Chicago magazine

IF YOU READ HIS RECENT POSTS ABOUT riding the city’s longest bus route and walking the full length of Belmont Avenue, or if you have been following his quest to visit all 77 of Chicago’s community areas, you know that contributing editor Edward Robert McClelland is a curious guy. “I want to know as much about Chicago and every part of it that I can,” says McClelland, who, in addition to writing regularly for our website, shepherds the 312 section in print. That kind of zest for learning is what drove him into journalism in the first place. And it makes him the perfect person to handle our new column, City of Big Questions (page 10). Each issue, McClelland will pick an intriguing question, big or small, about the Chicago area,…

THERE ARE PLENTY OF FRESH ADDITIONS to the city’s dining roster, but critic John Kessler deemed less than a dozen of them — 11, to be exact — worthy of inclusion in “Best New Restaurants” (page 50). He started by scouting noteworthy spots and those recommended by friends and fellow critics, but for the final cut and ranking, he relied on his own dining experience. “People are going to look at my list and think there are some really obvious omissions,” Kessler says. “But a lot of times, I tried twice and couldn’t in good faith recommend a place because of the way the food came together or because the service was so bad.” As difficult as it was to cull the list, Obélix was an easy choice at the…

What happens when you combine revolutionary software advancements in AI with revolutionary hardware advancements such as exascale computers that are a trillion times faster? I don’t know. But I know society is not ready. U.S. representative Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) via Twitter SETTING THE BAR Nine Bar getting the No. 1 spot is well deserved [“Best New Bars,” February]. But it’s also probably the only new bar I’ve been to in years. @jennypfafflin via Twitter I just may have to take up drinking again. Chris LaMorte via LinkedIn What classifies as new? Easy Does It has been a wonderful pandemic outdoor option since it opened in August 2020. @ArchiJake via Twitter THEY SAW THE (HAND-PAINTED) SIGNS This is a great story [“The Art of Oxtails ($4.99 a Pound),” February], but it’s just begging for more photos. I want to see the…

Q: Why is Chicago mail postmarked “Carol Stream” and “South Suburban”? I have a box full of old letters, mostly from the 1990s—the last decade when people wrote letters. One envelope from 1993 is postmarked “Chicago, IL 606.” You won’t see that anymore, though, thanks to the centralization of mail processing. In the old days, postal substations canceled their own mail, says Charles Berg, owner of Stamp King in Norwood Park. “As the post office has automated more, they resorted to using more sophisticated machinery,” Berg says. “Small stations can’t operate that way.” The Chicago postmark disappeared altogether in 2012, when the processing center at 433 West Harrison Street stopped canceling mail and that function was centralized in Carol Stream and Bedford Park. Drop your mail at a North Side station, and it…

1 On April 4, Chicago will have its third straight mayoral runoff. In three elections after the nonpartisan system was introduced in 1999, Richard M. Daley never had a runoff, winning with more than 70 percent every time. 2 Shaved head. Teashop. Cats. Billy Corgan’s divo image will be complete April 21 with the release of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 43-song box set Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts. (That’s pronounced “autumn.”) 3 The Bears will likely trade their No. 1 pick in the NFL draft April 27–29. Their previous top picks were cursed: 1941’s Tom Harmon refused to sign, and 1947’s Bob Fenimore played just 10 games due to injuries. 4 Tom Skilling, the weatherman who appeared in The Weather Man, receives the Order of Lincoln, Illinois’s highest honor, April 29. Skilling…

GILLMAN’S ACE HARDWARE, ON MILWAUKEE AVENUE IN LOGAN SQUARE, WAS A relic of an older Chicago. Opened in 1948, when the neighborhood was primarily Polish, Jewish, and German, Gillman’s sold hammers, nails, keys, and caulk for generations, thriving through the influx of Latinos, then “artists and tech people,” as owner Alan Gillman, whose father and uncle founded the business, puts it. A hand-lettered sign read “Asile #3: Light Fixtures, Fuses, Brakers, Screws.” Despite the misspellings, Gillman kept the sign up. It gave the store character. Gillman’s closed over the winter, unable, its owner says, to survive an innovation of a newer Chicago: protected bike lanes. In October 2020, the city installed plastic bollards in front of the shop, which is on a section of Milwaukee designated by the Chicago Department of…