Category: City Life

I learned how to administer naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversal medication, through the Chicago Recovery Alliance. In 2019, a family member had recently relapsed: though his drug wasn’t dope, that experience made me want to learn more about this miracle med I’d heard of. Most of the attendees were medical workers, but some were just ordinary […]

In the history of human existence, there occasionally is someone who becomes so famous for excelling at what they do that they only need one name: Buddha. Beyoncé. Sylvia.  Sylvia Hibbard is a case manager for the street medicine organization The Night Ministry. I’ve heard her name uttered with respect from what feels like pretty […]

Nothing. Do absolutely nothing. Don’t take a picture of someone at their most vulnerable. Don’t post it online for the world to see. Don’t tag the CTA in a post of faux-compassion that reveals your panic and discomfort at having to share a public space with someone who is desperately poor. Don’t be a snitch. […]

I finally got COVID-19 in December, first testing positive on the 16th. For Christmas my family was gathering at my parents’ home in Texas—my brother, his wife, and my precociously deranged seven-year-old niece were traveling from New York. I had one chance all year to see everybody together, and suddenly it looked like I’d miss […]

From January 3 to 5 this year, the freshly unionized members of Howard Brown Health Workers United (HBHWU) staged day-long strikes at seven different Howard Brown clinic locations in the city. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an excess of government funds that LGBTQ+ -focused health system could access, but as those […]

The TRiiBE, aka Chicago’s premier Black digital news platform dedicated to changing the narrative of Black Chicago, had a running start in 2017 and has not slowed down since. The TRiiBE was founded by Morgan Elise Johnson, who made the Forbes 30 Under 30 media list in 2019, and Tiffany Walden, selected in Poynter’s 2018 […]

Looking for a short answer to the question of why Chicago needs to save, say, the shuttered, circa 1920 Continental Can Company building at 3815 S. Ashland? Or that ordinary little old yellow brick warehouse at 206 S. Jefferson? Stumped about why anyone should have to be worried about something as recently built as 1965’s […]

Chicago Community Jail Support is one of many vital mutual-aid groups that sprung up following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, as local protests against racism and police brutality resulted in mass arrests of demonstrators. The all-volunteer effort aims to support anyone being released from Cook County Jail, the majority of whom are discharged with […]

I was introduced to Ann Sather Restaurant around the time that alderperson Tom Tunney bought it from the actual Ann Sather, which, according to the restaurant website, was in 1981. Tunney—who’s retiring from the City Council this year—wasn’t yet an alderperson then, and the restaurant was a few storefronts further west on Belmont, in what […]

Even high-powered executives sometimes need a midday siesta to power through the day. Yet, dropping one’s head on a desk can leave one cramped and even more tired, while companies that provide cots can find themselves in PR trouble (think Twitter and Elon Musk). So what is a person to do when in need of […]

For our Best of Chicago 2019 issue, I wrote about meeting someone in my south-side neighborhood who had grown up outside of the Chicago stockyards, and had memories of a cow that escaped the corral and was chased south on Racine Street by a stockyard worker on horseback. I’ve since heard from several neighbors and […]

According to legend, fairy doors are portals to the world of fairies—but I’d argue they’re also gateways to the imagination. I came across one located in an alley near Clark and Foster this summer and I was immediately charmed by this diminutive doorway. At first, my journalist’s instinct kicked in: who made this and why? […]