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Extended offseason provides added development time for WIU footballDan Verdunon September 16, 2020 at 10:30 am

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Extended offseason provides added development time for WIU football

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Extended offseason provides added development time for WIU footballDan Verdunon September 16, 2020 at 10:30 am Read More »

The Folded Map Project shows a segregated cityS. Nicole Laneon September 15, 2020 at 3:00 pm

“I’m sure you’ve heard the words to describe Englewood are ‘Black, dangerous, poor, gun violence,'” says Tonika Johnson in one of the opening lines of her short film, The Folded Map Project. Englewood is where Johnson was born and it’s where she still lives. Englewood is home.

In her film, Johnson asks the viewer to think about how they came to live in the neighborhood where they live or to think about the neighborhood where they grew up. She asks viewers to think about how they decided to live where they do. Who did they talk to before making the decision?

My move from Hyde Park to Back of the Yards happened a year ago and I’m still thinking about my decision, why I chose to move, and what led to these changes. When I moved from Hyde Park my friends seemed to mourn the change more than me. “I just can’t believe you won’t be a Hyde Parker anymore,” they would say. It was as if I was moving state lines instead of only a few miles away.

It’s fitting, then, that Johnson’sThe Folded Map Project asks me–and all viewers–these questions in her introduction. Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. What started as a photography project in 2017 while she was a photojournalism fellow at City Bureau has transformed into a short film, which Johnson says will eventually be a long-form film. Johnson originally began photographing “address pairs” where she looked at housing differences in the city and then “map twins” who live on the north and south sides of Chicago along the same street with the same address. If you fold the map of Chicago at its zero point, the streets that connect the north side and south side–like Englewood to Edgewater–are separated by 15 miles within the same city. For example, someone living at 6900 North Ashland in Rogers Park and 6900 South Ashland in West Englewood are map twins. She interviewed the individuals living in specific houses and introduced them to one another, creating a dialogue for folks to confront racial and institutional segregation in Chicago. Johnson uses prompts like, “How much did your house cost?” or “Why did you move to this neighborhood?” and the differences (or similarities) unfold. In 2018 an exhibition of “The Folded Map Project” was presented at Loyola University Museum of Art and that same year, it was also turned into a play presented through Collaboraction, which had four sold-out shows at Kennedy-King College. Johnson also has plans to create a curriculum around the project for Chicago Public Schools and for a future west side study in neighborhoods like Logan Square and Garfield Park.

Crossing one bridge can propel you into a new circle of people and culture. Intersections and cross streets are linchpins for communities. Bus stops, train stations, and bike routes connect us and divide us. What develops in Johnson’s film is a beautiful telling of what it means to live in a neighborhood with your family and peers. It all stemmed from her grandmother, who purchased a house in Englewood, where Johnson grew up with her mom and two uncles. “My childhood was beautiful,” says Johnson as the short film shows slides of images of her grandmother, herself, and even a neighbor who lived next door.

Two weeks ago, I drove from my apartment down 47th street through New City, Fuller Park, Bronzeville, and Hyde Park for a beach day at the Point. From paleta carts to parents with strollers, the view transformed as I drove along the long road to the lakefront. Similarly, during her early commute to Lane Tech, Johnson recalls noticing the changing of neighborhoods along her bus ride north. She explains how on this bus ride she realized not all Chicago neighborhoods are the same. Although street signs and street names read the same from north to south, they looked entirely different.

In her four years at Lane Tech, where her new friends were of Polish, Latino, Asian, and Jamaican descent, Johnson was invested in learning about the neighborhoods and cultures that mold Chicago into what it is. This continued into adulthood when she decided, in order to change the racist conversation surrounding Black neighborhoods and the stereotype of their being “war-torn” or using nicknames like “Chiraq,” to literally fold the map of Chicago.

On September 5, the New York Times published an article detailing the inequality in America by white Minneapolis-based photographer, Alec Soth, using many of the identical locations as Johnson. Soth posted a public apology on Instagram acknowledging Johnson’s project. Soth explained that the editors of the opinion section of the New York Times reached out to him and asked for a photo essay based on the segregation of neighborhoods in Chicago. Johnson contacted him and he ultimately said, “I apologize to Tonika Lewis Johnson and very much regret accepting this assignment.” He also mentioned that all income he receives from the New York Times will be donated to the Folded Map Project. The opinion editor has issued an edit that recognizes Johnson’s work and directs readers to her project.

Despite this apology, it’s a significant example of transgression and infringement of Black America and how white folks profit from the ideas, art, and culture of Black folks. Johnson told The Art Newspaper that it was her “wish and a goal” to have her work featured in the New York Times but now it’s “taken a real twist.”

Johnson’s work is a long-term research project looking at the city she lives in and visually exemplifying the institutional racism and segregation among the 77 neighborhoods. In her film, Johnson mentions how she wants to get at the heart of what brings people to a neighborhood, or what forces them into one. She asks the tough but simple questions: What can be done to combat systemic racism? How do economics and discrimination affect your life? Chicago’s segregation shouldn’t affect how we interact as a city, but it does. Johnson is seeking out the answers and asking others to help brainstorm solutions to the deeply rooted racism that impacts Chicago’s grid of neighborhoods.

“I played outside everyday. I rode my bike with my friends. I met my first friends in life,” recalls Johnson about her childhood growing up in Englewood. It’s an image far different than the one painted in news headlines. She says that you truly get to know Chicago’s neighborhoods through friendships and connections. And by connecting folks with the project, she hopes to open everyone’s eyes and hearts to an integrated Chicago. v

The Folded Map Project short film screens online Wednesday, September 16 as part of Racial Equality Week. Go to FoldedMapConversation.Eventbrite.com for details. The film will be available for purchase (suggested donation) and downloaded on the Folded Map Project website in 2021. The exhibition of images of “The Folded Map Project” are available on Johnson’s website.

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The Folded Map Project shows a segregated cityS. Nicole Laneon September 15, 2020 at 3:00 pm Read More »

We’re Gonna Die offers a poignant portrait of mortalityIrene Hsiaoon September 15, 2020 at 11:10 pm

There’s a video of Young Jean Lee performing her 2011 play We’re Gonna Die on Vimeo. It’s an exercise in minimalism and mortality: a single person with a mic backed up by a band–part stand-up, part rock concert, part TED talk, and part campfire confession–relaying a series of humiliating, horrifying, gory, and mundane incidents-in-the-life-of, and Lee is brilliant: eyes dry, voice wry, bangs on her face, feet on the ground, and a pocket full of tunes that worm their way into your ear. With the murmur of the crowd in the room, that video is a relic of a time and place we won’t reenter soon. Just before lockdown began, a production of We’re Gonna Die was playing off Broadway at the Second Stage Theater, one of the last houses to go dark in New York. And while sheltering in place, Theatre Y embarked upon making a film of the work, intentionally a piece by and for plague times.

Director Hector Alvarez read Lee’s play in February, at a funeral. “My wife’s grandmother passed away. She was 99, and, while very sad, it was not a surprise. We flew to Ohio for the memorial service,” he says. “On the way back, I read the play. The story deals with loneliness, rejection, decay, and death, but it was also a celebration of the small things in life. I felt strangely at peace and comforted by it.” The same weekend, his own grandmother in Spain was diagnosed with the virus.

“My mom tested positive. Then uncles and cousins. It spread like a wildfire.” With summer plans to direct a show coproduced with the contemporary dance company the Cambrians (“about extinction and the fragility of life”) facing likely cancellation, Alvarez proposed a film of Lee’s play as an alternative just two days before Chicago locked down.

“At the time, I was totally untouched by COVID,” says Theatre Y artistic director Melissa Lorraine. “I knew we were heading to feeling much closer to death than we did at that moment. Hector was ahead of us in terms of having it land. If it comforted him, it [stood] to reason that it may comfort others as we get further into this pandemic.”

Armed with Alvarez’s perspective on events in Europe and charged with an injunction by Lee that no one be exposed to sickness during the process, Theatre Y dove into creating remotely. “I invited Emily [Bragg, who plays the narrator] to live with us immediately,” says Lorraine. “I said, ‘Move into our living room. I just have the feeling we’re never coming out again, and if you don’t move into my house right now, we’re never going to be able to interact!”

The process of creating the film, which was shot on a professional camera as well as an iPhone, was dictated by the terms of isolation, with everyone working asynchronously to create a visual and sonic environment for a character, who was also developed in solitude over a series of assignments Alvarez designed. “I would share provocations with Emily,” he explains. “I would give her a couple of hours to create something and send it back to me. For example, I asked her to compile a list of 50 sounds that were comforting to her. I asked her to create tableaux or object arrangements for each of the stories”–elements that eventually made their way into the film.

The result is a peculiarly lonely and elliptical telling of Lee’s play, a set of images characterized by still life and time-lapse, occurring in the confines and cubbyholes of an interior packed with memorabilia that still manage to move. A curiosity shop of photographs, cards, candles, and tchotchkes tell the bulk of the story, and Bragg’s articulate body, when it intervenes into the action, almost seems to become another one of these objects. Never seen to speak, with her face always partially or entirely obscured, the sense of her absence and thus of all we miss of theater and each other is poignant and potently present.

“We were very keen to embrace the idea of the absent performer and the absent body,” says Alvarez. “That gave us the idea of using object theater as one of the languages.” The film references theatrical methods and devices throughout: “Emily is often wearing a mask. That’s a commentary on COVID and everyone wearing masks but also it’s hearkening back to the mask of theater! I was also inspired by a form of Japanese street theater called kamishibai, which means ‘paper play.’ Storytellers would set up a cardboard box proscenium on a street corner with painted boards, and they would narrate a story to children while changing the images. That is a technique we used in the film. When we become interlopers in a different medium, we honor the baggage we bring with us.”

Through Zoom meetings, Theatre Y kept several longtime collaborators close, including Kyle Gregory Price, whose cheery arrangements of the songs telescope Lee’s rock band aesthetic down to the intimacy of home.

Like live performance, Theatre Y’s production of We’re Gonna Die has a finite number of showings. And Lorraine insists that, despite their foray into film, including a series of Andras Visky shorts, as well as a film of his Juliet to be released this November, Theatre Y exists to create theater. “Some artists say, ‘I don’t do virtual. You’ll see me when we’re back in the flesh,'” notes Lorraine. “Is that acceptable, knowing we have a whole society starving for something right now? Can we innovate, or is that reducing the art form? Knowing how to take care of the form during this crisis is really hard.”

“Our task, our duty, is to be the frequency of the times and filter the turmoil and suffering and noise through your imagination and give something back to the world,” says Alvarez. “The crises we’re living through are morally asking artists to respond in some way.”

“I think it’s important to all of us that the work we make is life-giving,” says Lorraine. “I hope people feel companionship in the struggle. Artists are asked to make meaning”–(“while telling the truth,” interjects Alvarez)–“which is a tall order at this time.” v






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We’re Gonna Die offers a poignant portrait of mortalityIrene Hsiaoon September 15, 2020 at 11:10 pm Read More »

Noise-rock masters Uniform get even bigger, better, and darker on ShameLuca Cimarustion September 15, 2020 at 1:00 pm

I’ve spent a lot of Reader ink gushing about Uniform and the previous projects of their members. With the release of their new fourth full-length, Shame, the band’s sonic assault continues–and so does my adoration. Formed in 2014 as a wildly abrasive industrial-noise-rock-drone duo of vocalist Michael Berdan (formerly of unreal noisecore trio Drunkdriver) and guitarist Ben Greenberg (who’s played in Zs and Pygmy Shrews and engineered records by every good band coming out of NYC), Uniform have continually streamlined their sound, toying with Wax Trax! industrial, straightforward punk, and electronic synth swaths–sometimes all at once. On 2018’s The Long Walk, they added live drums to their previously all-electronic rhythm section, recording with experimental drummer Greg Fox (Liturgy, Guardian Alien). The result was driving, aggressive, blown-out noisy punk and metal–no frills, no bullshit. It was a perfect album, as far as I was concerned, and captured everything I needed from a weird, heavy band: sticky riffs, deranged vocals, and a grimy, gloomy atmosphere. Turns out Uniform had the capacity to improve on perfection. Fox has left, and longtime touring drummer Mike Sharp (an Austin scene mainstay who’s played with the Impalers, Bad Faith, and Hatred Surge) has stepped in, and his heavy hand anchors Shame’s creeping, pounding tracks. The album walks the line between organic and synthetic, mean and sad, pretty and terrifying, familiar and foreign. The songs are layered and textured, and they’re all delivered with brilliant, confrontational fury. Uniform have always stirred up a lot of emotions, and Shame makes you feel everything at once with uneasy, eerie clarity. It’s the band’s best work yet, a massive statement in darkness and a well-timed soundtrack for our frustratingly twisted age. v

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Noise-rock masters Uniform get even bigger, better, and darker on ShameLuca Cimarustion September 15, 2020 at 1:00 pm Read More »

Bill Callahan has a couple dad jokes for youBill Meyeron September 15, 2020 at 5:00 pm

In 2019 Bill Callahan broke a bout of writer’s block that had lasted more than five years with Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, a 20-song concept record about the satisfactions of family life. Gold Record, which arrives just 14 months later, sustains its predecessor’s sparse country-rock sound. And while it wastes no effort on trying to shape its ten songs into a cohesive statement, several tracks elaborate upon Shepherd’s themes. Having embraced fatherhood on Shepherd, Callahan now revels in daddishness by dispensing advice, telling jokes, and laying down rules. The limo-driving narrator of “Pigeons” preaches tolerance to a pair of newlyweds. “Ry Cooder” is an escalating tall tale about the titular guitarist’s slick licks and yoga skills. And on “Protest Song,” he upbraids a singer on late-night TV who is “messing with a man’s toys,” with the tone of a cranky pop who won’t let you touch the contents of his toolbox but sure will let you know if you don’t hold your hammer right. If Callahan is concerned about staying at the top of his game, he doesn’t show it. And the way he layers intimations of past and future losses into “The Mackenzies,” which describes a friendly encounter between an elderly couple and their agoraphobic neighbor, proves he has nothing to worry about. v

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Bill Callahan has a couple dad jokes for youBill Meyeron September 15, 2020 at 5:00 pm Read More »

Best Skyscrapers in Chicago, RankedAudrey Snyderon September 15, 2020 at 1:47 pm

There’s a lot about Chicago’s downtown area that sets it apart from other big U.S. cities: Millennium Park, the Lakeshore, fantastic museums— but one of its most distinctive features is its skyline. Each of the towering structures that make up this skyline are symbols of economic, architectural, and cultural growth in Chicago’s downtown, and while it’s difficult to play favorites, one can certainly try. Here are the best skyscrapers in Chicago, ranked:

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This Art Deco structure was completed in 1929 and was converted into a hotel in 2004. The design by the Burnham Brothers is supposedly said to resemble a champagne bottle with 24 karat gold foil atop the structure. A champagne bottle epitomizes the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, and contrasts (or is a big middle finger to) the Prohibition Era. Photo by: @drum679 ____________________________⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ .⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #architecture #architecturelover #architecturelovers #architecturephotography #architecturedesign #travelarchitectures #arquitectura #instravel #travel_captures #travellingthroughtheworld #travelanddestinations #travel_captures #photooftheday #wayupwednesday #waytallwednesday #lookingup_architecture #lookingupatbuildings #skyscraping_minimal #geometryclub #carbideandcarbonbuilding #likechicago

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#5: St. Jane Hotel (Carbide and Carbon Building)

This Art Deco structure was completed in 1929, and was designed by the Burnham Brothers (sons of Daniel Burnham, who oversaw the planning of the 1893 World’s Fair). Its façade is a study in luxury, comprising “polished black granite, green and gold terra cotta and gold leaf with bronze trim.” Astonishingly, its cap also features 24 karat gold.

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#4: Marina City

Conceived as a “city within a city” by architect Bertrand Goldberg, Marina City’s residential towers were, in 1967, “an urban experiment designed to draw middle-class Chicagoans back to the city after more than a decade of suburban migration.” The corncob-like structures were among the earliest residential mixed-use developments in Chicago, and are certainly still some of the most aesthetically distinct.

#3 Crain Communications Building

While not such a scraper-of-skies in the traditional sense (in height, it only ranks #61 in Chicago), the Crain Communications Building (also known as the Smurfit-Stone Building and the Stone Container Building) was designed by A. Epstein and Sons and completed in 1984. This building’s striking slanted roof creates an unusual diamond shape in the sky over Chicago.

#2: 875 N. Michigan Avenue (John Hancock Center)

With easily-recognizable X-bracing that “enables it to resist wind loads,” the design for the Hancock Center was conceived by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and its trussed tube system (specifically the brainchild of engineer Fazlur Khan) allowed buildings built afterward to exceed 100 stories. It also currently features an observation deck on the 94th floor, the views from which are unparalleled.

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#1: Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower)

Commissioned in 1969 and completed in 1974 to “consolidate current [Sears Roebuck and Company] staff and accommodate anticipated growth,” the 110-story building (another Skidmore, Owings & Merrill design) was the tallest in the world for nearly a quarter-century, established bundled tube construction for skyscrapers to follow, and has cut a unique silhouette into the Chicago skyline for almost 50 years.

At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.

Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!

Featured Image Credit: Chicago Skyline

 
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Best Skyscrapers in Chicago, RankedAudrey Snyderon September 15, 2020 at 1:47 pm Read More »

Wells Street Market Prepares to Shut Doors For Good This FridayBrian Lendinoon September 15, 2020 at 3:17 pm

As the downtown business district remains baron, another collection of restaurants is claimed by the COVID-19 pandemic as the Wells Street Market will officially close its doors on September 18th. This comes only two months after the food hall reopened its doors after the initial round of pandemic closures.

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The popular food hall was home to Jimmy Banos Piggie Smalls, Food Network Star Jeff Mauro’s sandwich oasis Pork & Mindy’s, Tempesta Market, Fry the Coop, the donut dons at Firecakes, and Grand Central Bar; among other things. It became a mainstay lunch destination for workers in the Loop prior to the pandemic because of it’s trendy atmosphere and variety of delicious options. On September 18th, it’ll officially close its doors to the public for good.

Or so they say. The owners behind Wells Street Market isn’t so quick to speak in absolutes quite yet. When speaking about the news the hinted at a possible return sometime in the distant future citing, “…when life goes back to some sense of normalcy [they may reopen again]…”

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Wells Street Market closing its doors in the first place is extremely unfortunate. When the hall reopened in July, it returned with a limited lineup of vendors — namely Firecakes, Fry the Coop, and the bar. It’s choice to return with brands with multiple establishments already in the city was coordinated in hopes that it would attract the few people who were still working downtown. News soon followed that Jimmy Bannos’ famous Piggie Smalls, as well as, Tempesta Market would be making its return in the second phase of vendor reintroduction.

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However, as the food hall closes down it poses the larger question of how communal dining establishments can survive longterm so long as health experts combat indoor dining. TimeOut Market reopened in August and has seen steady patronage but they have the luxury of expanded outdoor dining into Fulton Market Street. As the city’s guidelines change with the weather, the desolation of large scale food dining halls may become even more extreme.

Time Out Market Chicago

TimeOut Market Reopens in Fulton Market

Looking for a communal dining experience before the weather gets cold? Check out our info on the TimeOut Market reopening

View the TimeOut Chicago Reopening

As the market prepares to shut its doors for good, they are offering a slew of deals as sort of a close-out sale for its patrons. Until Friday, Grand Central Bar will be open from noon to 7 PM and will offer all-day drink specials and closeout deals on all unopened bottles of alcohol. On Friday, from 11 AM to 3 PM, Fry the Coop will treat all patrons to a free meal of one of their signature Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, fries, and a drink.

Wells Street Market follows Fulton Galley and Luttuce Entertain You’s Foodlife as similar closures of the past year. You can visit Wells Street Market from now until Friday at 205 W Wacker Drive #100 to support these local vendors as they prepare to shut doors on a downtown staple.

At UrbanMatter, U Matter. And we think this matters.

Tell us what you think matters in your neighborhood and what we should write about next in the comments below!

Featured Image Credit: Wells Street Market Facebook

 
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Wells Street Market Prepares to Shut Doors For Good This FridayBrian Lendinoon September 15, 2020 at 3:17 pm Read More »

Chicago Bears: Mitchell Trubisky leads Week 1 hot takesRyan Heckmanon September 15, 2020 at 11:00 am

Chicago Bears (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Chicago Bears (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
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Chicago Bears, Jaylon Johnson

Chicago Bears (Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images)

Following a wild Week 1, Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky leads a list of hot takes from a last-minute win over the Detroit Lions.

What a Week 1 for the Chicago Bears. Fans had to wait nine months (which seemed like nine years) for one heck of a finish — and it was worth it.

These Bears did a great job disguising themselves as just another disappointing bunch of players in just another disappointing season opener for about three quarters, and then something incredible happened.

Starting quarterback Mitchell Trubisky went from absolutely putrid through three quarters to a shocking bolt of electricity through the Bears’ veins in the fourth and final quarter. Chicago was dead in the water, down 23-6 entering the fourth quarter.

To take it a bit further, the Bears were down 10 points with just under three minutes to go. However, Trubisky pulled it together and made magic happen.

In the fourth quarter, the Chicago Bears passer went 8-of-10 for 89 yards, three touchdowns and a 20-yard rush.

With that said, here it is. Hot take number one: Mitchell Trubisky turned the corner in that fourth quarter.

Turned the corner as in he’s now on his way to becoming the Bears’ franchise quarterback? Let’s not go too far. But, turned the corner as in he found his confidence once again? Absolutely. We haven’t seen that kind of play out of Trubisky in a long, long time.

The kid who uses his feet on occasion to pick up extra yardage or roll out of the pocket and make a play with his arm — that’s who we saw in the fourth quarter on Sunday. Trubisky came alive when it mattered most, and whether or not this take ends up being accurate is yet to be seen. But, early in the season, Trubisky turned the corner.

He’s back.

Next: Hot Take No. 2

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Chicago Bears: Mitchell Trubisky leads Week 1 hot takesRyan Heckmanon September 15, 2020 at 11:00 am Read More »