Steve Cushing, the award-winning host of the nationally syndicated public radio staple Blues before Sunrise, has spent over thirty years observing and participating in the Chicago blues scene. In his upcoming […]
Category: Chicago
AIA Guide to Chicago book trailer
Watch the book trailer for the new edition of AIA Guide to Chicago. The book will debut Saturday, June 7 at the Printers Row Lit Fest where Zurich Esposito, Executive […]
Happy birthday, Jimmy Rogers
Jimmy Rogers was born James A. Lane on this day in 1924. As Wayne Everett Goins notes in Blues All Day Long, his new biography of Rogers, the legendary guitarist […]
Fixing Illinois: steering the conversation to the future
In the 1950s, thriving commerce , strong leadership, and geographical good fortune made Illinois one of the most envied states in the nation. The authors of Fixing Illinois: Politics and Policy […]
Michigan Avenue bridge turns 94
Chicago’s double-deck Michigan Avenue bridge turned 94 years old this week. The bridge is one of the most revered and celebrated landmarks in the Second City. When the movable bridge […]
Getting a start on Fixing Illinois
Fixing the problems in Illinois will be no easy task. But the authors of Fixing Illinois: Politics and Policy in the Prairie State want to get the wheels in motion. […]
The May 4, 1886 bombing that shook the world
On May 4, 1886, someone threw a bomb in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. Timothy Messer-Kruse, author of The Haymarket Conspiracy: Transatlantic Anarchist Networks, and Leon Fink, editor of the recently released Workers in Hard […]
Q&A with Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant author José Ángel N.
José Ángel N. came to the United States from Mexico in the 1990s with a ninth grade education. An undocumented immigrant, N. traveled to Chicago where he found access to ESL […]
Read an excerpt of Illegal: Reflections of an Undocumented Immigrant
“With great eloquence and pathos, N. draws on his daily life and references philosophers from Socrates to Kant to describe the netherworld of the undocumented. He takes solace in his […]
How the Michigan Avenue bridge changed Chicago
It would be hard for any visitors or residents of modern-day Chicago to think of Michigan Avenue as a “quiet, tree-lined residential street.” Yet, Patrick T. McBriarty, author of Chicago […]
The Architecture of Barry Byrne a Printers Row favorite
The Architecture of Barry Byrne by Vincent L. Michael was named one of the top books of 2013 by the Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row. As the subtitle of the book, […]
Happy birthday, Barry Byrne
Influential architect Francis Barry Byrne was born on December 19, 1883. Born and raised in Chicago, Byrne worked with Frank Lloyd Wright as a member of the group of architects known […]