Politics & Labor
Guns, Birds, & Steel
Just west of Torrence Avenue, 134th Street acts as a divide. To the south, the fringes of a junkyard gradually merge with warehouses and factories. Some of the street signs are hand-painted. There are cattails and prairie grasses that soar 12 feet into the air. A few feet away, a rusted-out shell of a... »
Breakdown
The communal dining room and kitchen at Northwest Mental Health Center has long been a fixture of programming at the clinic. Rosa Torres, who has worked as a clinical therapist at Northwest for 21 years, recalls how busy the kitchen used to be. Many of the clinic’s Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Support (PSR) programs were... »
Written in Blood
On a punishing day in late July, 40 years before the advent of air conditioning, four black teens plunged into Lake Michigan some insufficient distance north of 29th Street. At some point, the boys drifting carefree on a makeshift raft strayed passed an invisible border into a customarily whites-only beach and were greeted by... »
New Beginnings for Woodlawn
If it were up to Pastor Corey Brooks of New Beginnings Church, Chicago would be filled with “contemporary, credible, and creative” neighborhood centers. These spaces would offer everything from job placement services and drug rehabilitation assistance, to green technology labs and Panera Bread franchises. They would be hubs of activity, located at the heart... »
Police Watch
95th and Dan Ryan is the end of the line. The farthest point south on the map of the ‘El,’ it is also where Michael Pleasance was killed in 2003. He was unarmed and standing in place when a police officer shot him in the head. On New Year’s Day, one of the many... »
Redistricting Fault Lines
On October 25, the assembly hall of the Hyde Park Union Church was nearly empty. This gathering was a preliminary informational meeting concerning a process that Chicago undergoes every decade—aldermanic ward redistricting. »
99% soup
This Thursday, the aroma of mouthwatering soup hung heavy in the air at the South Side Hub of Production in Hyde Park. Volunteers gathered for an organizational meeting of the “Soup Brigade,” a group of mostly retired women who cook up pots of soup for Occupy Chicago protesters. »
Without Notice
On October 27, Regents Park was sold by Crescent Heights to Antheus, a developer locally represented by MAC Property Management. What that sale meant for the building’s employees remained unclear until 6pm, when Paul Richter, who had been the building manager for the past 23 years, carried his things out the front door. »
