In addition to 183 items (below) composed by some of the city’s finest writers, we asked five living cultural icons—a small sample of the many we might have chosen—to reflect on their own Chicago journey in some way.
Best of Chicago 2023 was written by Ted C. Fishman, David Hammond, Sharon Hoyer, Scoop Jackson, Ray Pride, Vasia Rigou, Mary Wisniewski and David Witter With additional contributions by Alison Cuddy, Dave Hoekstra, Dennis Polkow, Robert Rodi, Frank Sennett and Sara Stern
Best of Chicago
The Skyline (and flying into Chicago at night) If the people have always been what makes Chicago so beautiful then flying in at night and seeing the skyline from 10,000 feet above Lake Michigan has got to be second. (Scoop Jackson)
The Lions of Michigan Avenue Follow the green: the signs of age on century-old sculptured lions that flank the Michigan Avenue entrance of the Art Institute have been effaced through a 2022 cleaning. The legacy of animalier Edward Kemeys, the two-ton guardians, cast in bronze by the American Bronze Founding Company and installed in 1893, will guard our cultural legacy for decades. Per the self-taught Kemeys, the lion to the north is “on the prowl” and to the south, the lion is “in an attitude of defiance.” Sounds just like lifelong Chicagoans! (Ray Pride) 111 S. Michigan
Bobolink Meadow and The Osaka Garden Jackson Park is a mosaic of preservation philosophies. Bobolink Meadow is a field devoted to a large prairie restoration. In most months it’s a glory of wild flowers, grasses and shrubs native to our region. Birds, butterflies and urban naturalists love it. Across the lagoon is an oft-restored remnant of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The Japanese garden sits on the site that the big fair’s organizers leased to the Japanese government when Japan was ready to put on a show following centuries of isolation. The original pavilion is gone, but the spirit of Japan is strong in this authentic creation of a garden long shepherded by the City of Osaka. The bird life on Wooded Isle is as showy as the World’s Fair—herons, egrets, phoebes and more than one hundred other species either live or stop over there—and the Japanese garden offers an open vista to view them. (Ted C. Fishman) 61st between S. Cornell and South Shore Drive and 6401 S. Stony Island (on Wooded Isle), chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/jackson-park
The Remains of Central Station While many are familiar with the Alison Saar statue commemorating the Great Migration on Martin Luther King Drive and 26th Street, there is another, lesser-known marker to the tens of thousands of African Americans who came to Chicago. Most arrived by rail, and their final destination was often the Central Station, formerly located at Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt Road. It was from here that they got their first glimpse of a new life, and the station was, for many a Chicagoan, a version of Lady Liberty. Two granite fragments placed at the south end of Grant Park are all that remain of the station which closed in 1972. (David Witter)
Oaxaca Tamal It’s a small little stand, and it’s been at the Maxwell Street Market on Canal and later Desplaines. There’s no signage with pricing, no photos of the food, just a Mexican family serving the fantastically delicious tamales from Oaxaca: a banana leaf, folded around a pillow of wonderfully moist corn masa, filled with chunks of chicken and topped with a red or green sauce and crema. No one who has ever come to the market with me has not fallen hard for it. (David Hammond)
Gibsons A piece of history in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, the iconic Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse on Rush is undoubtedly one-of-a-kind. Rubbing shoulders with the greatest in politics, sports and the arts provides the perfect setting to see and be seen—all while eating delicious dry-aged cuts and sipping stiff cocktails. The enduring appeal of a Gibsons night out embodies old-school glamour, luxury and chic—a perfect blend of classic and contemporary. (Vasia Rigou) 1028 N. Rush, gibsonssteakhouse.com
Terri Hemmert Before Hemmert arrived at WXRT in 1973, the template for FM disc jockeys was set in stone: chill, aloof, slightly jaded—and invariably male. From the get-go, Hemmert was the inverse; her style can be described as “erudite gush.” She’s a music geek, and she immediately connected with the music geeks in her audience, who turned out to be legion. Tune in any time during her decades of hosting ’XRT’s morning-drive, and you could practically hear her smiling. Now seventy-four, she’s retired, but still hosts “Breakfast with the Beatles” on ’XRT each Sunday morning. (Robert Rodi)
1993 Cover Illustration: Chris Ware
Auditorium Theatre Adler and Sullivan’s golden temple to the arts is no less breathtaking than when it opened 134 years ago. Its gilded ceiling and thousands of carbon filament light bulbs have shone down on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Civic Opera, the Joffrey Ballet, a handful of U.S. presidents, scores of rock, pop and classical legends and, during World War II, a bowling alley. Situated at Ida B. Wells and Michigan Avenue, it remains an icon and gravitational center of culture in our city. The sounds will be even more eclectic with the addition of Chicago music industry veteran Matt Rucins to book more concerts, bringing decades of experience at Schubas and Lincoln Hall as senior talent buyer of the acoustically ideal venue. (Sharon Hoyer) 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, auditoriumtheatre.org
Shrimp DeJonghe Like Chicken Vesuvio, Shrimp DeJonghe is one of those dishes so internationally ubiquitous that many are surprised to hear that it was invented in Chicago. The dish of shrimp, garlic, butter and white wine was put on the menu at Chicago’s DeJonghe’s Hotel and Restaurant a few years after the Great Fire. Before opening their restaurant, the three Belgian DeJonghe brothers introduced the soon-to-be-a-hit dish at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Testament to the popularity of this Chicago original are DeJonghe-style preparations for crab, lobster, tilapia, escargot and other proteins. It’s a winning flavor combination, and we claim it as our own. (David Hammond)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Long renowned as the crown jewel of American orchestras, the top-tier Chicago Symphony Orchestra ranks in international reputation only alongside the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. One of the most important cultural ambassadors of our city, CSO tours consistently attract sellout crowds with rock concert-like enthusiasm. After thirteen seasons, Riccardo Muti may be officially stepping down as music director in June, but an announcement about a possible future for the extraordinary Muti and CSO partnership is expected mid-month. (It is worth noting that Sir Georg Solti gave some of his finest CSO concerts after his music directorship had ended.) (Dennis Polkow) cso.org
Thompson Center What a terrible, glorious “mistake” is Helmut Jahn’s postmodern, futuristic-for-1985 landmark State of Illinois center (renamed in 1991 the James R. Thompson Center): this is the kind of “folly” for which Chicago architecture ought to be better-known. The protracted process which led to the yet-to-be-detailed preservation of some aspect of the building by Google—which is in the middle of firing scads of workers now—seemed designed mainly to keep from having to disrupt the immense tangle of the transit system of multiple lines that hum and rocket beneath the flawed yet assertively unique workplace above. What will the Thompson Center become? At least a symbolic shell of a showcase for a gaudy era in the Midwest, when even buildings donned disco fashions. (Ray Pride) 100 W. Randolph
Marina City What a terrible, glorious “mistake” is Bertrand Goldberg’s postmodern, futuristic-for-1963 landmark Marina City: this is the kind of “folly” for which Chicago architecture ought to be better-known. Goldberg, a student of Mies, fashioned an Expressionist beacon that marks the north bank of the Chicago River with an unparalleled vision. “Marina City was never a contemporary style of building in my mind. It was a development, a technological,” Goldberg recounted in an oral history, “and aesthetic wringing out of a concept which had a considerable amount of reason for its existence.” At the time of its dedication, Marina Towers were the world’s tallest reinforced concrete buildings, as well as the tallest apartment buildings in the world. (Nine hundred units were included.) “The Hunter,” a 1978 Chicago-set thriller has just been restored, including Steve McQueen’s character driving a car off one of the higher floors and into the river below. Parts of the city-block-sized complex were designated a Chicago landmark in 2016. The wildly innovative work on the complex is described in fascinating detail at the Bertrand Goldberg site at bertrandgoldberg.org/projects/marina-city/ (Ray Pride) 300 N. State
Nelson Algren The white-haired poet Carl Sandburg gave us “city of Big Shoulders,” but novelist Nelson Algren provided many of Chicago’s other literary catchphrases: “Every day is D-Day under the El,” “never a lovely so real,” and “Never eat at a place called Mom’s.” As Charles Dickens defined London, Algren defined Chicago in the novels “The Man with the Golden Arm” and “Never Come Morning,” changing the way we see the city. He’s irritating, sometimes tough to read, poetic, passionate, angry and essential. You should get a copy of his prose poem “Chicago: City on the Make” free with your first rent or parking ticket payment. (Mary Wisniewski)
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art An unconventional, unorthodox art space, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art focuses exclusively on folk and outsider art, defined as work created by artists who have faced marginalization, overcome personal odds to make their artwork, or who didn’t—or sometimes couldn’t—follow a traditional path to make art, often using materials at hand to realize their creative vision. Founded in 1991 by a group of believers in the transformative power of art, the museum’s mission remains to highlight the fact that powerful art can be found in unexpected places and made by unexpected creators. Intuit received a $150,000 NEA grant as part of the American Rescue Plan in early 2022, and at the end of the year, a “transformative” $5 million community development grant from the city of Chicago, supporting an expansion beginning this fall that will include renovation of the existing building as well as adding galleries, exhibition and studio space and a comprehensive overview of Intuit’s Henry Darger holdings. (Vasia Rigou) 756 N. Milwaukee, art.org
Valois Restaurant While a Hyde Park institution for decades, Valois, established in 1921, was made world-famous by Barack Obama, who, working as a community organizer, would stretch his limited food budget as a few dollars could buy a giant plate of egg whites, potatoes, biscuits, turkey sausage and coffee. As president he returned there often, but neighbors had long been aware of Valois. One of the last local old-school, stand-in-line-with-a plastic-tray cafeterias, Valois serves not only giant breakfasts but steam-table feasts with pork chops, baked chicken, Florida grouper and corned beef and cabbage, all served with potatoes, bread and vegetable. And while another stalwart, Manny’s, has raised the price of a corned beef sandwich to $17, the corned beef, and most dinners at Valois still cost about nine dollars. (David Witter) 1518 E. 53rd, valoisrestaurant.com
