Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, December 28, 2016.
- Weather: Warmer, with a bit of sun
Wednesday should be a beautiful late-December day, with a high of 45 and a low of 32. Periods of both sun and some clouds are expected. [AccuWeather]
- Carrie Fisher’s Blue Brothers Chicago legacy
Actress Carrie Fisher was most famous for her iconic role as Princess Leia in Star Wars, but she also had a starring role in one of the greatest Chicago movies, The Blues Brothers. In that film she blows up a hotel at 22 W. Van Buren Street in an attempt to kill her ex-boyfriend, Joliet Jake Blues, played by John Belushi. Fisher, who passed away Tuesday, was also briefly engaged to costar Dan Aykroyd while filming in Chicago after he saved her life with the Heimlich maneuver. Her final Chicago appearance was at the Wizard World Comic Con in Rosemont in August. [DNAinfo Chicago]
- Billionaire Christopher Reyes asked Rahm to close a Loop street for his daughter’s wedding
Billionaire Christopher Reyes, a big donor to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Republican candidates, asked Emanuel to close down Monroe Street “for our guests’ passage from the Art Institute of Chicago to the reception across Monroe,” according to the Tribune. The mayor ignored Reyes’s request by not responding to his e-mail. The message from the 62-year-old food and beverage distributor was one of the e-mails recently released from the mayor’s personal account. [Tribune]
- Book explores how Mayor Richard M. Daley turned Chicago into the “city of spectacle”
A new book, Building the City of Spectacle: Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Remaking of Chicago, cowritten by UIC political science professor Dennis R. Judd, explores how Daley rehabbed the city’s image with Millennium Park, the Museum Campus, and Navy Pier, making it into a popular tourist destination. Daley is also great example of how to use leadership and mayoral power in a big city, according to the authors. “Richard M. Daley shows just how much a creative urban leader can get done even when the political environmental or economic circumstance does not seem to be promising,” Spirou told CityLab. “When Daley came to office, Chicago was still mired in a protracted period of turmoil. Racial tensions were high, and few people expected that the situation could be quickly changed.” [CityLab]
- Owner promises to rebuild North Center’s Diner Grill in two months after devastating fire
A fire tore through the Diner Grill in North Center Saturday evening, forcing the 24-hour diner to temporarily close. Owner Arnold DeMar promised to rebuild and reopen the popular 77-year-old restaurant, hopefully in about two months. He won’t change it too much. “The design—that’s what made it what it is,” he told Eater Chicago. “We’re just going to restore it as it was.” [Eater Chicago]