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ART
Dragon Boat Festival Celebration At Wrightwood 659
Wrightwood 659 and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago join Dragon Boat Festival celebrations worldwide in memory of the ancient Chinese poet, politician and musician Qu Yuan. In the Wrightwood 659 exhibition, “Warring States Cyberpunk,” artist and animator Kongkee reimagines the story of Qu Yuan, transplanting his ancient and poetic soul into an android, merging the past with a rapidly approaching future. Honoring Kongkee’s retelling, Wrightwood 659 presents “Reverberating Histories: Celebrating Qu Yuan in the Digital Age,” two live performances moving from the augmented imagined future to practices rooted in millennia-old tradition, Friday, June 23, from 4pm-6:30pm (4pm-5pm sound performance, 6pm-6:30pm lion dance). More on the free events here.
DESIGN
Picturing The Demolition Of The Transfiguration Of Our Lord Catholic Church
The Tribune has a photo gallery of the demolition of the Lincoln Square church.
Five Teams Named Finalists For Invest South/West Roseland RFQ
“Five teams have been announced as finalists for the multi-site Invest South/West Roseland RFQ,” reports Chicago YIMBY. “Spread across three sites along South Michigan from East 112th Street to the north to roughly East 115th to the south, these include a large lot adjacent to the future CTA Red Line station and the Roseland Theater.” Proposed plans at the link here.
Fulton Market Could Get Another 1,500 Apartments
“New York-based developer Vista Properties wants to build three mixed-used buildings at 370 North Morgan, 400 North Morgan and 401 North Morgan,” reports Block Club. “The buildings would include 492, 478 and 480 rental apartments respectively, with a mix of studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments,” a zoning attorney tells the publication. “The project is subject to the city’s Affordable Rental Ordinance [where] the developer is required to dedicate at least twenty percent of its apartments as affordable, or about 290 units. The buildings would be at the intersection of Morgan and Kinzie streets, which currently houses surface lots and one- and two-level industrial buildings.”
Waukegan Adds Its Woo For Bears
Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor has written a letter to Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren suggesting “that the Bears build a new stadium on lakefront property in Waukegan, expanding the team’s footprint in Lake County,” reports the Lake County News-Sun. “Taylor said in her letter there are several locations with the necessary land to build a stadium and entertainment area with easy access to Interstate 94, U.S. Route 41 and public transportation. The Bears already train in Lake Forest, making Waukegan an excellent location for a stadium, she wrote.”
Schedule Changes Between Chicago And St. Louis As Amtrak Increases Speed To 110MPH
“The implementation of new high-speed rail technologies, which will allow Amtrak trains to reach speeds of up to 110 miles per hour, has enabled the Illinois Department of Transportation to put new schedules in place on the company’s Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle lines,” reports NBC 5.
Toxic Coal Ash To Be Removed From Flood Plain Of Illinois’ Only National Scenic River
“More than a half-century’s worth of toxic coal ash will be excavated from the flood plain of Illinois’ only national scenic river,” reports the Tribune. Pits of “water-soaked coal ash along the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, about 120 miles south of Chicago” will be drained and a trench will be dug “to collect contaminated groundwater and monitor the fast-eroding riverbank after major storms.”
LaSalle Street Cable Car Powerhouse Gets Twelve-Year Tax Incentive
“The landmarks commission approved a Class L Property Tax Incentive for the LaSalle Street Cable Car Powerhouse at 500 North LaSalle,” posts the Chicago Department Of Planning And Development. “The twelve-year tax incentive will facilitate the building’s rehabilitation and reuse as a Hawksmoor steakhouse,” opening in 2024. The landmarked edifice dates to 1887.
O’Hare Precautions Against Unhoused Continue
“Questions about how to assist and protect unhoused individuals have intensified because of poor air quality in New York and other cities,” reports the Sun-Times. “During night hours, anyone arriving at O’Hare could be asked to provide evidence—such as an airline boarding pass or a work badge—that showed why they were at the airport… Even as City Hall has changed administrations, unhoused individuals continue to be locked out of O’Hare. In late May, four Chicago officers remained stationed outside of the Blue Line station.”
Gaming Board Set To Approve Casino At Medinah Temple
Approval seems likely for gambling in River North at a temporary casino inside the landmark Medinah Temple, reports Crain’s. “On the agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Illinois Gaming Board is a motion of ‘determination of preliminary suitability’ for Bally’s Chicago operation. The motion is likely to pass, a source close to the board says, and it would apply to the Medinah location, with development of the permanent location on the Chicago Tribune printing plant property at Chicago and Halsted still in the very preliminary stages.”
Robot Performs 1,100 Rebar-Ties-Per-Hour On Wisconsin Bridge
“Rebar-tying robots have come to Wisconsin,” reports ENR Midwest. “Waukesha-based MKE Iron Erectors recently used one on a bridge project…Developed by Advanced Construction Robotics of Pittsburgh…TyBOT performed 17,823 ties in two shifts across a 7,775-square-foot area on the IH-39 Structure B-11-166 bridge in Columbia County, north of Madison. That’s more than 1,100 ties per hour.” Says MKE CEO and president Barbara Sheedy, “We’re union contractors, so we work 7 to 3:30. The TyBOT started working at 11am and it finished at 8pm… If we were going to tie all of that rebar by hand, we would have had to have a second crew, working a second shift. The robot doesn’t get paid overtime, and it just kept working.”
DINING & DRINKING
Johnson Allies Push For Tipped Minimum Wage Increase
“Mayor Brandon Johnson campaigned on eliminating the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. Now his progressive City Council allies plan to push the issue,” reports Crain’s. “A national fight to end the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers is coming to Chicago. Under legislation being crafted by Mayor Johnson and his City Council allies, Chicago’s sub-minimum wage for tipped workers could be gradually eliminated, a potential win for his progressive supporters—and a move that could spark a fight with restaurant owners as they recover from the pandemic.”
Late-Night Warlord Serves In Avondale
“Warlord in Avondale is creating the type of restaurant buzz the city hasn’t seen since before the pandemic,” features Eater Chicago. “Chefs Emily Kraszyk (Farmhouse), John Lupton (Kasama), and Trevor Fleming (Rootstock) left enough social media breadcrumbs to lead interested parties to the corner of Milwaukee and Belmont” since an April opening. “The chef trio has kept their story out of the limelight, offering only a simple and terse description on the restaurant’s website: ‘Focused on preservation and live fire; from the foundations of family and friendship.’ They serve delights like a perfectly charred steak, dry-aged onsite and paired with garlic scapes that are treated like Chinese long beans, cooked over high heat to achieve a remarkable tenderness.”
Lýra Breaks Brunch
As Greek dining expands in Chicago, Fulton Market’s Lýra has expanded its brunch menu in its indoor-meets-outdoor space. Mykonos-style Greek favorites like spanakopitakia, horiatiki and Greek shakshuka are on the menu, along with brunch staples like avocado toast, pancakes and even tuna tartare. Saturdays-Sundays, 10:30am-2:30pm. Full brunch menu here.
MEDIA
Chicago Tribune Guild Finds Pay Equity Shortfall
“An examination of pay at the Chicago Tribune undertaken by the guild uncovered a troubling but sadly unsurprising truth: The Chicago Tribune regularly pays women and people of color less than men and white people.” The report is here.
MUSIC
UChicago Presents Names Executive Director
Sarah Curran has been appointed as the executive director of UChicago Presents. As the group enters its eightieth season, with a long history of bringing musical performances to campus, Curran says she hopes to expand UCP’s breadth of programming and deepen connections with campus partners. “I see UChicago Presents as a vital platform for providing accessible, innovative, world-class performances to audiences on campus, in the community, and beyond.” More here.
Residents Say Large Fests In Douglass Park Endanger Local Hospitals
“Community activists, residents and business leaders on Monday demanded the city stop allowing ‘mega’ music festivals like Riot Fest to take over Douglass Park, saying the events don’t benefit the community and pose a danger to patients at nearby hospitals,” reports the Sun-Times.
STAGE
Why Terry Kinney Doesn’t Act On Stage Anymore
The Steppenwolf co-founder and “Another Marriage” director Terry Kinney doesn’t act onstage anymore, reports Nina Metz at the Trib. He cites ” the 1997 production of ‘Buried Child’—which is definitely the worst thing that ever happened, where I basically passed out and did a monologue lying down… Here’s the ‘Buried Child’ story: We were on Broadway and I played this guy who had a dead baby. And I had a six-month-old baby. My wife at the time was in San Francisco with the baby, so I was without them, but I had the dogs. On two-show days, I would ride my bike home furiously to walk and feed the dogs. So this was a two-show day. It was about one hundred degrees outside. I get back and drank a venti Starbucks to get ready for the second show. No food. And I go on. First act, no problem. Second act starts, and on this particular night, with my blood sugar plummeting, what happened was, I had this grim, existential angst: What are we doing here? And all of a sudden my peripheral vision was gone. ‘Have you ever blacked out and been fully awake? That’s what happened. Now I’m blind and I’m about to walk downstage to a pool of light to do a fairly lengthy monologue. Instead, I stand up and I know I’m going to fall and I just kind of find my way to the floor. I’m bathed in sweat. And I hear my cue! So I just did my monologue from the floor. And there’s a pool of light downstage with nobody in it.”
“‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ Live in Concert” Swinging To Chicago
For one night only, a new national tour of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” comes to the Cadillac Palace Theatre on September 23. The Oscar-winning film will be accompanied by a live orchestra, band and turntables with a scratch DJ playing music from the score by Daniel Pemberton and soundtrack. Joining the tour is The Broadway Sinfonietta, an all-women and majority women-of-color orchestra. Emily Marshall will serve as the tour’s conductor. Tickets and more here.
Promising Young Actors Leaving Theater?
They’re worried up North: “As someone who’s monitored the performing arts industry for decades, I’ve seen dozens of talented, up-and-coming artists leave the profession. Or rather, I likely haven’t seen them. They’ve just disappeared, quietly pursuing other work away from the spotlight,” writes the Toronto Star. “It’s not feasible anymore for artists to identify live performance as how they pay their bills,” a mid-career theater artist tells the paper. “There are two exceptions. Either you are doing other work and are somehow balancing that—and by work I’m not talking about a couple of shifts at a bar or restaurant. Or you are living off generational wealth or partner wealth. If you’ve inherited money or have a husband or a wife who’s, say, a law partner, then your life as an artist is very different.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Chicago Facing Moderate Drought
“Chicago is experiencing near-record dryness, much to the concern of those who garden, manage landscapes or prefer their yards green than brown,” reports the Trib. “It was the fourth-driest May ever in Chicago.”
Dozen Dumped Bunnies Saved
“Late last week, volunteers learned more than a dozen baby rabbits and their mother had been released by the Metra tracks near the intersection of Farwell and Ravenswood avenues,” reports Block Club. Thirty volunteers “organized by Red Door Animal Shelter was quickly mobilized to save them” by “the West Ridge animal shelter that is the city’s only rabbit rescue.” The volunteers worked “through two blocks of dense foliage near the Metra station… They cleared thick underbrush with machetes so they could lay bird nettling along the perimeter, then tried to startle the rabbits so they’d run toward the nets and get stuck.”
Petition To Reopen Fermilab To The Public
“Fermilab has long been an integral part of the local Illinois community, valued for its longstanding tradition of transparency and being welcoming to all. Recent changes to Fermilab’s site access policies threaten this cherished tradition by affecting its ability to execute its mission and by negatively impacting its interactions with the scientific community and the general public in the local area and beyond,” begins a new petition. “We are constituents, scientists, educators, neighbors, and friends of Fermilab. We respectfully petition you to do everything in your power to revert these new access policies, which threaten Fermilab’s science and education programs and Fermilab’s reputation within the local community.”
Polish Triangle Gets Spark’d
“A recreational weed dispensary has opened next to the Division Blue Line station in Wicker Park,” reports Block Club. “Spark’d Dispensary, 1212 North Ashland, opened last week in the former home of an Aldo shoe store along the neighborhood’s Polish Triangle… Like almost 200 other social equity license holders awarded licenses in 2021, the Spark’d opening was delayed by a series of lawsuits challenging Illinois’ cannabis program.”
