1999 Cover Photo: John Adams | Cover design: Obi Nwazota
“One Chicago,” the Dick Wolf Mega-Series The alternate reality of the three location-heavy NBC series under the “One Chicago” umbrella, the house that Dick Wolf built, is an enormous economic asset to the region, as well as to the city’s production giant, Cinespace Chicago Film Studios, the house that Dick Wolf has helped keep the lights on for a decade. The writing of “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD” and “Chicago Med” may sometimes ring of other cities, their authenticity comes from the canvas of locations used to create One Other Chicago. (Ray Pride)
“One Chicago” The Book Books in the twenty-plus years of the Chicago Public Library’s “One Book, One Chicago” program have been bravely eclectic, ranging from Chicago-centric Saul Bellow’s “The Adventures Of Augie March” and “The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City” to extravagant Americana like Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff,” Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?” as well as visionary chronicles like James Baldwin’s “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” Others have included Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” and the 2022 selection charge returned to mass consciousness Art Spiegelman’s graphic-novel masterpiece “Maus,” first published in book form in 1986, and tragically timely still in our era of insurgent reactionary politics. Hate doesn’t die; witness must outlive it. Reading, on this scale, is witness, too. (Ray Pride) chipublib.org/one-book-one-chicago
The Chicago Hot Dog More than the Italian beef or deep-dish pizza, the Chicago hot dog has been spotted on streetside menus as far away as Hong Kong and Paris; it’s an international icon. The wiener in a poppy-seed bun, with chopped onions, mustard, neon-green relish, tomatoes, pickles, sport peppers and a few squirts of ketchup (don’t shoot; just kidding!). So simple, so spectacular and so revered. We like the dogs at Red Hot Ranch, but you have a lot of options for this Chicago classic. (David Hammond)
Bahá’í House of Worship No building in the Chicago area is more draped in symbolic decorative detail than the Bahá’í House of Worship. The bright white giant is an amalgam of, and tribute to, a variety of world architectural styles meant to convey the Bahá’í religion’s own inclusivity. The edifice also happens to look like a giant rocket constructed by a civilization far more ancient yet more advanced than our own. It took more than forty years from conception to its dedication in 1953. Considering the intricacy of the design, it’s a wonder it didn’t take a century. One item that delayed the dedication was the Bahá’í community’s insistence that the site’s gardens be finished before the official opening. The floral grounds and fountain are every bit as much of the House and their symbolism draws on the building and the pillars of the faith. Come in the late afternoon. You’re welcome inside. Stroll in the garden at twilight and see the exquisitely crafted detail on the House of Worship’s exterior walls silhouetted by the lights within. (Ted C. Fishman) 100 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, bahai.us/bahai-temple
Textile Discount Outlet The unassuming warehouse of fabric in Pilsen has been a playground for clothing and costume makers for nearly forty years. Thousands of bolts of fabric of every description and cabinets of zippers, feathers, fringe, rhinestones, buttons, beads and appliques stuff room after room of the 75,000-square-foot brick building on 21st Street, all at a steal. And if you’re overwhelmed by the mountains of material, the knowledgeable staff can magically direct you to any wild print or wee notion you need. (Sharon Hoyer) 2121 W. 21st, textilediscountoutlet.com
Jay Pritzker Pavilion Chicago has a gift for iconography, best witnessed these days by a trip to Millennium Park, where the Bean has displaced the Daley Plaza Picasso as the symbol of the city. But the Park’s real glory is the Pritzker Pavilion, the concert venue that provides top-flight acoustics in a setting open enough to embrace our classic skyline. The Pavilion flourishes in summer, when it hosts genre-spanning music festivals. And the bandshell itself—designed by Frank Gehry—is worth seeing even when it’s empty. (Robert Rodi) 201 E. Randolph, jaypritzkerpavilion.com
2013 Cover Illustration: Ivan Brunetti
Downtown HP Blame the Olympics, blame the Obama Foundation. Blame the University of Chicago, blame CREO, blame Valois. Blame Park 52 for the tease, blame The Promontory for the anchor, blame Target for the small box, blame Small Cheval for the post-up, blame Harper Theatre for the re-re-open, blame the Hyatt Place and the Sophy for the bookends. Blame them all because 134 years after it was annexed to the city, Hyde Park finally got its downtown. (Scoop Jackson)
Erick and Eric Williams Who knew it would be two dope Black men’s migrations—one from Lawndale/Austin, the other from Robbins—to downtown 53rd Street that would become the embodiment of the city’s current culture movement. Same names, different visions; same purpose, different paths. Between Virtue’s Erick opening Mustard Seed and Daisy’s Po Boy and Tavern and the Silver Room’s Eric opening Bronzeville Winery, their “twenty-plus years in the making” successes are just the beginning of what soon the rest of Chicago is going to look like. (Scoop Jackson)
The Read-Dunning Site In 1854, the area near Irving Park and Oak Park Avenues was vacant land well beyond the city limits, and it became the Cook County Farm. It was here that the poor, itinerant and homeless were sent. They were soon joined by those suffering from schizophrenia, dementia and other forms of mental illness. The nearby grounds also housed a sanitarium for those who suffered from tuberculosis. The name was changed in 1885 to The County Insane Asylum and Infirmary and in 1912, became The Chicago State Hospital. Since 1970, it has been known as the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center.. No matter the name, the death and suffering that occurred for over a century on Chicago’s most haunted spot is measured with one grim statistic—an estimated 38,000 bodies were unceremoniously buried in this plot. That’s a lot of ghosts. (David Witter)
2015 Best of Chicago item
Old Post Office Adaptive reuse be thy name. Little buildings are trashed, smashed, demolished and forgotten across the landscape of the City in a Garden. Disrespect is rampant: there’s even a Lincoln Park mansion that could still be leveled as a side yard. But the Old Post Office! Twenty years after its virtual abandonment and potential eradication, the immense Old Post Office, built in 1921 and expanded in 1932, received the largest historic redevelopment in America, a cool $800 million renovation. Two-and-a-half-million square feet of workspace and, facing the public, the grandly ambitious From Here On Food Hall: it’s a big-shouldered lease on life for a structure too-long squandered. (Ray Pride) 433 W. Van Buren, post433.com
North, Damen and Milwaukee Intersection “The Crotch” lost its 1990s hop, its post-disadvantage seediness, its counter-cultural fervor. Urbus Orbis? The Quaker Goes Deaf? Earwax? The Wicker Park of yore… The view from atop the former Northwest Tower building, the twelve-story Robey Hotel, crafts gloss and sizzle but also provides vantage down Milwaukee Avenue to Downtown astride the landmarked Milwaukee Avenue District, as transformative cash bloods the low-rise twentieth-century into taller and taller twenty-first-century edifice-making. On the street, shine rises: farewell to the Walgreens vacating the 1919 Revival-style Noel State Bank; hello to a new owner of the Flatiron building; hello to a shopping artery that could clear its shuttered storefronts in the next cycle, or the next, of fresh money chasing Nouveau Chicago. (Ray Pride)
The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) The only building from the 1893 World’s Fair on its original site (originally the Palace of Fine Arts), the largest science museum in the country, The Museum of Science and Industry is where you can climb aboard a World War II German submarine, be blown away by a forty-foot tornado, ride along the Zephyr train (named for the Greek god of the west wind), watch baby chicks emerge from their shells, and experience VR in a flight simulator. An immersive, highly interactive museum experience, MSI provides a glimpse into not only the world’s development, but also its future. (Vasia Rigou) 5700 S. Dusable Lake Shore, msichicago.org
