South Side Voters: Stop Cutting Down Jackson Park Trees
“Should the city of Chicago stop cutting down trees in Jackson Park and the area surrounding the South Shore Cultural Center? That was the question posed to voters in a smattering of South Side precincts, in the form of a non-binding advisory referendum,” reports WTTW. “An overwhelming number of ballots—eighty-two-percent—were cast in the affirmative, according to unofficial totals from the Chicago Board of Elections. Now what? Jeannette Hoyt, rallier-in-chief of the Save Jackson Park movement, acknowledged the referendum lacks the force of law and as such, the victory is largely symbolic. But a message has been sent, she said.”
Driehaus Foundation Names Preservation Award Winners
“The visionaries behind the three winners of the 2022 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Awards—a North Dakota schoolhouse transformed into a fiber arts center, a famous Chicago hospital that’s now a mixed-use hotel and office complex, and an architecturally significant Los Angeles funeral home-turned-affordable housing community—have the imagination to pull off an adaptive reuse project,” writes Meghan Drueding at the National Trust For Historical Preservation. The Old Cook County Hospital is one of the three winners. “Chicago’s Cook County Hospital has played myriad roles since the 550-foot-long Beaux-Arts building was completed around 1914. Early on, it was known as ‘Chicago’s Ellis Island,’ for its dedication to serving immigrants and poor people. It gained fame in the 1930s as the site of America’s first blood bank, in the 1960s as the first comprehensive trauma unit, and in the 1980s as one of the country’s first AIDS wards. Its busy emergency room inspired the long-running television show ‘ER,’ and the building appeared in… ‘The Fugitive.’ And now, after a $153 million renovation, Cook County Hospital has been transformed into… two Hyatt hotels, a food hall, 73,000 square feet of office space, a daycare center and a museum showcasing its exceptional history. The project anchors a multiphase $1 billion, ten-acre redevelopment meant to enliven the Illinois Medical District area with new housing, offices and restaurants.” More here.
Milwaukee Neighborhoods Being Bought Up By Out-Of-State Investors
“Driven by an inconspicuous real estate ecosystem of online message boards, package deals, and cash-only buys, Milwaukee’s rental properties continue to move into out-of-state hands,” reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Neighborhoods once full of owner-occupants or rental homes owned by local landlords are being bought up—often chunks at a time—by investors with little to no interest beyond making money. The situation is particularly acute in Milwaukee’s north side Black neighborhoods, covering about one-third of the city’s aldermanic districts.”
Hinsdale Hopes To Stem Teardowns
Hoping to save historic homes, the western suburb of Hinsdale will offer incentives to buyers who update rather than demolish, reports Crain’s. “Dozens of older homes are torn down and replaced every year and there’s a new, pioneering effort to save vintage homes from the wrecking ball.”
West Siders Suggest Plan For Redeveloping Mars Factory After 2024
Residents have settled on a mixed-use development for the Mars candy site in Galewood, reports Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest. “The design proposal that the majority of community members recommended during the fourth meeting features a ‘boulevard’ design, which is a style that provides lots of green space and is bifurcated into seven different areas.”
One Of Lincoln Yards’ First Buildings Nearly Done
Construction and landscaping are nearing completion for 1229 West Concord in West Town, reports YIMBY Chicago. “The eight-story biosciences office building is part of Sterling Bay’s much larger Lincoln Yards project, which covers fifty-five acres and is expected to bring commercial, residential and recreational spaces to the north branch of Chicago River.”
DINING & DRINKING
Fall Harvest Dinner At Prairie Grass Honors Native America
Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook will present a fall harvest dinner with special guest speakers in honor of Native America on November 17. Speakers include Sharon Hoogstraten, Stephanie Perdew, Audrey Moy, Kim Vigue and Pamala M. Silas. The menu is by Chef Sarah Stegner and guest chef Sebastian White and includes braised bison and Three Sisters Garden Beans. Reservations at (847)205-4433.
FILM & TELEVISION
Second City-Trained Trans Filmmaker Tries To Save Unauthorized Joker Satire
“On the eve of the premiere of ‘The People’s Joker,’ a parody origin story envisioning the Batman villain as a transgender woman trying to break into comedy, Vera Drew thought she was in the clear,” writes Jen Yamato at the Los Angeles Times. “The filmmaker, who jokingly calls herself ‘the transgender Forrest Gump of alternative comedy’ after working with the likes of Eric Andre, Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, Scott Aukerman and Sacha Baron Cohen, was certain that viewers would never mistake her absurdist, autobiographical—and unauthorized—queer coming-of-age film, in which the titular heroine battles gender dysphoria and a toxic romance with a fellow comedian, for an official DC Comics movie. Then, hours before the film’s first scheduled press screening and midnight premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, came the Letter… ‘They would be able to keep me in litigation forever because they’re a billion-dollar media conglomerate and I’m a broke trans woman,’ she said. (‘Our position as stated in the letter from September has not changed,’ a Warner Bros. Pictures spokesperson told The Times.)”
LIT
Judge Bars Penguin Random House-Simon & Schuster Shmush
A federal judge blocked Penguin Random House from acquiring rival Big Five publisher Simon & Schuster, reports Publishers Weekly. “In an economical eighty-page decision, [the judge] found the U.S. Department of Justice showed the proposed merger would likely ‘lessen competition’ in the market for book rights in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act.”
MEDIA
Chicago-Based Cameo Cuts Eighty Jobs; Part Of Larger Tech Contraction
“High-flying consumer tech company Cameo announced a second round of layoffs after trimming about a quarter of its staff earlier this year,” totaling eighty jobs, reports Crain’s. The Information: “Cameo has made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team in order to adjust to the worsening macroeconomic environment,” memoed Cameo CEO and co-founder. Business Insider says firings are on the march: “The cuts stem from slower business growth, paired with rising labor costs. The layoffs span across industries, from mortgage lending to digital-payment processing. Peloton has laid off thousands of employees this year. Real estate firm Re/Max slashed seventeen-percent of its workforce. Even traditionally layoff-resistant companies like Netflix have made cuts, and now companies that saw a pandemic-era boom, like Shopify, are cutting hundreds of jobs.”
Twitter Could Slowly Disintegrate As Software Decays, Legal Issues Snowball
As logistical, technical and legal problems accelerate for the social media site taken over only days ago by Elon Musk and other investors, a Twitter engineer confides that the site might break under the strain of added features and not enough workers, writes Chris Stokel-Walker at MIT Technology Review. “A massive tech platform like Twitter is built upon very many interdependent parts. ‘The larger catastrophic failures are a little more titillating, but the biggest risk is the smaller things starting to degrade,’ says Ben Krueger, a site reliability engineer who has more than two decades of experience… ‘These are very big, very complicated systems.'” A 2017 Twitter staff presentation suggests that “more than half the back-end infrastructure was dedicated to storing data. While many of Musk’s detractors may hope the platform goes through the equivalent of thermonuclear destruction, the collapse of something like Twitter happens gradually… Gradual breakdowns are a sign of concern that a larger crash could be imminent. And that’s what’s happening now.” Musk sent two late-night memos to employees on Thursday, calling an end to remote work and saying that the company’s economic circumstances are “dire,” reports the New York Times. Plus, reports the Washington Post, “Twitter privacy executives quit, sparking FTC alarm: In a rare comment, the FTC said it was monitoring developments ‘with concern.'”
MUSIC
Bella Voce Enters Fortieth Season With New Managing Director
Bella Voce has engaged Betsy Hoats as managing director of the chamber chorus and sinfonia, as the ensemble launches its fortieth season. “The board of directors of Bella Voce is delighted that Betsy Hoats has joined Bella Voce as our new managing director,” David Lentz, board president says in a release. “Betsy brings to her new job many years as a professional choral singer in the Chicago area, including time as a member of the Bella Voce chorus under Anne Heider’s direction. She also brings valuable business skills, both by education and by experience. She did a splendid job organizing and overseeing Bella Voce’s fortieth-anniversary gala in late October. We look forward to learning from Betsy as she works to help Bella Voce bring its unique sound and repertoire to Chicago-area audiences.” More here.
English National Opera “Shocked” By Funding Cut-Off
More reaction to widespread arts funding cuts in Britain: “English National Opera (ENO) boss Stuart Murphy has labelled a one-hundred-percent cut to the company as an ‘absolute travesty’ as he reveals it was Arts Council England’s proposal to move the organisation to Manchester,” reports The Stage.
STAGE
Teatro Vista Expands Board
Teatro Vista has appointed five new board members, expanding support, oversight and visibility for Chicago’s only Equity-affiliated Latine theater company. Joining the board are Jorge Lopez, associate general counsel, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Irma A. Ortiz, senior director, Northeastern Illinois University’s Center for College Access and Success; Travis Parr, executive creative director, Fallon New York; Letticia Flores Poole, senior manager-Industry Vertical at BMO Harris Bank-Black and Latinx Program; and Emilio Williams, a Chicago-based playwright and educator. “Teatro Vista is on an aggressive growth path, and we’re successfully reaching into the upper echelons of the city’s Latine and business communities to recruit new board members dedicated to lifting up first voice, Latine artists,” Teatro Vista board president Adela Cepeda says in a release. More here.
Chicago Theatre League Compiles Annual Holiday Entertainment Guide
Chicago theaters will present a range of festive plays, musicals, dance and comedy offerings for the Holiday season. The League of Chicago Theatres’ comprehensive Holiday Theatre Guide is available now; the online version is here. An updated list of holiday shows with details about each production will be available throughout the season here.
“Hair” Producer Michael Butler Was Ninety-Five
“Michael Butler produced the culture-defining musical ‘Hair’ following a career in politics where he served as a special advisor to President John F. Kennedy,” reports Playbill. Butler, the son of Oak Brook founder Paul Butler, was also “very involved with polo in the village,” reports The Doings Oak Brook. “Butler made an even bigger name for himself in the world as a producer, best known as the person who brought the play, ‘Hair,’ from the Shakespeare Free Theatre to Broadway.” He produced the film version, too, directed by Milos Forman in 1979. “As a producer, social figure and international bon vivant, Butler was an international celebrity in the 1960s and seventies. As his 1968 production of ‘Hair‘ became an international hit, with twelve productions around the world, his friendships grew among exotic global figures such as the Shah of Iran and the Mahajarah of Jaipur. As a host at his lavish polo grounds in England, Butler included British royalty among his regular polo-playing friends. He admitted that his polo spending consumed all of the $60 million profit from his stage play.” (“Hair” lost the 1969 Best Musical Tony to “1776.”)
Trinity Irish Dancers Join Art Deco Nutcracker
The Art Deco “Nutcracker,” set in the Roaring Twenties, returns with the Trinity Irish Dancers. Set in 1920s America, A&A Ballet’s “The Art Deco Nutcracker” is directed by A&A Ballet co-founder Alexei Kremnev. Athenaeum Center, Saturday December 3. Tickets here.
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Bally’s To Sell, Then Lease Back Casino Site
“The move will free up cash for a company spending a lot, but perhaps complicate getting approval from the Illinois Gaming Board,” reports Crain’s.
DCASE Looking For Publicist
The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is hiring a publicist with supervisory experience. Bilingual in Spanish is a plus; the “Public Relations Coordinator” salary is $76,000. Apply by November 16.
Leather Fraternity Demands Change At Touché
“A group for people of color in the leather lifestyle community has dropped Touché as its monthly meetup spot and wants the bar’s manager out after a racist puppet performance the bar hosted last week,” reports Block Club Chicago. Bar owner Chuck Rodocker said that he hoped “people will look at the forty-five-year history of the establishment over a forty-five-minute tasteless performance… If there’s something we can do to support someone more in the future, we’d be more than happy to because we are one of the oldest gay bars in the city and always had a very diverse crowd that’s welcoming of women, people of color and people with disabilities.” The group, ONYX Midwest, issued its demands on Twitter, including that the bar give at least $3,000 to a charity of the group’s choosing that focuses on people of color; the establishment of “an event-review committee, made up of leadership from all groups that call Touché home. The committee will have larger representation from ONYX and review any events to be held at the bar.” And: after removing manager David Boyer, his replacement “agrees to maintain an environment without racism, misogyny, transphobia, sexism and other harmful stereotypes or discrimination.”
