1,001 Chicago Afternoons

“The Second City” was a slam by a New Yorker magazine writer stuck here for a few years he hated.

“The Windy City” was a Wisconsonite dis calling us blowhards. » Read the rest of this entry «

500. Half a thou. D, to the ancient Romans. As close to the halfway point of the project as an odd-numbered goal allows.

So what should I write this milestone story about?

I decided to toss that question to the folks who made up the first 499, asking the people who got me this far how I should kick off the second half. » Read the rest of this entry «

A dragonfly zipped through the pre-lunch swelter.

It zipped by shuttered stores and tourists huddled around iPhone map apps, startled a young woman in short shorts and a jam-packed halter, licked between a rumbling Loop train above and a delivery van below to skim a construction worker jam-packing a grimy T-shirt near the chain link and tarp separating the dingy building and the street. » Read the rest of this entry «

Through a jeweler’s glass, I stared at a monster’s stalk.

It was round and small, with a perfect hole in the center allowing me to fantasize it could have been along the lines of a spine. But it was a stalk of a crinoid, a sea lily, a tiny monster from before time, a stalked starfish waving in the undersea breeze to gobble up tiny life 330 million years in the past.

A horn honked behind me. I turned to see the wandering tourists and crawling SUVs of Michigan Avenue. » Read the rest of this entry «

Microfilm nauseates.

It was a room on the third floor of the Harold Washington Library, a room few go into when pdfs and scans are available from the comfort of home. The old microfilm is unused and cracking — the Daily News records for 1921 have split to the point where the black buffer of tape is gone and the roll starts mid-issue.

The Chicago Herald records from 1917 were in better shape.

The choice was between a projector that sticks and one that won’t rewind. Whirring, churning, slugging by under draining yellow lights, the Herald’s takes on World War I, Pancho Villa and long-forgotten murders du jour lurched by my eyes, filling me with a whirring, churning, slugging nausea.

But I had to prove this project was inspired by Ben Hecht’s “1001 Afternoons in Chicago,” and not by the author of a 1950 guide to sleaze. » Read the rest of this entry «

I guess I missed the 1800s.

On Wednesday, we looked at a few random moments in the history of the intersection of Randolph and Dearborn.

We saw a 1909 photo of a midday rush of streetcars and horse-drawn carriages, heard a one-legged booking agent’s 1919 vaudeville memories. I capped that article when the intersection was the hub of the theater district in the 1930s, with the full intention of spending this one going to the ‘50s, going to the ‘70s and then going to bed.

A chance encounter with Homer Hoyt and Harry A. Millis’ 1933 “One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago” on Google Books required a late-night rewrite.

So, well past the midnight hour, let’s see what the intersection with the McDonald’s, Daley Center, Goodman Theatre bar and that angry street preacher with the portable speakers looked like in the early days of Chicago. » Read the rest of this entry «

1919, Eddye H.B. Kendall

“Morning ’til night (say 10 a. m. to 5 p. m.) the sidewalks on the northeast and northwest corners of N. Dearborn and W. Randolph Sts. were crowded with vaudeville performers. There were acrobats, aerialists, singers, dancers, ventriloquists, jugglers, animal men, dramatic sketch artists, piano teams, dialect comedians in all classes, wire walkers, trick cyclists, sister teams, trios and quartettes, pantomimists, trick cartoonists, novelty musical acts, monologists, soubrettes and prima donnas, mimes and entertainers in all the infinate [sic] variety which was Vaudeville.” » Read the rest of this entry «

The short, middle-aged woman with the sandy, close-cropped hair pulled her phone-on-a-stick closer, frowned and extended it again to take another photo at the base of the State Street bridge.

She and the equally sandy-haired man with her were getting nowhere with their selfie stick, so I offered to help.

“Merci,” she said.

The French. Again. » Read the rest of this entry «

Tinged with doo-wop and a quarter-step flat on the high notes, his voice was a throwback to when black men sang falsetto.

“Somewhere over the rainbow,” his voice rang through the Red Line subway station at Grand. “Way up high.” » Read the rest of this entry «

He walked about 10 feet behind me, smoking and muttering. Coat over hooded sweatshirt and a black, flat-brimmed baseball cap. It was late. I was alone. I stepped closer to the street and slowed down so he would pass.

“You messing with me, bro?” he said as he hustled past me, taking angry puffs of his cigarette. It wasn’t until he repeated the phrase that I noticed it wasn’t to me. He was talking to himself.

I noticed him slip a ball-peen hammer up his sleeve. » Read the rest of this entry «