that fortune, $100 million has since been poured into developing and revitalizing his childhood neighborhood.
Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is in the air. Soon birds will be building their nests, couples will canoodle in newly-green parks, and students sick of their dorms or their roommates will begin the hunt for a new (or first!) apartment in Hyde Park. The world-weary staff of the Weekly, who collectively have occupied at least 30 apartments, are here to help you with the last.

This special feature has two sections. In the first part, we offer advice about practicalities such as hiring movers, knowing your legal rights as a tenant, and expanding your apartment search beyond Hyde Park. In the second, we provide information about several major Hyde Park landlords, including locations, prices, and amenities. In addition, last year’s housing issue with additional advice and landlords is available on our website at chicagoweekly.net/housing-guide—but be aware that rents and contact details may have changed. We hope this helps, and we wish you all good luck. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday found Virginia Miller, operations manager of the Midwest Workers Association (MWA), standing outside the door of a low-rise housing complex in Bronzeville accompanied by two college undergraduate members-in-training. A young woman, still in pajamas, comes to the door. After introducing herself and the two undergraduates, Miller begins to talk about the MWA:

“We’re an organizing drive of working people, people who are out of work, people on fixed incomes, joining together to gain the strength to determine our future. More and more of us are working twice as hard for half as much and more of us can’t get access to the things we need, like medical care. We know that there is strength in numbers, and we know that it takes organization to change our conditions.” Miller hands the young woman a pamphlet.

The concerns that Miller voices are just some of the many problems the Midwest Workers Association, an independent, member-based workers’ advocacy organization run out of Chicago’s South Side, was created to address. Read the rest of this entry »

Has ShoreBank changed the world? The original socially minded bank has changed lives, helped revitalize the South Shore neighborhood in which it was started, and rewritten the game of financial services. But the exaggerated impact of the financial crisis on the low- and moderate-income neighborhoods it serves proves its mission remains an apt one. Founded in 1973 as a new kind of bank, ShoreBank showed that financial institutions that were invested in community development could make a real profit while making their clients’ welfare its top priority. In the past few rough months, it has continued to innovate, adapting to suit the needs of communities that are hardest hit by the recession. But the bank itself looks forward to an uncertain future. Read the rest of this entry »

“After he cuts the kid’s arm off and the blood spurts everywhere, then you’re gonna roar, oh and you—you roll around this way…and you—when they fall you’re just gonna twirl the baton on down to the ground…”

This is not usual office banter. This is not an ordinary office. This is not an ordinary workday. Have You Seen These Kids (HYSTK) is not an ordinary company. Read the rest of this entry »

Harvard Elementary School in Englewood was a teacher’s worst nightmare. Kids ran in and out of classrooms in the middle of class, started fights, and swore at faculty. Principals cycled through without making any impact. In 2007, less than a third of Harvard students passed the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), putting the school in the bottom ranks of Illinois public schools.

Then everything changed. One Friday afternoon in March of 2007, children came home from Harvard bearing notes for their parents. The news was drastic: the school was going to be handed over to a nonprofit organization, the Academy for Urban School Leadership, to be turned around. All the adults at the school—everyone from teachers to janitors—would be replaced, and when the kids returned the following fall it would be to a newly renovated building with an entirely new staff. Read the rest of this entry »

The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt (“Scav Hunt”) is frequently touted as the world’s largest scavenger hunt. The hunt is a four-day long event, famously ridiculous and fun, with teams made up of university affiliates—mainly undergraduates, but with some representation from graduate students and alumni. Last year’s list of 277 items included an El train quartet, an invented “Queens” cocktail, and a blog entry in clay, wood, paper, and electronic forms. And these were a few of the tamer items.

Scav Hunt inspires such devotion and obsession among its participants that it makes sense that it would motivate offshoots. And it has birthed at least one: the brainchild of Sebastian Ellefson (BA’04), Courtney Prokopas (BA’06), and Steven Lucy (BA’06), Finders Keepers is a company that brands itself as “the premier organization for scavenger hunts, road trips team building, and event planning.” Read the rest of this entry »

A lamprey is a parasite that feeds on underbellies. But in Chicago, the Lampreys are whoever is in the kitchen of Kenneth Morrison. That kitchen, though, and the building that once enclosed it, no longer exist. Morrison, Michelle Faust, and Nat Ward, the trio who started the Chicago artists’ society the Ever-So-Secret Order of the Lamprey, lost all their possessions recently in the December 17 fire that destroyed their home and the nerve-center of the Lampreys, a building in Pilsen they had christened the Whale.

For ten years, the Ever-So-Secret Order of the Lamprey has met under the auspices of a word, and, until the fire, in the depths of the Whale. Visitors to the Whale were unpredictable and members in the society changed depending on the week. The society was never a secret and there are no requirements for membership. It is characterized by the unexpected. Read the rest of this entry »