Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, November 30, 2016.
- Weather: Cooler, with not much sun
Wednesday will be cooler, with a high of 47 and a low of 38. It will grow progressively colder and cloudier as the day goes on, and there’s a chance of showers in the evening. [AccuWeather]
- Alderman Ameya Pawar considers 2018 run against Governor Rauner
Forty-Seventh Ward alderman Ameya Pawar, a Democrat, is considering running against Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican, for the state’s highest office in 2018, according to Politico. “In 2011, I ran for office and people laughed at me,” he told the news site. “I took on the machine and I beat it.” The north-side alderman, a member of the City Council’s Progressive Reform Caucus, says one of his motivations is to counter the state’s current political impasse: “We’ve had a set of politics pitting one group of people against another. I don’t think that’s productive. I think it’s time we have a progressive campaign for governor.” [Politico]
- Illinois Supreme Court justice calls for a fifth star to be added to the city flag—in honor of her own charity
At a Tuesday breakfast fund-raiser for Special Olympics that doubled as a roast for Mayor Rahm Emanuel on his 57th birthday, Illinois Supreme Court justice Anne Burke, a cofounder of the nonprofit organization, proposed that the city consider adding a fifth star to the Chicago flag in its honor, the Tribune reports. “Perhaps a fitting way to emphasize the role of Chicago in the International Special Olympics movement would be to add a fifth star, Mr. Mayor, to our flag for all the world to see and to celebrate the birth of Special Olympics,” said the justice, wife of 14th Ward alderman Ed Burke, who was one of many applauding (a group the mayor reportedly was not among). [Tribune]
- Want a vacant lot for $1? The Large Lots Program just put 4,000 up for sale
Also on Tuesday, the city’s Large Lots Program put 4,000 vacant lots up for sale on the south and west sides. In order to be eligible, buyers have to own property on the same block, owe no outstanding debt to the city, and be up to date on their own property taxes. Most of the lots previously sold by the program have been turned into gardens, side yards, or open space. [Tribune]
- Interracial marriages, legal in Chicago since 1874, were still (surprise) not always accepted While Illinois legalized interracial marriage in 1874—almost a century before the 1967 Supreme Court decision barring restrictions on such unions—that doesn’t mean biracial couples were socially accepted. As DNAinfo reports, even while some people judged certain intermixed couples “quite respectable,” well-educated black women found the thought of marrying a white man “degrading,” and early-20th-century boxing great Jack Johnson, who married three white women, was actually sentenced to a year and a day in the under the Mann Act, which barred so-called “white slave traffic.” [DNAinfo Chicago]
- Museum of Contemporary Art reveals renovation plans, new restaurant
The Museum of Contemporary Art has revealed more about plans for its $16 million renovation, designed by Los Angeles-based architecture firm Johnston Marklee. A new street-accessible restaurant with Lula Cafe founder Jason Hammel as head chef will feature a mural by acclaimed artist Chris Ofili, a British-born artist of Nigerian descent now living in Trinidad, whose design choices will provide “a palette for the rest of the restaurant,” museum director Madeline Grynsztejn told the New York Times. There will also be a “lounge-workshop-performance space” designed by the Mexico City firm Pedro y Juana, as the MCA finds “new ways to bring art, learning and food together, reflecting how people like to experience culture today,” says Grynsztejn. [New York Times ]