German film director Christian Petzold was born on September 14, 1960. The director of films Barbara and Jerichow is also the subject of the forthcoming Contemporary Film Directors series release […]
Skyscraper of the Day, Part 8
Champlain Building, corner of State and Madison Streets. Holabird and Roche, 1894 (demolished, 1916). View from southeast. (120 Photographic Views of Chicago, Rand McNally, 1909) . . . . criticism […]
Skyscraper of the Day, Part 7
Bowen Building, 62-74 E. Randolph. W. W. Boyington, 1872. (Photo Thomas Leslie) Chicago came to be known as a city of steel, but well into the 1880s it remained a […]
Bluegrass Bluesman awarded by ARSC
Bluegrass Bluesman: A Memoir by Josh Graves, Edited by Fred Bartenstein has been awarded a Certificate of Merit in the 2013 Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence category […]
Skyscraper of the Day, Part 6
Chicago Savings Bank, corner of State and Madison Streets. Holabird and Roche, 1905. View from northeast. (Photograph Thomas Leslie) In addition to limiting height, the 1893 code carries stringent new […]
Q&A with Citizens in the Present co-editor Maria de los Angeles Torres
Maria de los Angeles Torres is professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the co-editor of Citizens in the Present: Youth Civic […]
Skyscraper of the Day, Part 5
Civic Opera, 20 N. Wacker Drive. Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White, 1929. View from southwest. (Contemporary post card, collection of Thomas Leslie) Powered construction, advanced structural engineering, and rapid elevators […]
Happy birthday to Dario Argento
Horror movie director, writer and producer Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940. The master of “giallo” is the subject of L. Andrew Cooper’s Dario Argento from the Contemporary Film […]
Happy birthday to Southern Soul-Bluesman Latimore
Singer, songwriter and pianist Benjamin “Benny” Latimore was born on September 7, 1939. Latimore is profiled by author David Whiteis in Southern Soul-Blues, an overview of the genre that mixes blues, […]
Skyscraper of the Day, Part 4
Schlesinger and Meyer Department Store. Detail of Madison Street elevation. (Photograph by Thomas Leslie) It was the eventual expansion of Schlesinger & Mayer’s operations that produced the refined statement of […]
The Beautiful Music All Around Us awarded by ARSC
Stephen Wade’s book, The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience has been awarded Best History in the 2013 The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) […]
Skyscraper of the Day, Part 3
Wrigley Building, 510 N. Michigan Avenue, Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White, 1921, view from southeast. (Contemporary postcard, collection of Thomas Leslie) The Wrigley Building’s most striking features, however, were the […]