2009 Cover Illustration: Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi | Sonnenzimmer
Hyde Park Art Center The Hyde Park Art Center is the platonic ideal of a community center, born eighty-three years ago in a defunct bar, moseying in and out of neighborhood spaces before landing in its current, beehive-like building where art-making meanders out of the galleries and studios into the hallways and parking lot. Whatever draws you in—an exhibition or a class—you’ll emerge with a clear portrait of Chicago’s ever-evolving arts scene and how curation can be a communal activity. (Alison Cuddy) 5020 S. Cornell, hydeparkart.org
D’Amato’s D’Amato’s looks like it’s been sitting on Grand Avenue since Capone tooled along that street, on his way home to Cicero after a long day of paying off cops and bullying civilians. But D’Amato’s isn’t that old, really, though it has been at the same location for over half a century, making some of the best Italian bread in the city. Their coal-burning oven has been standing for over a century, and that oven may be the reason their bread seems denser and toothier than many others. That bread helps make their sub sandwiches (as well as Bari’s from next door) sing. (David Hammond) 1124 W. Grand, damatoschicago.com
Chicago A Cappella If music be the food of love, Chicago A Cappella is pure deliciousness. The unaccompanied musical form of a cappella ensemble singing demands incredible precision and discipline—and the supremely talented group of ten singers create a blended sound across genres that is surprising and inspiring. Their programming is diverse—sometimes quirky, always excellent—making for creative, provocative and playful concert experiences. The joy this talented group has in making music together is infectious. (Sara Stern) chicagoacappella.org
Original Ferrara, Inc. The long glass bakery case and counter that greets you when you walk into Ferrara has more baba, pie, cake, cupcake, cookie and cannoli types than a year of tasting could conquer. There’s also a candy counter that has more old-fashioned brand-name sweets than you might remember you once knew. There’s the savory stuff and the stuffed savories, too. House-made pizzas and subs, and a meatball sandwich that will make you want to dodge a rolling pin and kiss a grandma in a black dress. The signature ricotta gnocchi are surprisingly light (for gnocchi). The place has been open since 1908 and the lunch line is full of people who’ve been coming their whole long lives and are just now getting to the sfogliatella. (Ted C. Fishman) 2210 W. Taylor, ferrarabakery.com
Mike Royko You try writing that many words that many times a week for that many years and creating literature: an old-fashioned, twentieth-century metro columnist could smoke a pack and down the pints, but the tap-tap-tap-DING! of the typewriter and its carriage was siren song and tolling bell. The greatest of them all may have been Jimmy Breslin, who specialized in turning momentous world events and tiny moments into rhythmic literature, but our very own Mike Royko is no slouch: while some of the character comedy of figures like Slats Grobnik might not sound the notes today, the daily evocation of the man-on-the-street, working-class, from the neighborhoods, was an unparalleled feat. Literature was not the game or the goal; it’s like his longtime Sun-Times compatriot columnist Roger Ebert put it, you’re striking up a conversation, one you’ve been in the middle of for all the time your reader has read you in real time. But Royko also crafted one of the greatest masterpieces of Chicago portraiture, a great and lyrical and unsentimental small slab called “Boss.” (Breslin called it “The best book written about an American city, by the best journalist of his time.”) Everything seen and learned and inscribed from decades of columnizing is poured into the 200-plus pages of “Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago.” “The workday begins early,” it begins. As in newspapering, so it went in machine politics. (Ray Pride)
Publican Quality Bread Chicago’s upper crust, without a doubt: Publican Quality Bread, now with a storefront open to the public on Grand, functioning as bakery and wholesaler, is like each permutation of the One Off Hospitality approach since the group’s founding: it’s not just in it for the dough, but whoa! This is the high level of culinary attainment, modestly scaled yet magnificently flavored, that ought to be recognized and sustained as rare and special, as it builds on the instinct and talent of its creators and makers. Restaurants can fill their tables with delicious foodstuffs, but regular Chicagoans can stuff their faces as well. It’s emblematic of the hand-fashioned impact of One Off, from Blackbird and Avec and Publican and Big Star and on and on forward: think and plan and hope for years, learn, yearn, season to taste, build from within, empower talent, bake, serve. (Ray Pride) 1759 W. Grand, publicanqualitybread.com
2007 Cover Photo: Audrey Cho
Second City As cultural ambassadors of Chicago, the Cubs, long gone from WGN, Michael Jordan, long retired from the Bulls, and Oprah Winfrey, long gone from the city, no longer hold sway. But The Second City still draws tourists to Chicago. Through its many expansions and recent ownership change, Second City remains a legit entertainment option for locals as well. The Piper’s Alley complex sometimes hosts upwards of eight shows a day across a range of styles, in addition to full slates of Training Center classes and multiple dining and drinking options. The prices are higher and tiered these days, but the Mainstage and e.t.c. revues remain incubators of talent for the broadcast and streaming worlds, and the sketches continue to explore new ways of making us laugh. If you haven’t reconnected with Second City in a while, try this: Stand in line toward the end of the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday or late Saturday Mainstage show. Watch as quite a few people exit after the two sketch comedy acts with smiles on their faces. And then wait as the staff ushers people from the line into the empty spots to enjoy the free (mostly) improvised third act. Order a drink, tip your server well (you are, after all, watching top-notch performers for free) and take in a hallowed tradition that perseveres through the near-constant changes at the corner of North and Wells. It’s as beautiful as the ivy at Wrigley, and a lot less associated with heartbreak. (Frank Sennett) 230 W. North, secondcity.com
The Harris Theater for Music and Dance The minimalist theater at the northern boundary of Millennium Park turns twenty this year, now established as a downtown cultural gem. Extending several stories underground, stark white lobbies give way to a massive black-box theater with perfect sightlines and excellent sound. The simplicity of the industrial design recedes into the background, allowing performances—be it Music of the Baroque, English National Ballet, Laurie Anderson or Giordano Dance Chicago—to command up to 1,499 sets of ears and eyes. The Harris provides a welcome performance home to local companies and high-profile international performers alike. (Sharon Hoyer) 205 E. Randolph, harristheaterchicago.org
Central Camera Before digital images and selfies, photography could be a complicated procedure that required training and skill. Central Camera, opened on Wabash Avenue in 1899 by a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, saw advances like the spool camera, Exacta and Leica lenses, as well as an era when film had to be developed using chemicals in the darkroom. Now in its fourth generation, the Flesch family is still dedicated to this era. Today, artists who prefer the depth, brilliance, and ability to create art using film and film cameras find Central Camera a refuge to purchase real film and cameras as well as instruction on how to use them. (David Witter) 230 S. Wabash, centralcamera.com
2001 Best of Chicago item
The Gene Siskel Film Center Once just “The Film Center,” nearly an afterthought in a simple black box on the Columbus Drive side of the Art Institute, the Gene Siskel Film Center is now a cozy two-screen cinémathèque (sixty-three and 196 seats) in a second-floor space on State Street within the loop of the Loop, centrally located to trains and buses and graced with a panoramic view that includes the Chicago Theatre’s immense neon-and-chaser-light marquee and studies of rehearsals at the Joffrey Ballet, across that Great Street. As the number of movie houses falls off, the Siskel has had a post-lockdown renaissance with refreshed programming, working not only as a revival and repertory house delving into world cinema’s vital past, but as a showcase for some of the best of first-run features from major speciality distributors. (Ray Pride) 164 N. State, siskelfilmcenter.org
Jahmal Cole They say power comes to those who wait. Especially when that power is not inherited. Cole’s ascension from social impact organizer as the founder of My Block, My Hood, My City to Illinois Congressional hopeful representing the Chi has been rapid. Some would say inspiring. One that, at the pace he’s rising, he won’t have to wait much longer before he becomes the voice of the people Jesse Jackson Jr. couldn’t. (Scoop Jackson)
Sports Talk Radio Some strongly believe—with receipts to prove it—that Chicago created the “embrace debate” culture in sports the same way Illinois created “March Madness” in basketball’s lexicon. Fact or fiction, the battle over talk-radio supremacy—ESPN v. The Score—in the city’s sports space is not going away or ending anytime soon. Here forever like the McCaskeys. (Scoop Jackson)
