Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Chicago magazine

IF YOU READ HIS RECENT POSTS ABOUT riding the city’s longest bus route and walking the full length of Belmont Avenue, or if you have been following his quest to visit all 77 of Chicago’s community areas, you know that contributing editor Edward Robert McClelland is a curious guy. “I want to know as much about Chicago and every part of it that I can,” says McClelland, who, in addition to writing regularly for our website, shepherds the 312 section in print. That kind of zest for learning is what drove him into journalism in the first place. And it makes him the perfect person to handle our new column, City of Big Questions (page 10). Each issue, McClelland will pick an intriguing question, big or small, about the Chicago area,…

Q: Why is Chicago mail postmarked “Carol Stream” and “South Suburban”? I have a box full of old letters, mostly from the 1990s—the last decade when people wrote letters. One envelope from 1993 is postmarked “Chicago, IL 606.” You won’t see that anymore, though, thanks to the centralization of mail processing. In the old days, postal substations canceled their own mail, says Charles Berg, owner of Stamp King in Norwood Park. “As the post office has automated more, they resorted to using more sophisticated machinery,” Berg says. “Small stations can’t operate that way.” The Chicago postmark disappeared altogether in 2012, when the processing center at 433 West Harrison Street stopped canceling mail and that function was centralized in Carol Stream and Bedford Park. Drop your mail at a North Side…

IF YOU FOLLOWED the White Sox last Expected to contend for a title, the team didn’t even make the playoffs, sputtering to a .500 record. Everybody (OK, almost everybody) got injured, and the manager was prone to issuing intentional walks on 1-2 counts. That manager, of course, was Tony La Russa, who was unable to finish his 35th season as a major-league skipper due to heart issues. This year a new face will be calling the shots: first-time manager Pedro Grifol, 53. He comes from the Kansas City Royals, where he was on staff for 10 seasons, most recently as bench coach, and was widely respected. Soft-spoken (in both English and Spanish), Grifol is tasked with restoring joy to a White Sox team that still has high expectations placed on…

A city street. A bus stop. Evening. ESTRAGON: I’ve forgotten why we’re here. VLADIMIR: We’re waiting. ESTRAGON: For whom? VLADIMIR: The bus. ESTRAGON: You’re sure it will come? VLADIMIR: It always comes. ESTRAGON: When? VLADIMIR (pointing at sign): Owl service, every half hour. ESTRAGON: How long have we been here, Didi? VLADIMIR: An hour, Gogo. Enter BOY right. VLADIMIR: Are you from the CTA? BOY: No, sir. VLADIMIR: Do you have Bus Tracker? BOY: Yes, sir. VLADIMIR: How long, then? BOY (reading from phone): “No service scheduled.” Exit BOY left. ESTRAGON: The bus may not be coming tonight. VLADIMIR: Then we’ll have to come back tomorrow. ESTRAGON: It will be here tomorrow? VLADIMIR: Surely. Every half hour. ESTRAGON: Shall we call an Uber, then? VLADIMIR: Yes, let’s call an Uber.…

NATIVE CHICAGOAN IRENE Michaels has worn many decades. Her ventures range from flipping buildings as a contractor to dabbling in show biz, including a recurring role on General Hospital in the early ’80s and a part in the 1988 horror-comedy cult classic Killer Klowns From Outer Space. Recent endeavors include running her own luxury lifestyle website, I on the Scene; starting her own skin care line; and composing and singing for her own pop band, Our House. She lives in Lake Point Tower with two cats and a dog. (Her husband has his own place nearby. “We got married late in life and are very stuck in our ways,” Michaels says.) She fell in love with horses as a girl, riding ponies at Kiddieland, and has owned five steeds over the…

AS CHICAGO’S DINING SCENE reemerges from the pandemic, some restaurateurs are reimagining their concepts by taking cues from what diners are looking for in this new era of eating out. Clamshell to-go boxes are out, while an increased emphasis on ambience is in. That was the case for Baker Miller owners Dave and Megan Miller, who earlier this year swapped “Baker” for “Bagel” in both name and focus, ending a decade-long run for their Lincoln Square café. They replaced it with a playful take on a Jewish deli. At the revamped Bagel Miller (4655 N. Lincoln Ave.), the menu focuses on fat, chewy bagels and a smattering of other deli staples, such as house-smoked fish. What prompted the switch? A shift in customers’ preferences, as people want to move away from…

1 Obélix 700 N. Sedgwick St., River North Great restaurants make you feel like splurging. They encourage you to order more elaborately than usual, linger longer at the table, and give in to the organic rhythms and in-the-moment pleasures of a fine meal. Obélix is the greatest new restaurant in Chicago for all these reasons and more. The Poilevey brothers, Oliver (the executive chef) and Nicolas (the wine director), whose late parents blessed the city with the snug French charmer Le Bouchon, have both the training and the instincts for hospitality, and the many veteran servers on their staff help them see their vision through. More than anything, the brothers have a canny understanding of the zeitgeist, and their expensive but not stupid expensive French bistro works as a joyful…

Seated behind the console in the basement studio of his Highland Park home, Vince Lawrence is in his element. This is where he produces dance records that make the floors shake, though now he’s cranking up an oldie: the Jackson 5’s “Forever Came Today,” the group’s 1975 disco-style remake of a Supremes song. As the beat blasts from the room’s 20 speakers, some of which rest on cinder blocks, Lawrence describes what a formative record this was for him and, by extension, for Chicago house music. “I think every good producer has to be a musicologist,” he says. Evidence of Lawrence’s success lines the walls: gold and platinum records honoring his production work on Destiny’s Child’s singles “Girl” and “Soldier,” R&B crooner Joe’s “Stutter,” and former B2K member Omarion’s “Ice…

THERE ARE PLENTY OF FRESH ADDITIONS to the city’s dining roster, but critic John Kessler deemed less than a dozen of them — 11, to be exact — worthy of inclusion in “Best New Restaurants” (page 50). He started by scouting noteworthy spots and those recommended by friends and fellow critics, but for the final cut and ranking, he relied on his own dining experience. “People are going to look at my list and think there are some really obvious omissions,” Kessler says. “But a lot of times, I tried twice and couldn’t in good faith recommend a place because of the way the food came together or because the service was so bad.” As difficult as it was to cull the list, Obélix was an easy choice at the top.…

1 On April 4, Chicago will have its third straight mayoral runoff. In three elections after the nonpartisan system was introduced in 1999, Richard M. Daley never had a runoff, winning with more than 70 percent every time. 2 Shaved head. Teashop. Cats. Billy Corgan’s divo image will be complete April 21 with the release of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 43-song box set Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts. (That’s pronounced “autumn.”) 3 The Bears will likely trade their No. 1 pick in the NFL draft April 27–29. Their previous top picks were cursed: 1941’s Tom Harmon refused to sign, and 1947’s Bob Fenimore played just 10 games due to injuries. 4 Tom Skilling, the weatherman who appeared in The Weather Man, receives the Order of Lincoln, Illinois’s highest honor, April 29.…

When Oscar Colas defected in early 2020, ESPN’s Jeff Passan called him “one of the best prospects to emerge from Cuba in years.” Now, after his rapid rise last year through the White Sox minor-league system (where he hit a combined 314 and slugged 23 homers in 117 games), manager Pedro Grifol and GM Rick Hahn are all but saying right field is his to lose. Some fun facts about the 24-year-old rookie: Before defecting, Colas spent three seasons in Japan’s minors leagues. (The Cuban government gave him permission.) He even played seven games in Japan’s top-tier Nippon Professional Baseball, hitting a home run in his first at-bat, but left after a contract dispute. He spent part of the winter in Florida training with Sox center fielder and fellow Cuban…

FROM BERLIN AND LONDON to Cape Town and São Paulo, the international modern-art world will converge on the city April 13 to 16 for Expo Chicago. Think of it as a massive pop-up global art museum — one where you can actually purchase the pieces. “You can live in Chicago, travel the world with your eyes, and experience an extraordinary amount of work, from beautiful to provocative,” says Tony Karman, Expo Chicago’s president and director. The scope of international eye candy filling Navy Pier’s Festival Hall will include largescale sculptures, site-specific works, and limited-edition art books, with artists from 36 countries and 170 galleries represented at this 10th edition of the fair. We asked Expo’s director of programming, Kate Sierzputowski, to identify a few buzzed-about participating artists from around the…

CITY DWELLERS OFTEN HAVE TO GET CREATIVE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF CHICAGO summers. For Carrie Woleben-Meade, design principal of Mariani Landscaping in Lake Bluff, that meant transforming one family’s barren rooftop into a full-blown living space—ornate fireplace, museum-quality art installations, and all. “They really wanted it to be a place to get away to,” she says. Some takeaways from the project:…

Allen Goodman saw it all during his years as a public defender. In Everyone Against Us: Public Defenders and the Making of American Justice, the lawyer describes a system stacked against not only the accused but also the attorneys who represent them. From 1996 to 2004, he worked in the Cook County public defender’s office, primarily in Skokie, where he handled criminal cases from Chicago’s North and West Sides. He later joined a private firm and then opened his own practice. Though Goodman (who practiced law as Allen Gutterman, using the surname of his adoptive parents) left Chicago more than a decade ago and now lives in Israel, the flawed legal system he portrays feels as familiar as ever. Chris Rock once had a riff about injustice in America that…

“I discovered Orlandi Statuary while looking for a capital, which is the top of a column, for a show. I was so impressed that they could cast anything to my heart’s desire in fiberglass so it can be lightweight for the stage. And I appreciate that they’re family owned and have been around forever. I’m always blown away by the scale and the scope. Once I was looking for a winged angel statue, and I just didn’t expect to have so many beautiful options. It’s almost shocking just how many they have: angels and cupids and cherubs. They also have planters and benches — so much gorgeous stone. I’ve been thinking about getting a birdbath from there to put in our garden at home.” 1801 N. Central Park Ave., Logan…

■ Both of my parents published books. My father was a professor [of linguistics] and a poet whose mother was a well-known novelist in Hungary. She died when I was a baby, but I was always aware of that. I don’t think I ever went, “Wow, that looks like a great life,” because she spent her life writing under Soviet oppression and did not make a lot of money and was constantly being censored. So nothing I heard made writing sound glamorous or like a great career choice. It just didn’t seem like it was out of the realm of possibility. ■ I’ve never, in my entire writing career, been as happy as I was when the Iowa Review [accepted my first] story. This was at the tail end of…

GILLMAN’S ACE HARDWARE, ON MILWAUKEE AVENUE IN LOGAN SQUARE, WAS A relic of an older Chicago. Opened in 1948, when the neighborhood was primarily Polish, Jewish, and German, Gillman’s sold hammers, nails, keys, and caulk for generations, thriving through the influx of Latinos, then “artists and tech people,” as owner Alan Gillman, whose father and uncle founded the business, puts it. A hand-lettered sign read “Asile #3: Light Fixtures, Fuses, Brakers, Screws.” Despite the misspellings, Gillman kept the sign up. It gave the store character. Gillman’s closed over the winter, unable, its owner says, to survive an innovation of a newer Chicago: protected bike lanes. In October 2020, the city installed plastic bollards in front of the shop, which is on a section of Milwaukee designated by the Chicago Department…

INSTAGRAM HANDLE @mrcrim3 FOLLOWERS 117,000 ■ Who’s behind it West Pullman native Ernest Crim III, 35 ■ What it is Videos on Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and other Black historical figures—with a contemporary take. (Wells “was a G… fearless enough to call white women out.”) Crim also highlights unsung heroes such as Barbara Johns, who organized a 1951 walkout to protest conditions in her Virginia high school. ■ How it started In 2016, a woman yelled the N-word and spit at Crim and his wife at the South Shore Cultural Center. “I was like, Nah, you can’t get away with this,” he says. He started making YouTube and Instagram videos “to get my voice out.” Later, he also began vlogging on TikTok. ■ Celebrity cosign D.L. Hughley shared a…

BUCKTOWN MAY BE KNOWN FOR ITS modern single-family homes and (mostly) mom-and-pop shops, but there’s still a hint of that 19th-century industrial flavor peppered throughout what was once the village of Holstein. And for certain creative architects and their open-minded clients, those brick boxes can make fantastic roots on which to graft an exceedingly modern home. Such is the case with a former nut-and-bolt factory on Paulina Street, a 4,500-square-foot residence that rises two stories behind an unassuming street-facing garage. “When we first met with Christy and Bud, they were living in what I call ‘constipated symmetry’ in Lincoln Park,” says Mike Shively, founding partner of the Logan Square–based architectural firm En Masse. His clients — Christy Mueller and Bud Stephani, owners of Lincoln Park’s popular Pasta Palazzo—wanted to break…

WHEN I WAS 16, MY FRIEND MEGUMI ASKED IF I wanted to be a server at her parents’ restaurant, Kikuya. My first thought: I can eat sushi for free? So I took the job and started hauling my ass three to four times a week from Lincolnwood to Hyde Park. I didn’t need to work (my parents had plenty saved for my college), but I loved making my own money. I remember bringing home $54 one night and feeling rich. Twenty-some years later, I’m in danger of becoming what we in the industry call a “lifer” — or, as my mother puts it, a “food prostitute.” As a server, you constantly ask yourself a question only sex workers and athletes ponder as much: Am I too old for this? I currently…

Coach has been hitched to the Mag Mile since it opened a flagship store there in 2001. It closed earlier this year, but the handcrafted leather goods brand just opened a new post two blocks north—and a bolder side is shining through. Covetable bags, including the recent Tabby collection, coexist with retro-inspired track jackets and rugby shirts. A new section lets you personalize your bag with embellish-ments. And lest you forget where you are, Chicago gets a nod in the form of an art installation with vintage baseball gloves. 444 N. Michigan Ave., Magnificent Mile…