Author: Craig Berman
Thursday, 12 15 2005
Sometimes Crime Does Pay
Congrats to Adrian Holovaty, the creator of the much lauded ChicagoCrime.org, for being selected by Crain's as one of 2005's "40 under 40" in Chicago business. Not only has he made a name for himself by creating an immensely useful and innovative website, but he also scored a job out of the project-- in August he accepted a position with the Washington Post as "Editor of Editorial Innovation" (How cool is his business card?) and recently announced the release of his first major project, a database of every vote in the US Congress since 1991.
- 15.12.05 ~ In the News
Wednesday, 12 07 2005
Daley's Corporate Graffiti Busters
Wired has an article on the San Francisco backlash against Sony's latest 'urban' ad campaign, featuring drugged out little cartoons holding PSPs painted on walls. What sets these ads apart from past spray painted ads, is that they feature no text, and are basically a blank canvas for agitprop. With Chicago's history of subverting corporate graffiti (Remember the Axe incident?), I'm waiting to see some "creative reinterpretation" of these ads here in Chicago.
- 7.12.05 ~ Politics/Activism
Wednesday, 11 30 2005
Design Tastes Like Expensive Alcohol
Do you like sophisticated and well-designed technology? Do you like free alcohol? If you answered yes to at least one of the above questions (and I'm guessing most of you drunk nerds said yes to both), you might be interested in checking out WIRED magazine's "Taste of Design" event tonight at Enclave, a freshly renovated and redesigned lounge/club in River North. If you don't typically hit up spots like this, this is your chance to check out what's normally a posh hotspot and geek out over some consumer electronics with a drink in your hand. Slowdown has the details.
- 30.11.05 ~ Offbeat/Misc. Events
Thursday, 11 17 2005
Lampo and the Audible Arts
Looking to expand your musical horizons beyond mainstream song structures and into new forms of music? If so, you might be interested in Lampo, a local presenter of "experimental music and intermedia events" that brings in a global set of sound-artists for monthly performances. This weekend Berlin-based artist Stephan Mathieu will be performaing "Radioland", a suite of computer-processed live AM radio, accompanied by a fast, random video flicker of 256 colors. So if you don't mind loud sounds, not so comfy chairs, and a limited color palette, you may be interested in what Slowdown has to say.
- 17.11.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Wednesday, 11 09 2005
River North Case Study
An interesting new construction in River North caught my eye the other day: 156 West Superior is a boldly modern condo midrise whose facade is defined by its beautifully exposed structural frame, metal screen walls, and a sheer glass curtain that opens the units to the outside world. The building was designed by award-winning Seattle-based architects Miller-Hull, who are bringing their unique contemporary aesthetic to Chicago for the first time. Certainly a commendable design in a sea of banal bland beige boxes all over the near North side.
- 9.11.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Thursday, 11 03 2005
SWM for SWF on CTA
Ride the CTA all by your lonesome no more: "The Front 'L' Car is for Singles Only!"
- 3.11.05 ~ Found on the Web
Monday, 10 31 2005
The West Town Gallery Network, Matey.
The West Town Gallery Network is a group of six art galleries looking to make WestTown a destination for compelling visual art, alongside the other established gallery communities in the city. To promote their cause, they have created a beautifully designed (and pirate-map inspired) brochure (PDF) and map (PDF), designed and lettered by local artist Eric Lebofsky. If you would like a Lebofsky drawing of your own, you can win one by participating in the upcoming WestTown Gallery Hop on November 19th. Peep Slowdown for the skinny on the hop.
- 31.10.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Wednesday, 10 26 2005
Wicker Park is moving to Bridgeport
In conjunction with the ongoing Select Media Festival, three Wicker Park/North Side countercultural institutions; Quimby's, Myopic Books, and Odd Obsession Video will be opening shop in Bridgeport. The temporary retail relocation is part of the "Experimental Culture Zone" that Lumpen is creating along the burgeoning Morgan St. corridor in the "Community of the Future". Don't go proclaiming "the end" of Wicker Park yet, you aging hipsters-- the three satellite stores are open only on the weekends through November 13th, and then it's back North they go.
- 26.10.05 ~ Business/Shopping
Thursday, 10 13 2005
Fresh Architecture on Michigan Ave
The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies has broken ground for its new facility just north of their current digs on South Michigan Avenue, the first new building on the drag overlooking Grant Park in almost 40 years. The new building's distinctive folded glass facade, designed by local architecture firm Krueck + Sexton, will bring a much needed breath of elegant and contemporary design to that stretch of the rapidly growing South Loop. Be sure to check out more of the renderings of the provocative design, learn more about the plans for the new building, and read what architectural critic Blair Kamin had to say about the building and its role in the revival of this architecturally high profile stretch of Chicago. [via Archidose]
- 13.10.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Wednesday, 10 12 2005
Urban Planning Is Fun Again!
The planners at Chicago Metropolis 2020 present "Metro Joe", a flash-based game for 8th graders to learn about Chicagoland planning issues. The game challenges your knowledge of regional issues such as low density sprawl; the spatial mismatch between jobs; and affordable housing and transportation, and is even kinda fun to play whether you're a pre-teen in Elgin or a cubicle-jockey in the Loop.
- 12.10.05 ~ Found on the Web
Chicago Art Foundation Museum
The Chicago Art Foundation has a vision (pdf): they want to expose the world to Chicago's visual artists by opening the first museum devoted solely to Chicago art. They've created a business plan that has them raising funds, building an identity, collecting art, forming archives, and they are on a track to open this museum 24 months after they finalize the acquisition of their space. Keep an eye on the CAF website for updates as they build the next great Chicago art museum.
- 12.10.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Thursday, 10 06 2005
Jazz Age Chicago
Ever wondered what Chicagoans did for fun in 1913? Jazz Age Chicago is a highly detailed resource of information about leisure in Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. The site is chock full of historic information on the period's "bright light districts", department stores, theaters, dancehalls & cabarets, as well as essays about this new "modern life" of entertainment, leisure, and consumption.
- 6.10.05 ~ History
Wednesday, 10 05 2005
Elbow Grease on the Red Line
It's easy to complain about how bad certain CTA stations smell, but how many people are willing to go clean them up on a Saturday morning? The residents of Edgewater are tired of waiting for the CTA to fix up the Thorndale red line station, so they are taking matters into their own hands. From 9 to noon this Saturday, October 8th, they will be entering the station to clean, paint and fix up the North side stop themselves. If guerilla cleaning is not your thing, the Campaign for Better Transit also has a list of other ways you can take action.
- 5.10.05 ~ Transportation
Restaurant Collapse Caused by Irony
If you've been in Wicker Park recently, you may have noticed Milwaukee Avenue has been going through some major changes: multiple large tear downs and rehabs at Ashland (including the long defunct Arandas Mexican Food), Urban Outfitters has announced their impending arrival, and most recently the Ann Sather Swedish eatery collapsed. Apparently the construction crew working next door tore a hole in the building's wall, and as of this past weekend all that was left of the restaurant was a pile of rubble with the Ann Sather sign laying on top. The offending crew's name? Good Karma Construction.
- 5.10.05 ~ In the News
Wednesday, 09 28 2005
Selected Ambient Hand-Jive
Local audio artist and electronic composer, Michael Una, has spent the past few years developing the "Sound-Suit", a wearable synthesizer that is controlled with the movement of the body. His website has video of a Sound Suit performance that demonstates the intriguing and engaging soundscapes he can create by literally manipulating music with his hands. If you'd like to hear more about how he created this spatial synth or his plans for public performance, tune in to Eight Forty-Eight on WBEZ this Thursday morning in the 10am hour.
- 28.09.05 ~ Music/Clubs
Tuesday, 09 20 2005
Chicago's Not For Tourists
When I first moved to Chicago the Not For Tourists map and cityguide helped me to quickly understand the neighborhood divisions, where the El passed through them, what kind of amenities were contained within them, and the general vibe of each 'hood-- it was like Cliffs Notes for living in Chicago! Turns out the folks at NFT have been busy: last week they released their 2006 Chicago guide, relaunched their website, put up all of their maps as free PDF downloads, and are throwing a free launch party at the Darkroom. Don't say they never gave you anything.
- 20.09.05 ~ Resources
Monday, 09 19 2005
Street Art, Chicago-Style.
In a city that's completely banned spray paint, Chicago street-artists have had to take creative and untraditional routes to get their work on the streets. Chicago Street Art, the latest group pool on Flickr, is starting to document all of the hand drawn-stickers, stencils, plywood cutouts, scrawlings, paste-ups, and installations that bring color to the all-too-often drab urban landscape.
- 19.09.05 ~ Photography
Friday, 09 16 2005
West Town meets the West Loop
Chicago Journal, the distinctively peach-colored paper that has covered the "News of the South Loop, Near West and West Loop" for the past five years, launched a West Town sister publication yesterday. Hand delivered to my front porch (newspaper boxes are so bourgeois), the new paper promises to bring the same high level of neighborhood reporting to Bucktown, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village and West Town every Thursday morning.
- 16.09.05 ~ Print/Magazines
Tuesday, 09 13 2005
Band Nerds Kick Ass
While strolling through Wicker Park this weekend, I ran across a mysterious rag-tag marching band that were dancing through the streets in mismatched thrift-store uniforms and playing everything from gypsy jazz to raucous dixieland. It turns out I witnessed a live performance by Mucca Pazza, Chicago's premiere circus punk marching band. So if you happen to see a motley crew of horns, woodwinds, drums, accordians, a guitar player with a speaker on a hockey helmet, and a sousaphone player with grey porkchops (who also happens to play the melodica and lead the band), you can smile knowingly and join the parade.
- 13.09.05 ~ Music/Clubs
Tuesday, 08 30 2005
Gleaming the Kennedy?
This week's "Detour" article presents three blue-sky ideas for reuse of the wasted space beneath an expressway overpass in the city. Although the article was written as a piece of fiction, the concepts might not be that far out: apparently the residents of Logan Square are looking to build a Chicago Park District Skatepark beneath the Kennedy Expressway. This skate park "with a roof" would be just one project in the interesting (and massive) Logan Square Open Space Plan that looks to create over 15 acres of useable open space in the super-densely populated neighborhood.
- 30.08.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Thursday, 08 25 2005
Back In Black
This Saturday is the grand re-opening of the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed Crown Hall on the campus of IIT. Restoration of the modernist masterpiece has been completed, and the campus is celebrating with an open house, as well as campus tours, readings, and live music from the M's. ArchitectureChicago Plus has the schedule of events here as well as exhaustive amounts of information about van der Rohe's design of the IIT's campus. And while you're down there, be sure to check out Rem Koolhaas's student center and Helmut Jahn's dormitory-- both fine examples of provocative modern architecture South of the Loop!
- 25.08.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Tuesday, 08 23 2005
Walk the neighborhood without having to step outside
Since Google Maps launched earlier this year, the competition in the online mapping world has been pretty slim. However with the recent beta launch of Amazon's A9 maps, things are starting to heat up. A9 maps has integrated the BlockView Images from their Yellow Pages into their new mapping site, allowing you to "walk up and down the block" through street level photos. Google's satellite maps might be a lot of fun to play with, but when you can't remember the name of that bar with the outdoor seating around Damen & North, seeing this will help you a lot more than this.
- 23.08.05 ~ Resources
Monday, 08 22 2005
Everything old is new again?
According to Crain's (Subscription req'd), Old Style is attempting a sales comeback, hot on the coattails of the recent PBR popularity boom. If you haven't noticed the new billboards around town, Old Style has launched a new "irreverent" ad campaign that is trying to reposition its brand as more young and hip, while still retaining it's neighborhood beer status. "More refreshing than a parking spot in Lincoln Park" and "More refreshing than stopping Bucktown before it Lincoln Parks" may cause you to roll your eyes, but I thought the Ukrainian Village radio ad (mp3 clip) was pretty on point. Cheers.
- 22.08.05 ~ Eating/Drinking
Tuesday, 08 16 2005
ReThink ReCycle ReDesign... FoReal!
Ever noticed the severe lack of public recycling receptacles in Chicago's neighborhoods? So did the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), so they decided to hold a competition to design some solutions. After receiving over 400 conceptual designs from all around the world for "ReThink ReCycle ReDesign", the top 25 have been prototyped and will be exhibited this Friday on Daley Plaza. Come down around noon to see all of the concepts in the flesh, vote for your favorite, hear some remarks from "Da Mare", and promote public awareness of Chicago as an ecologically sustainable city. (Disclosure: I'm one of the finalists exhibiting... come say hi!)
- 16.08.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
Tuesday, 08 09 2005
Skyscrapers are so last century.
Sure, the Fordham Spire is pretty exciting, but my eyes are focused on new construction near Cabrini-Green; the Helmut Jahn designed Near North Apartments, a single room occupancy facility for Chicago's homeless. Jahn is best known for his provocative commerical work, however this project marks his first for a public housing project, in which he plans to use ecologically intelligent elements to create economically viable savings. You can check out some conceptual renderings of the new building here (as well as other "green" Chicago architectural proposals), or just watch a landmark constructed in real time at Division and Clybourn.
- 9.08.05 ~ Arts/Architecture
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