1,001 Chicago Afternoons

“Have you ever had your life entirely changed by a small thing?” he asked, whipping around to face me. » Read the rest of this entry «

Fifteen minutes to midnight on the last day of the 19th century, a real estate historian named Mark Putney climbed to the roof of a downtown Chicago skyscraper and dreamed about the future. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’m scared for the microfilm room at the Harold Washington Library.

It’s a vacant place, one avoided by even the street people who come to the library for the heat and the chairs. There’s one staffer there, maybe. Sometimes a security guard sits against the back wall, leans back and strikes up conversation, asks what era you’re looking for.

“1890s?” he said. “I like looking up the 1950s. I like looking at the old car prices. You could get a brand new car for…”

He names a price you don’t remember when it comes time to blog. He chuckles and the two of you walk about cars for a bit. » Read the rest of this entry «

I think I like the business district best when I’m alone.

It’s not alone-alone, of course. It’s city-alone, where solitude means hundreds instead of thousands milling, bustling, shoving, pushing, dawdling, daydreaming denizens crowding the walks and roads.

The day before Christmas weekend is city-alone. » Read the rest of this entry «

They stand on corners, sheets in hand. Folded chapbooks or maybe CDs with some ponderously poetic name scribbled on the disk in Sharpie.

They move and hustle. Some smile and gladhand. Some make eye contact and try to lure you in with that economic lubricant of guilt.

Some of the passersby think they’re bums, I guess, or see the sheets in hand and think the sidewalk hustlers have been paid to spread coupons for mattress stores or the happy hour menus for new-opened bars.

But they haven’t. These sidewalk hustlers spread their words. » Read the rest of this entry «

I was walking by Marshall Field’s on Hubbard’s Trace en route to my Smokey Hollow office when I started wondering why I don’t take better advantage of my city’s more touristy options — trips up the Sears Tower, riding my velocipede to Weegman Park see the White Stockings Base Ball Club or to Comiskey to see the Sioux City Cornhuskers — heck, I’ve never even been to a Decatur Staleys game at Municipal Grant Park Stadium as long as I’ve lived in Fort Dearborn!

Yes, yes, I know. It’s not called Sears Tower. » Read the rest of this entry «

On the site of the Dirksen Federal Building, where three of our four convict governors saw their trial date, in a long-dead hotel called the Great Northern, following the adjournment of the Republican County Central committee on a Wednesday night in mid-September of 1895, Chicago Ald. Buck McCarthy bit off the ear of Ald. Joe Lammers.

Lammers was not the only Chicago alderman of the 1800s to get a body part bitten off in a fight. » Read the rest of this entry «

In the 1889 Democratic mayoral primary, former Mayor Carter Harrison Sr. was told to wait in the lobby. » Read the rest of this entry «

Smarter people than me can write your think pieces.

More emotive than me can write about tears.

Less stunned than me can write your rallies and revolution.

I can write right now about disbelief. And how lovely the downtown of Chicago, Illinois, is. » Read the rest of this entry «

Happy Halloween. Let’s talk zombie voters. » Read the rest of this entry «