The noise of the traffic and the voices of playing children bounce off the barred windows and dull red bricks of 2417 W. Adams, the first building on the east end of the Rockwell Gardens housing project. A half dozen brothers stand against the wall in front of the security entrance, talking quietly among themselves. […]
Author Archives: Rollie Hudson
Posted inNews & Politics
A Day’s Work
You get off the Lake Street el and arrive at the day labor office of the State of Illinois Job Service at Lake and Jefferson at 5:45 AM. “Don’t open till six,” says a lone figure from the shadows of the small entrance. You nod toward the man, an African American with gray in his […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Boutique Designer
From sketches to sales, Reginald Thomas does it all. He has to.
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar Sidebar
The Peace Museum’s current exhibit, a traveling collection of political cartoons originally printed in the Nation magazine over the last 80 years, offers a wide assortment of fat cats, factory smokestacks, rumbling military devices, and crowds of imprisoned refugees. But as you reflect on how quaintly these images depict the political issues of their times, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Flesh & Blood
Michael Bynum’s sister, Nadine James, needed a new kidney to survive. It didn’t matter that the surgeons told him they’d have to remove a lower rib when they cut him open. It didn’t matter that he’d have to undergo months of testing or that even after that Nadine’s body might still reject his kidney. They […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Gotta Smoke
Marv is a little drunk this morning, a bit unsteady as he circles through the courtyard of the Olive Branch shelter in search of a cigarette. “Yo, Johnny. You got a smoke?” It is 75 degrees but Johnny is wearing a heavy winter jacket. He only shakes his head at Marv. Bullface, the front-door guard, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Garbage Cross
It’s a rainy summer night in Bucktown. Inside the neon-lighted entrance to the David Leonardis Gallery on Paulina a noisy packed house is looking at the latest paintings by Chris Peldo. Among the abstract, often subliminally sexual paintings is a crucifix outlined in oak and filled with an assortment of junk–peanuts, crushed Coca-Cola cans, Reese’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A Tenth of a Second
On June 13 Chicagoan Ed Slowikowski stepped to the starting line at the Metro West Twilight track meet, on the outskirts of Boston, with one chance left to qualify for the 1992 Olympic Trials. For ten weeks he had been trying to shave a tenth of a second off his best time in the 1,500-meter […]