(Ellis Calvin)

This time last year, the Weekly came out with its first guide to 24-hour restaurants on the South Side. In that issue, we covered classics like Izola’s, Depot, and the original Maxwell Street Polish stands. We’re back this year with a few more selections from the South Side nightscape. From the welcoming diners of Bridgeport and Pilsen to a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown to a fishery along the Chicago River, we present the second course of our after-dark dining manual. Read the rest of this entry »

(courtesy of the Shrine)

From the late ’50s and on through the ’60s, Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood was a black music mecca. So many blues and soul recording labels set up shop on South Michigan Avenue that the street earned the title of Record Row. Only a few traces of that legacy are still visible among the warehouses and high-rises that fill the South Loop today, but since its opening last June, the Shrine—a combination nightclub, live music venue, and upscale lounge—is trying to make the neighborhood once again the center of Chicago’s music scene. Read the rest of this entry »

The South Loop is a new neighborhood with a long history. Like many Chicago neighborhoods, it was first populated by poor immigrants in the mid-19th century, mainly Irish, Germans, and African-Americans from the South. Spared by the Great Fire, it became a bastion of the Chicago elite, who built magnificent homes along Prairie Avenue. By the turn of the 20th century, however, the neighborhood had become a nationally renowned haven for vice and corruption. When the city clamped down, shady characters moved out and industry moved in, setting up specialized districts like Printer’s Row and Auto Row. Reinvented once more, it’s safe to say the South Loop is currently at its highest point, literally. High-rise condos have proliferated so rapidly over the last decade—along with a doubling of population—that you shouldn’t be surprised if you notice a new one each time you visit. Industry is long gone, but still remembered in the converted luxury lofts. Many popular North Side restaurants have opened second locations in the South Loop to get a piece of the neighborhood boom, and high-end retail chains like Whole Foods have set up west of the river. The South Loop has a few excellent original spots as well—a number that will rise as the neighborhood continues to define its new identity. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago’s first elevated train went into operation in 1892, and since then the system has been constantly shifting. Today, few remember how it looked at its peak, before the formation of the CTA in 1947 out of the privately owned Chicago Rapid Transit Company and Chicago Surface Lines. Since the consolidation, the CTA’s rail network has declined from a high of 227 stations to only 144. Today, however, the tide is turning the other way: although the CTA’s economic difficulties led to the recently announced fare hike, capital projects, like new facilities, stations, and tracks, are often eligible for millions of dollars in funds from the federal government. With Olympic hopes on the horizon, environmental concerns and volatile gas prices driving people out of their cars, and the city once again seeing positive population growth, now is a good time to take a look at a few ways our transit system might expand in the near future. Read the rest of this entry »

The South Loop stands today as the best example of gentrification on the move in Chicago. Cranes consistently dot the horizon, as high-rises sprout and come to fruition, housing the city dwellers who are flocking back to urban areas. But the South Loop is a strange place unto itself—rundown blocks border high-end restaurants and shiny new apartments. Walking through the various parts of the neighborhood is like walking through a timetable of decades of development, from one of the city’s original residential neighborhoods, to its decline and recent revitalization. The neighborhood is also home to the city’s one-time printing mecca, Printers’ Row, but recent developments now threaten to whitewash its storied history. For the meantime, both the old and the new stand juxtaposed in odd and often interesting combinations. Read the rest of this entry »

Like most neighborhoods on the South Side, the South Loop has fought to recover an identity it once lost. Once a thriving immigrant enclave that fell victim to crime and blight in the 1970s, the area is rebounding with unprecedented vitality, throwing up luxury lofts on Printers Row, townhouses along Roosevelt Road, and fine dining restaurants on Wabash Avenue. Consider the neighborhood’s proximity to the Loop, and you’ve got to wonder how the South Loop could get any closer to the center of everything. Read the rest of this entry »