“Never Enough,” Dance for Life 2022 finale choreographed by Randy Duncan/Photo: Michelle Reid
DESIGN
Loop Old Heidelberg Hosts Blick
“The Old Heidelberg building is coming back to life as a Blick art supplies store September 1,” posts Crain’s Dennis Rodkin on Twitter. “Built in 1934 for the Eitel family’s German restaurant, later Ronny’s Steak Palace, still later Argo Tea, and closed since early 2020.”
Chicago Office Market Outpaces Other Metro Areas
Moody’s Analytics reports: “Last quarter’s net absorption for Chicago [office space] finished highest in the country and it wasn’t even close. A good marker for demand, Chicago’s increase in occupied square footage of 2.4 million towered over second place Dallas at 0.9 million SF and completely obliterated the national trend (-8.4 million SF).”
Chinatown’s Wentworth Avenue Polls As Twentieth-Coolest Street In World
“Amid waning Asian-American populations in Chinatowns across the U.S., Chicago’s Chinatown has continued to expand and thrive,” writes Time Out Chicago for the international website. “The neighbourhood’s heart is the bustling commercial strip along Wentworth Avenue, from the street’s iconic Chinatown Gateway (modelled after a wall in Beijing) down to the south end’s dense network of gift shops, grocers, boba spots and truly incredible Chinese restaurants.”
Little Village Discount Leases Extended To End Of 2022
“Discount Mall vendors have been given an extension on their leases until January and plan to meet with the mall’s owner for the first time in more than two years, its owner and an area alderman said,” reports Block Club. “The mall’s future has been in question since 2020, when development company Novak Construction bought the site” and said it might not be the best use for their property.
Blackstone Suspends Acquisition Of Rental Properties Nationwide
“Home Partners of America,” Blackstone’s single-family landlord, is going to suspend home purchases in thirty-eight cities, reports Bloomberg, awaiting a better market for its margins. “The Chicago-based real estate company is the latest to back away from an overheated housing market… The company, acquired by Blackstone in June 2021 for $6 billion, told customers that as of September 1, it is pausing applications and property submissions” in many areas that it covers. “Home Partners isn’t [the] first large investor to back away from the U.S. housing market, which reached a frenzied state during the first half of the year. Invitation Homes Inc., American Homes 4 Rent, and KKR & Co.’s My Community Homes are among landlords that have slowed purchases during a period of high home prices and rising financing costs.”
Noble Square’s Peabody Elementary Rents As Luxury Apartments
“Peabody Elementary was one of fifty schools closed in 2013,” reports Block Club. “The building has been landmarked, and transformed into apartments by developer Svigos Asset Management… The school was built in the 1890s to serve the growing West Town area, including the Polish immigrants who moved to the neighborhood in the late nineteenth century.”
Bloomingdales Exits Old Orchard
Bloomingdale’s is closing its department store in Westfield Old Orchard mall while opening a smaller store, reports David Roeder at the Sun-Times. “The 200,000-square-foot store opened in Skokie in 1995, heralding its arrival with a performance on piano by Ray Charles.”
DINING & DRINKING
Chicago’s Pilot Project Brewing Company Buying Milwaukee Brewing Company
“Milwaukee Brewing Company has posted on social media that its taproom will close on August 30. Two days later, the brewery is expected to be sold to a Chicago brewery,” reports On Milwaukee. “Pilot Project, a brewery incubator located at 2140 North Milwaukee, describes itself as ‘a purpose-driven, collaborative, and artistically curious brewing and tasting room facility to help support talented brewers in an industry with exceptionally high barriers. Modeled after the music industry, Pilot serves as a launch pad for start-up breweries, offering assistance with fine-tuning recipes, production scaling, business development, marketing [and] distribution.”
Michigan Site Of First Chipotle To Organize
“A Chipotle restaurant in Lansing, Michigan, voted last week to unionize, making it the first of the chain’s nearly 3,000 locations to do so,” reports NPR. “The employees are seeking improved schedules and higher wages, and first filed for a union election July 5.” Adds the Washington Post: “The election follows a string of first-time union victories led by Gen Z and millennial workers at high-profile companies such as Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, and Apple that have long evaded unionization. It also marks a milestone for the low-wage fast food industry, where unions have struggled for decades to gain a foothold because of the sheer number of locations, the franchising model, and high turnover.” Corporate’s response: “We’re disappointed that the employees… chose to have a third party speak on their behalf because we continue to believe that working directly together is best for our employees.” Helaine Olen wrote about the unique profile of Chipotle at the Atlantic in 2015: “Though fast-casual chains have a certain do-gooder appeal, their working conditions aren’t much better than those at more traditional fast-food restaurants… The combination of culinary wholesomeness, environmental holiness, and relatively low prices has made fast casuals very attractive to customers, and thus very lucrative… ‘I don’t think there’s really that much of a distinction in terms of working conditions between fast casual and fast food,’ says Irene Tung, a senior researcher at the National Employment Law Project. ‘They’re relying on the same low-wage business model as McDonald’s.'”
FILM & TELEVISION
Chicago Filming Dates Set For “Devil In The White City”
Subscription-only Production Weekly lists the filming for “The Devil In The White City” for Hulu as taking place only in Chicago and beginning in March, reports Reel Chicago. (The Grunge website reviews developments from recent years about the contents of the gravesite of murderer H. H. Holmes.)
People Are Talking About “The Bear”
“The Bear” producer Nate Matteson posts: “My Chicago Uncle: ‘What was the name of that show you worked on? Bear”?’; Me: ‘Yeah yeah, “The Bear”‘; Uncle: ‘Shoulda called it “One fuckin thing after another!'”
$100-Million Vanity Deals Examined, Including Netflix-Obama Deal
Netflix “became famous for multimillion-dollar overall deals that combined schmoozing for [CEO Ted] Sarandos with a sexy headline (the premium paid for Sarandos’ pet projects… known internally as ‘the Ted tax’),” writes Nicole LaPorte at the Ankler. “Sarandos—whose wife, Nicole Avant, was ambassador to the Bahamas under former President Obama—welcomed Mr. and Mrs. O into the Netflix fold in [a] lavish deal, reported to be in the high eight figures… The Obamas’ Higher Ground productions blazed into Hollywood with noble intentions. Said the President when the 2018 deal was announced: ‘We hope to cultivate and curate the talented, inspiring, creative voices who are able to promote greater empathy and understanding between peoples, and help them share their stories with the entire world.’ Turns out the mission of promoting empathy between people, at least in 2022, is as hard to accomplish as streaming’s full revolution itself… the Obamas set up a staff at Higher Ground of well-respected Hollywood executives—including… a ‘cool kid’ executive who moved from Annapurna and had worked with Spike Jonze; and… a no-nonsense veteran of Disney and Chernin Entertainment who made smart bets on solid projects at Higher Ground in the doc space… The company shrewdly leveraged Obama star wattage to get things done, a strategy that worked wonders given that the Saint Obama halo was still glowing with a post-presidency vengeance when Higher Ground was formed.”
LIT
Despite Lack Of Policy, Tennessee’s Collierville School District Removes 327 LGBTQ+-Related Books
The literary and free speech organization PEN America reports Tennessee’s Collierville school district is removing 327 books from library shelves that feature LGBTQ+ characters and themes, in spite of there being no policy or restriction requiring their removal. “In total, 327 previously approved books from notable authors including Rick Riordan and Audre Lorde–along with Alice Oseman’s ‘Heartstopper’ series, the subject of a show on Netflix–were removed from district libraries. Administrators sorted them into tiers based on how much the books focus on LGBTQ+ characters or storylines. Tier 3, for instance, where ‘Heartstopper’ was categorized, reflected that ‘The main character of the book is part of the LGBTQ community, and their sexual identity forms a key component of the plot. The book may contain suggestive language and/or implied sexual interaction.’ If a book reached Tier 5, according to the sorting guidelines, ‘The books are being pulled.’ According to reports, nearly a dozen books were also flagged as ‘Black Lives Matter’ materials and removed from shelves. Their removal was spurred not by any law, but rather by three proposed bills which did not pass, but which had sought to restrict the discussion of LGBTQ+ themes in schools. The removals were also reportedly motivated by the state’s 2021 educational gag order, which does not specifically target books relating to LGBTQ+ identities and only applies to curricula, not to school libraries.” More here.
MUSIC
Remembering Trumpeter Jaimie Branch
“Jaimie Branch, an innovative avant-garde trumpet player and composer whose punk-rock intensity and relentless commitment to experimentation and to dissolving the distinctions between genres invigorated the music scenes of New York and Chicago, died at her apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn. She was thirty-nine,” writes Mike Rubin at the New York Times. “Her death was announced by International Anthem, the Chicago-based label that released albums by her groups Fly or Die and Anteloper… Her head was always covered, whether by a hoodie, a jauntily askew baseball cap or a knit toque, and her forearms were festooned with colorful tattoos. ‘She was the quintessential example of “honest music,”‘ Scott McNiece, International Anthem’s co-founder and director of artists and repertoire, said… After graduation she moved to Chicago, where she became a fixture of the jazz scene. ‘You could hear her all-encompassing sound just by looking her straight in the eyes,’ the trumpeter Rob Mazurek, a frequent Chicago collaborator, said.” The night of her death, as news spread, “about seventy-five of her friends and fellow musicians gathered on Valentino Pier in Red Hook, a few blocks from her apartment. As ‘Fly or Die Live’ played through a phone propped up against a small, tinny-sounding megaphone, some… tapped out beats on drums or on the concrete, others banged tambourines and sleigh bells, and the young saxophonist Zoh Amba played melancholic funereal blasts. From across the Red Hook Channel the… sound of another trumpet could be heard, most likely from a mariachi band in a waterfront bar, joining the music in a phantom collaboration.” (Here’s fifteen minutes of Branch performing “prayer for amerikkka pt. 1 & 2.”)
“Ghostbusters” Live In Concert With Chicago Phil
The Chicago Philharmonic and Auditorium Theatre will present “‘Ghostbusters’ Live in Concert” for a single night, Saturday, October 8. The fullmovie will play on screen while the orchestra performs Elmer Bernstein’s movie score under the direction of Bernstein’s son, conductor Peter Bernstein. Pre-concert reception includes themed drinks, all-ages trick-or-treating, costume contest and photo op with a replica Ecto-1. Tickets start at $35 here.
STAGE
Chicago Dancers United Raises $300,000 At Thirty-First Dance For Life
Chicago Dancers United (CDU), which supports the health and wellness of Chicago’s professional dance community, welcomed more than 1,700 to its thirty-first annual Dance for Life, its primary fundraiser, on Saturday, August 13 at the Auditorium. From a combination of ticket sales, contributions and sponsorships, Dance for Life raised $300,000—exceeding its fundraising goal—to support The Dancers’ Fund, which provides Chicago dance industry professionals with financial support for preventative health care and critical medical needs. The complete lineup of performing companies included Chicago Dance Crash, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater, Giordano Dance Chicago, The Joffrey Ballet, NAJWA Dance Corps and Trinity Irish Dance Company. More here.
Another Long-Running National Stage Goes Dark
San Francisco’s storied Exit Theatre is closing after forty-plus years, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. “The stalwart Tenderloin venue with three small theaters and a cafe, home of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, is closing its Eddy Street doors by the end of 2022,” says artistic director Christina Augello. “The move ends forty years of making weird indie theater on Eddy Street, thirty of them at this address… Augello said she felt a mix of pride and sadness in her accomplishments. ‘Not everybody gets the chance to spend their lives working in the theater. But I also feel really clear that this is a good decision. Literally, financially, it just isn’t working at all.'”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Illinois Vote-By-Mail Permanent
“Illinois election officials are sending applications for permanent permission to vote by mail to each of the state’s eight million registered voters,” reports WGN-TV. “No one is obligated to sign up. But for as long as they stay at the same address, those who do will receive ballots they can complete at home and put in the mail for all future elections.”
Not So Fast With That “Hellhole” Talk From Downstate
Sun-Times editorial board member Rummana Hussain reflects after a recent journey on downstate Republican rhetoric: “Chicago isn’t the only place maligned by outsiders and dog-whistling politicians too lazy and arrogant to look beyond the headlines. The birthplaces and residences of thousands around the world are often deemed dangerous or uncivilized. There is violence, political unrest and oppressive regimes in many of these cities and nations. But as in Chicago, there’s more to the story. Just from chatting with locals or witnessing the pulsation of hope roaring up against the turmoil and heartache, preconceptions can be thrown out the window.”
Berkeley Store Joins Unionizing REI Locations
“REI employees in Berkeley, California, have formed the outdoor retailer’s second union, extending a winning streak for organized labor at largely non-union companies,” records Huffington Post. “Workers at the Berkeley store voted fifty-six-to-thirty-eight in favor of joining the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in a mail-in election this month, according to a vote count held Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board. Employees at REI’s store in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City were the first to unionize earlier this year.”
NASCAR Opens Office In Chicago For 2023 Street Course
“NASCAR has named a veteran racing executive to set up a permanent Chicago office for the company and oversee the pop-up Chicago Street Course coming to Grant Park next summer,” reports the Tribune. ““Now that we’ve got the concept and we’re moving forward, it’s assembling the team, having the conversations with the city of Chicago and really working on our commitment back to the city.”
