(courtesy of Vermilion Development)

In May 2008, when the University of Chicago completed the $6.5 million purchase of Harper Court, President Robert Zimmer heralded the moment as an opportunity. “Ideally,” he said in a public statement on the purchase, “this project will be reflective of the distinctive nature of Hyde Park and represent the best of Chicago’s mid-South Side.” This January, after Vermilion Development was selected by the University to redevelop Harper Court, its CEO, David J. Cocagne, was quoted by the Chicago Maroon echoing the same sentiment. “We’re very excited to be undertaking this project,” Cocagne said. “We think it will be very transformative for the commercial core of Hyde Park and will really celebrate all that Hyde Park is.” Read the rest of this entry »

(Temple Shipley)

Benjamin Murphy wedges his cigarette butt into the gray planks of a picnic table and squints, surveying his sanctuary. In the fading light of a late-May Thursday afternoon, the 65th and Woodlawn Community Garden resembles a living patchwork quilt—some plots in this roughly 1000 square-foot space are lined with misshapen bricks, others are freestanding mounds of soil punctuated by the occasional wire trellis, tree branch, or toiling gardener. Murphy laughs, “You can’t gang-bang on this corner.” Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

All-white walls enclose an unidentifiable treadmill-like device, the whoop, whoop, whoop-ing of its enormous belts sounding throughout the room. This gallery-within-a-gallery at the University of Chicago’s DOVA Temporary exhibition space in Harper Court was created by graduating Master of Fine Arts candidate David Cordero. The artist began thinking about his thesis project, “Grind,” using a set of tiny models set in shoebox-sized boxes, as a live sketchbook for the works he could create for a full gallery exhibit. This “testing space” for his ideas required the construction of simple, recognizable objects scaled down to thumb-size. Playing with the ambiguity of those shapes we commonly utilize, the blown-up result is majestic proof of technological innovation; it’s confusing and beautiful, and mechanically perfect, begging the question, so what does it do? Read the rest of this entry »

Around a rectangular table in a conference room at the Bessie Coleman Library, a group of University of Chicago students and community members are meeting to discuss this year’s Art in Action festival. “Okay, who is taking care of sign-making Monday?” one student asks. Several hands go up from the planning committee, made up of seven students and seven community members, including a local pastor, several artists, and members of various South Side organizations. Enthusiasm is high and periodic chatter interrupts the main agenda: the logistics of an event meant to bring the UofC community into contact with those around it. Read the rest of this entry »

Scouting for a seat in the crowded lecture hall of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, it’s difficult not to notice the unusual heterogeneity of the people who are making the task so difficult. Their nametags identify them as University students, neighborhood schoolteachers, pastors, and parents, and all of them are here to learn about a new organization known as the Woodlawn Children’s Promise Zone. Read the rest of this entry »

Acclaimed art critic and film director Amei Wallach stood in front of an audience of about 30 last Thursday at the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center to present clips from her work in progress, “How to Make a Paradise.” It was the first time Wallach had shown her clips publicly, and viewers were more than happy to give feedback on what they had seen.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, the internationally renowned Russian conceptual artists, married couple, and the subjects of the film, were seeing it for the first time as well. Read the rest of this entry »

(Mehveş Konuk)

“Doov, doov, doov, doov. You know that sound? We grew up on that sound,” says Jasson Perez, beat-boxing a juke beat. He is sitting next to fellow band members Michael “Illekt”, Rich “Epic,” and DJ Esquire in the basement of the University of Chicago’s Reynolds Club, where they are waiting to perform at the UofC’s Festival of the Arts. Collectively the Chicago natives form “Bin Laden Blowin’ Up,” better known by the acronym BBU.

The group’s surprise hit “Chi Don’t Dance” pays homage to both juke music and the dance form that has evolved with it—an equally fast-paced combination of steps and upper body shaking. This is footwork, often referred to by Chicago natives as juking. Footwork isn’t new to Chicago, but thanks to recent exposure by BBU and other Chicago talent, juke culture could soon be getting mainstream attention. At the forefront of this will be a generation of high schoolers, who are bringing fresh energy to the music and steps. Read the rest of this entry »