South Loop
Floats Your Boat
Three types of people turned out last Sunday for the Chicago Boat, Sports & RV Show: boat people, family people, and conventioneers. The boat people flocked to McCormick Place for the boats. They bought boats (last year’s floor models), sold boats (“Rock-bottom boat show prices!”), and complained about things that were not boats (“Starbucks... »
Pressed and Ready
Cooking a waffle is a straightforward thing—any monkey can put an Eggo in a microwave. But Waffles—a new South Loop brunch joint—makes a big impression with its creative takes on this breakfast staple. »
The South Loop
From far away, the towering condo buildings of the South Loop appear crystalline and new, the products of more than 30 years of development. Yet the streets tell a much different story, worn by the highs and lows of the neighborhood’s past. Once the place to live in Chicago, Prairie Avenue hosted some of... »
Unconventional McCormick
Amid concerns of structural problems and inadequacy as an event center, the future of McCormick Place East is now in question. For the architects, environmentalists, politicians, and everyday people who have long disputed the building’s merits, the chance to decide what will become of the exhibition space has been a long time coming. »
Blues Limbo
Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation occupies an iconic building from a bygone era. Located in the old home of Chess Records, a blues powerhouse in the ’50s and ’60s, the ornate façade stands in sharp contrast to the clean steel and glass of the high-end condos next door. »
Dog days
Dogs of all breeds had come to the convention center prepared to take their run around the ring at the International Kennel Club of Chicago's 150th Annual Dog Show. »
Gentlemen, start your engines
If anything, the Chicago Auto Show—the largest in the nation—is about an absence of responsibility. It’s about six-digit prices and one-digit fuel economies. The auto show is everything wrong with America, and everything that makes it so awesome. »
Velvet Bounce
Corey Wilkes and the Velvet Lounge All-Stars are standing in front of three tall mirrors in the South Loop Hotel’s L26 Restaurant and Lounge, getting ready to kick off the first show of the Velvet Birdhouse Concert Series. “We’re gonna fly on with some new music,” Wilkes says into the microphone. »
