If your ancestors were Jewish and lived in Chicago and weren’t gangsters or floozies, you might find them in H.L. Meites’s amateur history.
Author Archives: Bonnie McGrath
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: Harry Heller knows a few Jewish sports
Most people think of the 24th Ward on the west side as the birthplace of Jewish politics and patronage, as the springboard of old-timers like federal judge Abe Marovitz and the late political kingmaker Jake Arvey. But Harry Heller sees it as a place where old-time Jewish sports legends like welterweight champion Barney Ross and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Solti’s Last Stand
It is Thursday night and I am in my seat in the middle of row A. It is the last subscription concert with Sir Georg at the helm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It is Solti’s last stand. My seat is considered the worst in the hall, but I sit there every Thursday night. It […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Greatest Job on TV
Mike Leonard is not a two-minute kind of guy. To properly answer the questions he thinks up about life, he needs four minutes.
Posted inNews & Politics
How to Get a Husband
He is coming. He is handsome. He is almost yours. Just do exactly as ArLynn Presser instructs…
Posted inNews & Politics
The Wedding Professionals
The average Chicago wedding costs $13,000. Melissa Henz and Nancy Sarlo will help you spend it.
Posted inNews & Politics
Lottie Da
Lottie Da says every woman’s fantasy is to be either a nun or a slut. “I always wanted to be a prostitute. That was my fantasy life. But I never was–because I didn’t need to be,” she concludes. Da’s philosophy about womanhood is more well-thought-out than it sounds. She has spent a lifetime studying “bad” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: Marcia Routburg, a special parent
At 6:15 AM, Marcia Routburg wakes her daughter. Esther, nine, weighs only 30 pounds and is slightly longer than a yardstick. Her vision is minimal; she doesn’t speak or walk; and her muscles are atrophied and spastic. Routburg changes Esther’s diaper and then dresses her in a small but stretchy outfit, pulling the clothing over […]
Posted inNews & Politics
50 Ways to Say “You’re Fired”
According to its corporate literature, the company sponsoring today’s lunch lecture is “designed to assist employers with employee termination issues and, after termination, to help separated employees develop skills and define career strategies to assist them in finding new employment.” “Separated employees”–fired people–are a $300,000,000-a-year industry. And Right Associates, an “outplacement” business, accounts for a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Comiskey Park, the Morning After
October 1, 1990. Twelve things that happened the morning after the last game: 1. Eight video games were carried out of the concourse near third base and loaded onto a truck in the parking lot. “These were for the little kids,” said one of the movers from the video-game rental company. “For when they got […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Things Change
To the editors: I’d like to comment on Jerry Crimmins’ letter (November 30) criticizing the Reader for printing Mapplethorpe’s Honey photograph a few weeks ago. I always thought Jerry, a Tribune reporter, was a good one–and I depended on his expertise a few times when we covered stories together years ago when I was breaking […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art Facts: neo-graffiti by Erik DeBat, aka Risk
Nineteen-year-old Erik DeBat says he used to get an adrenaline rush from doing graffiti, a high from knowing that his name was in so many places. He ran with a pack of ten other taggers who called themselves “Mad” and prided themselves on eluding the cops. On certain nights, in a location spread by word […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art Facts: living above the neighborhood gallery
“It’s the shortest commute I’ve ever experienced,” says Bruno Ast about his 100-year-old house in Old Town. For 21 years Ast and his wife, Gunduz Dagdelen, have run an architectural firm out of their house. For the last six months, the two architects have also been operating another business: since June, the 250-square-foot space in […]