It was one of those freak things that never should have happened. We had just had lunch at the Workingman’s Club, and while I was backing out of the parking space, a wino wandered up to the truck to tell us that he’d been a furniture mover back in the old days. “Is that so?” […]
Author Archives: Jack Clark
Posted inNews & Politics
Snow Jobs
Snow shovelers got off easy this year–until January 30. Our correspondent headed to Western Avenue, between 3200 and 3600 North, to report on the state of the sidewalks (surveyed Thursday, January 31, 2002): Taco bell. Fair. A good job except around the advertising bench, where the kids from Lane Tech like to hang out, and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Tales From the Chair
On September 11, I’m having coffee in a place on Irving Park, trying not to listen to the commander in chief, who’s talking war in the background. I look across the street, and Jerry’s barber pole is gone. Isn’t this day bad enough? “Did something happen to Jerry?” I ask the kid behind the counter. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Here Comes Trouble
Think you know how the business works? Listen up while a driver sets the record straight.
Posted inArts & Culture
Local Lit: S.L. Wisenberg collects her thoughts
Reading S.L. Wisenberg’s stories, you can’t help thinking that they must be about her. But when asked if her work is autobiographical, she says, “Remember what Flaubert said? ‘Madame Bovary, that’s me.’ “Or remember in The Miracle on 34th Street,” she continues, “when Kris Kringle says, ‘There’s the French nation, the British nation, and the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Snow Jobs
Notes on the condition of sidewalks 4400 to 4560 North Lincoln (surveyed Thursday, January 4, 2001): Sulzer Library. Good. But what’s the point of stopping at the curb? They should clear the snow from the walkways leading out to the street–and clear that small no-man’s-land between the library and Montrose. If the library doesn’t do […]
Posted inArts & Culture
West Side Lullaby
It’s after midnight and the streets are nothing but empty cabs. We’re driving in circles, jockeying for worthless positions, waiting for the smallest crumbs to fall. Mine’s a guy in a suit and tie who staggers out of a piano bar. If it wasn’t for drunks we’d probably all be on welfare. Laughter drifts from […]
Posted inNews & Politics
All the Wrong Answers
How a new movie on the Steinmetz High School cheating scandal turned the cheaters into good guys and the good guys inot goats.
Posted inNews & Politics
There Went the Neighborhood
By Jack Clark I call down to Florida one night to tell my friends Bob and Dori Foley the rumor I’ve just heard. Biasetti’s, my favorite steak house, a place we used to frequent together, is to be torn down and replaced with what the north side needs most: more town houses. “We heard that […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Home Invasion
When I moved to Lincoln Square, one of the first things I noticed was how clean the bums were. This was due mainly to the efforts of the laundromat at the corner of Wilson and Lincoln, which offered free soap on Mondays and Tuesdays. All a bum had to do was score a little spare […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Prisoners of War
A central Illinois county on the road between the coasts has an impressive record of intercepting trucks carrying marijuana and cocaine. But does putting mules and low-level dealers away for life really make a difference in the country’s battle against dr