“AIA Chicago, the second largest chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the collective voice of 4,000 licensed architects, emerging professionals, architecture students, and allied professionals, has published an updated definitive guide to the city’s architecture, the AIA Guide to Chicago, Fourth Edition,” the group reports. “Chicago’s architecture attracts visitors from around the globe. The fourth edition of the AIA Guide to Chicago is the best portable resource for exploring this most breathtaking and dynamic of cityscapes and neighborhoods. The editors offer entries on new destinations like the Riverwalk and The 606, chronicling the city’s construction boom since the previous guide was published in 2014, as well as updated descriptions of refreshed landmarks. Thirty-four maps and more than 500 photos make it easy to find each of the almost 2,000 featured sites. A comprehensive index organizes entries by name and architect.” Many more details here.
“The U.S. Government Wants to Destroy These Towers”
The B1M, “the definitive video channel for construction,” debuts a ten-minute video outlining what’s at issue with the federally funded $52 million plan to demolish Loop landmarks Consumers Building and Century Building. In the video, Preservation Chicago’s Ward Miller notes that demolishing the structures could jeopardize Chicago’s pending UNESCO World Heritage Site nomination. Find it here. (The Change.org petition is near its goal of 25,000 signatures here.)
Gold Coast Mansion Sells For $7 Million, Highest Price In Hood In Five Years
“Although the home set a new high for Gold Coast houses, it went at a multimillion-dollar cut from the sellers’ original asking price,” reports Crain’s.
Rent Rises Rampage
Surveying the state of inflation, “rents have risen 5.8%, the most since 1986,” reports AP. “With many people priced out of the market for houses and looking instead to rent, demand for apartments has sent rental rates beyond affordable levels. The average cost of new leases has jumped fourteen-percent in the past year… to an average of $2,016 a month. Economists expect the rising expense of new leases to send the government’s inflation measure higher in coming months.”
Milwaukee Aims For A Million
Milwaukee mayor Cavalier Johnson has set a seven-digit population goal, reports Milwaukee magazine. “Johnson believes the city should strive for a long-term population goal of 1 million, propelling it into the ranks of America’s largest metropolises. That would be a seventy-three-percent increase from Milwaukee’s 2020 population of 577,222, ranked thirty-first among U.S. cities… ‘Cities are the lifeblood of states, the lifeblood of the country,’ Johnson says. ‘If you’re not growing, you’re losing. I don’t want Milwaukee to be on the losing end.'”
DINING & DRINKING
Do-Over Diner Opens Across Street From Empty Bottle
Opening Saturday at 1024 North Western, across from Empty Bottle and up the street from Sportsman’s Club, Estelle’s, EZ Inn and Star Bar: Do-Over Diner, a restaurant with a liquor license, open until 3am on weekends, reports Eater Chicago. “Just over a month after modern Jewish deli Jeff & Judes closed in Ukrainian Village, former members of its team are preparing to unveil a replacement… a late-night spot that will play on greasy-spoon nostalgia with all-day breakfast, smashed burgers and cocktails.” Owner Ursula Siker is “handing over the space to executive chef Hanna Coleman (Cafe Marie-Jeanne, Middlebrow Beer) and beverage director Sam Yar (Funkenhausen).”
Global Chickpea Shortage Foreseen
The global supply of chickpeas could drop as much as twenty-percent this year, reports Quartz. Drought and market demand are key factors. “Flooding in Mexico and Australia—the latter being the biggest chickpea exporter in the world—have shortened yields.”
Starbucks Closing Stores For “Safety”
Starbucks says at least sixteen stores across the country pose “challenges in providing a safe and welcoming and kind environment,” reports the Washington Post. “You’re also seeing firsthand the challenges facing our communities–personal safety, racism, lack of access to healthcare, a growing mental health crisis, rising drug use, and more. With stores in thousands of communities across the country, we know these challenges can, at times, play out within our stores too. We read every incident report you file–it’s a lot,” employees were told in a letter about safety at Starbucks stores. Closures, so far, include six in the Los Angeles area, six in Seattle as well as in Portland, near Union Station in Washington, D.C. and one in Philadelphia. “Starbucks operates 8,941 stores in the U.S. It closed 424 locations in the last fiscal year, though it opened 449 and moved 19 stores in the same time frame.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Comiskey Park Disco Demolition Riot Doc “Rock Sox Disco Sux” Restored
The Chicago Film Archives has just finished digitizing Bill Stamets’ Super-8 footage of Steve Dahl’s “Disco Demolition Night” at Comiskey Park, forty-three years ago in 1979, including the twelve-minute “Rock Sox Disco Sux,” detailed and available here. CFA describes the documenting as taking “place after game one of a July 12, 1979 doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park… The anti-disco promotion was spearheaded by White Sox owner Bill Veeck along with shock jock Steve Dahl of 97.9 FM WLUP ‘The Loop,’ a Chicago rock station. Attendees were able to attend the games for only ninety-eight cents if they turned in a disco record; between the doubleheader’s games, all the donated records would be blown up in center field. The White Sox were forced to forfeit the second game when the promotion went off the rails, when anti-disco demonstrators rioted on the field and caused significant damage to the park. The riot resulted in at least nine injuries and thirty-nine arrests.” (Fifteen minutes of outtakes are here; the link to the Stamets archive, including 248 reels of Super 8, is here.)
Sam Greenlee Day Honored Woodlawn Author-Activist
The author of “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” which also became an incendiary film in 1973, was celebrated Wednesday on what would have been his ninety-second birthday, reports Block Club Chicago.
LIT
Comic Book Sales Soar To Highest Level Ever
“Comic-book sales hit $2.075 billion in 2021, the biggest year for the industry ever,” reports Business Insider. “Experts say the surge is due to a number of factors, including certain genres like Japanese manga. The industry is on pace for an even better 2022.”
MEDIA
Former Tribune Editor-In-Chief Colin McMahon Named COO Of StartupNation
Tribune Publishing and Chicago Tribune veteran Colin McMahon has been named COO of StartupNation, the company relays. “The award-winning journalist and media industry leader excels in digital transformation and audience development initiatives… McMahon was editor-in-chief at Chicago Tribune and chief content officer for Tribune Publishing. He also coaches and consults with media companies across the world on digital transformation and audience development. McMahon brings more than a decade of digital media innovation to the StartupNation role, atop an award-winning career as a local, national and international journalist.”
Pulitzer Winner Cecilia Reyes Joins Business Insider Investigations
Cecilia Reyes is joining Business Insider’s investigations team as a senior reporter, remaining in Chicago. (At the Tribune, Reyes shared a Pulitzer Prize with Madison Hopkins of the Better Government Association.) Tweets Reyes, “I am very excited to join this team and thrilled to stay in Chicago.”
MUSIC
Abbey Pub’s Tom Looney Was Eighty-One
“Tom Looney turned a modest pub into a music Mecca,” writes Maureen O’Donnell at the Sun-Times. “In the mid-1980s, he and his wife Breege were the landlords for the Abbey Pub, 3420 West Grace. After the bar’s owner became ill, they took over, expanding and upgrading the space… Musicians found a family atmosphere. Mr. Looney and his son Patrick booked the performers, and the Looney kids would pick them up at the airport. During the thirty years the Northwest Siders operated the Abbey, it hosted performances by stars as varied as Kris Kristofferson, Wilco, Brad Paisley, Florence + the Machine, Snow Patrol, Wiz Khalifa, The Ting Tings, Christy Moore, Arlo Guthrie and Bonnie Koloc. Mr. Looney, an electrician who invested in real estate, also took on the role of president of the Irish American Heritage Center and helped acquire its building.”
North Coast Music Festival Evaluates Shooting Threat
North Coast Music Festival organizers “are in contact with local police, who have met with the person suspected of making the threats. He is now banned from purchasing a ticket or entering North Coast,” reports Block Club Chicago. “North Coast is planning on adding extra security to the festival, which is slated for September 2-4, at SeatGeek Stadium in suburban Bridgeview.” (A screen capture of the threats is in the article.)
Summarizing The State Of R. Kelly
Tribune reporter Jason Meisner puts the status of R. Kelly in a nutshell, or a tweet: “In the thirteen months R. Kelly spent in New York, he fired his attorneys, was convicted of racketeering, fired his attorneys (again), caught COVID, was sentenced to thirty years in prison and placed on suicide watch. Now he’s back in Chicago for Round 2.”
STAGE
Producers Of “Paradise Square” Sued By Actors’ Equity And IATSE For Non-Payment
“Actors’ Equity and the union representing theatrical designers are separately taking Broadway musical ‘Paradise Square’ to court for close to $350,000 total in owed benefit contributions, wages and other fees,” writes The Hollywood Reporter. Reportedly, “other contractors are still in the midst of negotiating payments, but have yet to file legal cases.”
“Vagina Monologues” This Weekend At Davenport’s
Actress and author Anjali Bhimani will join Miriam Plotkin and Maia Madison to perform Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” with all proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. (Anjali plays “Auntie Ruby” on “Ms. Marvel” on Disney Plus.) Two performances, at 7pm and 9:30pm, Saturday, July 16, at Davenport’s Piano Bar and Cabaret, 1383 North Milwaukee. Tickets start at $25 here.
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
University of Chicago Chancellor Robert Zimmer Steps Down
University of Chicago chancellor Robert Zimmer, who had been the university’s president for fifteen years, is “leaving his post to attend to his health,” reports the Trib. “Zimmer will become chancellor emeritus ‘in order to focus his energies principally on his health needs going forward.'”
Mayor Endorses Second City’s Ranking As Second City
Mayor Lightfoot links to Crain’s on Time Out’s ranking of Chicago as the second-best city in the world to live in: “Chicago ranks second on best cities in the world list,” writes Chicago Business. “It’s also the only American city to make Time Out’s top ten… The global media brand’s annual list is based on poll responses from readers around the world along with input from contributors and experts. The Time Out Index 2022 asked respondents to rank their city’s bar and restaurant scene, its art and cultural offerings, whether its amenable to dating and meeting new people, its natural beauty and even its collective resiliency… Time Out points out that Chicago came out on top as the ‘funnest city,’ noting its vibrant late-night club scene, distinct neighborhoods and its access to Lake Michigan.” Tweets Lightfoot: “I love it when other people see Chicago as I do—a world-class city with fantastic food, top-notch entertainment, and the best neighborhoods around.” (The Time Out article is here.)
Wisconsin Doctor Buys Illinois Buildings For Reproductive Health
“A Wisconsin doctor has purchased two clinical buildings in Rockford where he plans to offer abortion pills as early as this week at one location and surgical abortions within six months at the other site,” reports AP (via WGN-TV).
Light Pollution Disrupting Seasonal Rhythms Of Plants And Trees
Writes Yuyu Zhou at Ars Technica, “We found that artificial light alone advanced the date that leaf buds broke in the spring by an average of about nine days compared to sites without nighttime lights. The timing of the fall color change in leaves was more complex, but the leaf change was still delayed on average by nearly six days across the lower forty-eight states. In general, we found that the more intense the light was, the greater the difference.”
Today In The Culture, December 9, 2022: Intuit Expansion Funded | Carol Ross Barney Gets AIA Gold | History of the Green Book ART City Grants $5 Million To Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art Intuit, the West Town museum "dedicated to showcasing outsider art from Chicago and across the country, received a multimillion-dollar city grant to expand its exhibition spaces, modernize its facilities and build a dedicated education area," reports Block Club Chicago. "The city grant will help fund the…
