South Shore
South Side Crescendo
When one considers Chicago African-American music, the first things that come to mind are probably twelve-bar blues and stirring gospel. But Cornelius V. Johnson, the calm and sagacious Artistic Director and tenor of the South Shore Opera Company (SSOC), which is based out of the South Shore Cultural Center, has something else in mind.... »
Playground Poets
On April 10, in the mezzanine of the South Shore Cultural Center, an unusual partnership was formed between Ed Borstein and Noah Emmanuel. Ed is a lanky 25-year-old University of Iowa graduate and drummer for the Chicago punk band T’Bone. Noah is a sixteen-year-old South Shore resident and avid Drake fan. The pair spent... »
School of Last Resort
There’s a new school in South Shore, and it’s empty and beautiful. It has a swimming pool, a green roof, and state of the art lab facilities, but no students, as of yet. It needs to be occupied, though, and fast; by law, it cannot remain vacant past January 31. »
Best of the South Side 2010
Around the turn of the last century, workers and businessmen attracted by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition settled down in Woodlawn and South Shore. New homes and brick apartment buildings were built for the predominately upper-middle class white Protestant residents. The streets of South Shore are filled with remnants of the first decades of... »
Seitan with Soul
Last January, Yah’s Cuisine became the second vegan restaurant specializing in soul food to open on 75th Street. Located roughly three miles from its well-established predecessor, Soul Vegetarian East, Yah’s may be signaling the setting of a delicious South Side standard. If that be the case, consider me satisfied. »
Shoring up ShoreBank: Can the South Side’s socially conscious bank weather the recession?
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.... »
Rise and Swing: Jazz brunch on the South Side
Senegalese musician Morikeba Kouyate sits in the sunny front window of Hyde Park’s Chant restaurant, his twenty-one-stringed kora resting in his lap. He is taking a breather in between songs, which layer his high, strong voice over complex fingerwork on the gourd-and-stretched-skin instrument. In the expansive dining room, a few diners circle around the... »
Arias in the Area: The South Shore Opera Company brings a new sound to the neighborhood
The South Shore Cultural Center lives a delightfully serendipitous existence of split artistic allegiance. On its west side, a bedlam of auto garages, chop suey joints, and conjoining railroad tracks perform an urban dance of crackling vitality. On its east side, swaying trees and rolling green grass intermingle with the soft sighs of Lake... »
