The house next door to mine was torn down. My neighbors don’t quite remember the year, but the resident local historian, Maurice, who has lived on the block since the late 60s, was shipped off to Vietnam and, upon his return in 1972, the house had vanished. The product of “slum clearance” on Chicago’s west […]
Tag: Millennium Park
Posted inAgenda
Chalk Howard Street, Reclamation, school supplies, and more
Rogers Park hosts Chalk Howard Street today, the annual chalk art festival where the neighborhood is the canvas. Renowned 2D and 3D chalk artists will share the streets with kids, hobbyists, emerging artists, and admirers to transform the city’s surface east of the Howard el station between Paulina and Ashland. This free festival runs from […]
Posted inAgenda
Disability pride, Asian stoner food, yoga, and the hip-hop and blues connection
Women and Children First bookstore and Access Living have teamed up to host a Disability Pride Pop-Up Shop at Access Living’s space (115 W. Chicago). From 1-6 PM, there will be a pop-up book shop as well as craft stations where people can make buttons, write stories, or contribute to the Re-Wired Project. There will […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Young people dream up a safer summer in Chicago
After Mayor Lori Lightfoot expanded the citywide curfew in response to a shooting, teenagers spoke about Chicago’s gun violence crisis and their relationship to the city.
Posted inFilm
Ghost of drive-ins past?
From the comfort of your car or on a picnic with friends, Chicago’s outdoor movie screenings have resuscitated the alluring drive-in experience, so screentime can be spent with others all summer long.
Posted inOpinion
Op-Ed: Chicago doesn’t need more curfews and criminalization
Instead, we need to address the root cause of violence: inequality.
Posted inCity Life
Black Harvest Film Festival, reggaetón, and roller skating
It’s getting a wee bit chilly around here but here’s some things to do this week that just might warm you up. Fri 11/19 606 Records and Cleve Carney Museum of Art (CCMA) are teaming up to celebrate Ben LaMar Gay’s new album, Open Arms to Open Us (be sure to read Reader contributor Hannah […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago has nurtured jazz since its infancy
There’s been jazz in Chicago for nearly as long as there’s been jazz. While jazz is commonly said to have ridden the rails to Chicago around 1916, when the Great Migration of African Americans from the south to the north kicked into gear, Dixieland bandleader Wilbur Sweatman had played gigs on the city’s south side […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago celebrates a century of Black gospel
Chicago has earned bragging rights as the birthplace of Black gospel music. It was here that gospel was first composed, sung, played, published, promoted, recorded, broadcast, and formalized—the last via a national convention with regional chapters. Migrants to Chicago from the south in particular found comfort in it, because it articulated their shared experiences as […]
Posted inMusic
The Preservation of Fire series brings the cosmos to Millennium Park
In 2019, Chicago event producer and teacher Alejandro Ayala, who DJs as King Hippo, received a grant from the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to produce a two-night concert series called the Preservation of Fire. The concerts, hosted by Co-Prosperity in Bridgeport and broadcast live on Worldwide FM and Lumpen Radio, […]
Posted inMusic
Decades of divas on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster features art by anthropologist and graphic designer Kisira Hill.
Posted inMusic
Rob Mazurek’s latest with his Exploding Star Orchestra finds hope in the cosmos
Dimensional Stardust is a splendid sonic antidote for the spirit-damping insults of a year that can’t end soon enough—growth and transcendence are programmed into the album’s DNA. The Exploding Star Orchestra’s leader, multi-instrumentalist Rob Mazurek, started out playing idiomatically correct hard bop in Chicago’s jazz bars in the 1980s. These days he lives in Marfa, […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago art-pop wonder Sen Morimoto captures the magic of his community
Chicago art-pop wizard Sen Morimoto made national news in July, when the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events removed him from its Millennium Park at Home virtual summertime music series. Morimoto had prerecorded a series of mystical, gentle musical movements, but he began his set by delivering a brief statement lightly criticizing Mayor Lori […]
Posted inMusic
Lori Branch’s greatest moments in Chicago music history
Pioneering house DJ Lori Branch shouts out her fellow Windy City originators, including Chaka Khan and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Posted inMusic
The Reader’s guide to the 2019 Chicago Jazz Festival
This year’s lineup details a sprawling cross section of the genre, including world-changing explorers the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trad band the Fat Babies, venerable guitarist George Freeman, and restless experimenter Rob Mazurek.