If the North Shore suburbs are so great, why did a national study note that their beaches are so bad? Find out where to swim over the holiday weekend. more ›

According to a message on the Chicago Park District's website, there is a swim advisory in effect today for the following Chicago beaches: Calumet, Rainbow, South Shore, 63rd Street, 12th Street, Oak Street, Montrose, Foster, Hartigan, and Jarvis. Yesterday, swimming wasn't allowed at 31st Street, Oak Street, North Avenue, Hollywood, and Leone beaches; however the ban has been lifted as of today. All other beaches are open for swimming from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., as long as the weather permits. [Chicago Sun-Times]. more ›

After last weekend's heat, this week has been mild, almost downright cool, but still sunny and pleasant. And the warm, sunny weather is going to hold through most of the holiday weekend, ensuring plenty of opportunities to get outside and grill, drink, and do all other sorts of American activities. Highs will creep past 80 today under sunny skies and we'll see similar conditions tomorrow as highs will reach the upper 80s. The humidity will surge this weekend, as well, and that'll make things nice and sweaty, especially Sunday as highs will reach 90. While still muggy, temps won't be as warm on Monday, in the mid-to-low 80s, but the day off for many will also hold the best chance of rain over the weekend, which, let's be honest, is perfect for napping on the couch and sleeping off that patriotic hangover. Speaking of which, be safe with booze and fireworks, kids, and designate a driver because it's 1) the right thing to do and 2) the DUI checkpoints will be out in force. more ›

Even though the city wants more liquor served and sold near the beach, Chicago police are stepping up security and targeting illegal drinking along the city’s lakefront. In the wake of increased violence at some city beaches, police have begun random searches of bags and coolers and installed more security cameras. Ald. Vi Daley (43rd Ward) told the Tribune the random bag searches wouldn’t be permanent, but was hopeful they would help curb incidents such as the large party broken up by police that Mayor Daley blamed on suburban youth and text messaging. more ›

Have a safe and happy holiday weekend and check back as we'll still be here updating all weekend. more ›

The City Council's License Committee advanced the Park District's request to more than double the number of liquor licenses on the lakefront yesterday, approving 14 new locations along Lake Michigan. "The Chicago Park District is not at all interested in creating a tavern, packaged goods or any sort of beer garden environment anywhere on its property, and consumption of alcohol is intended to be limited to the footprint of the premises as provided for in the liquor license application as submitted by each individual applicant," Timothy King, the park district's director of intergovernmental affairs told the Tribune. more ›

We've been living with this impending reality for almost a year, but the Chicago Park District has announced that more parking meters are finally being installed along the lakefront beaches just in time for beach season. Eight locations have actually had paid parking since last fall (around 1,500 of 4,400 available parking spaces are pay), but the Park District is expanding the coverage of lots covered by meters. Here's the instructional video they produced last fall ahead of those first round of meters. more ›

For those who want to celebrate the first day of summer with a dip in Lake Michigan, good news: Chicago beaches have been re-opened for swimming. However, Oak Street and Montrose beaches have swim advisories. Low to moderate traces of E. coli bacteria were found in the water near those beaches. The Chicago Park District has more information on how to enjoy the lakefront during the 2009 beach season. [Trib] more ›

Here's betting we're not the first nor last with that headline, but either way, surfing could be coming to five Chicago beaches soon, so sayeth the Sun-Times. A group of surfers has finally gotten their way and the Chicago Park District may just oblige them by opening up to five city beaches for the purposes of surfing. more ›

The city will be issuing $500 tickets to people caught smoking on public beaches, so get your puffs in before you head to the lake. Chicago Park District superintendent Tim Mitchell says "people have been using North Avenue Beach as an ashtray. By leaving cigarette butts on the beach, that adds to the pollution of the lake, and that's our greatest natural resource." According to the Trib, 1.7 billion pounds of cigarette litter accumulate on the planet every year. [Trib, previously]
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One Adrian Peterson ran for 78 yards on 20 carries while scoring two touchdowns. The other Adrian Peterson ran for 26 on 9 carries. You can probably guess which AP belongs to the Bears. more ›

The smoking ban isn't just for bars anymore (well ... yet): The Chicago Park District wants to ban smoking on beaches and in playgrounds, too. And it looks like the plan will be approved by Wednesday, so run over to the playground and start puffing while you still can. The ban isn't just about keeping second-hand smoke away from the kiddies: It's environmental, too. Apparently you can collect 10,000 cigarette butts an hour cleaning up... more ›

Chicagoist is a big cheerleader for the city, but there are some things that even we have a hard time getting excited about. Swimming in Lake Michigan or jumping into the Chicago River are two of them. Maybe it is the dumping. Or maybe it is (jump in the way-back machine, for a second with us) Dave Matthews Band. Or maybe it is the knowledge that every summer, the beaches are closed several times... more ›

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You may not realize it, but the Great Lakes Watershed is not only the source of all of our fresh drinking water, but it's also a political entity, protected by a group of US States and Canadian Provinces. Under the Water Resources Development Act, diversion of water from the Great Lakes basin requires the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors, something that rarely occurs. This act, and it's ramifications, has been a point of... more ›

It's summer in Chicago, so it's not rare to leave your house on a weekend and find yourself in a sea of tourists from the suburbs and beyond. With all of the street festivals, the clean (looking) beaches and all the other jazz, we really can't blame anyone who'd want to come to the city for a few days. We just didn't realize there were 44 million of them. more ›

One of the things we like the most about Chicago is that when the weather agrees, this city behaves much like a resort town. You can walk, jog, ride a bike, rollerblade, or skateboard along a massive lakefront to any number of beaches. And when you arrive at the beach of your choice, you can hang out for the afternoon, drinking, eating, and more drinking like there isn’t a care in the world. We stopped... more ›

All right, people. It's the moment you've been waiting for: as of Friday, the beaches are now open. Glee! Last one to dive headfirst into Lake Michigan is a piece of raw sewage ... much like Lake Michigan itself. Ah, but we poke fun at that body of water of ours. To be honest, the city is putting a pilot program into effect this bathing season in order to help out with that pesky E.... more ›

We know that you don't have anything better to do than run around town looking for a teal bird, so get out there (you have until March 3). Just remember who gave you the idea when you're handing out those free flights. more ›

Chicago is a city full of iconic imagery. From its skyline and architecture, to its beaches and boulevards, to its trains and neighborhoods, take one look at any of those and you know that you're looking at home. The Maxwell Street Market once deserved to be listed among all those other landmarks. These days, Maxwell Street itself is unrecognizable. All traces of its open market glory were buried long ago by urban planning and the... more ›

The Chicago Yacht Club's 98th annual Race to Mackinac kicks off this Saturday, as about 300 boats set sail up Lake Michigan to Mackinac Island, Michigan. The longest freshwater sailing race in the world, the Chicago - Mackinac Island course covers 333 miles. more ›

For this week's installment of "Cheap Eats", Chicagoist revisited the treasure trove of restaurants in and around Harper Court Shopping Center, in Hyde Park. This time around, we stayed along 53rd Street and visited a neighborhood favorite. more ›

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it a few more times, just for fun? For example, SFist is sure the San Francisco Chronicle wishes they could blame server problems for this error. But this San Francisco man that appeared on "The Daily Show" is, sadly, no glitch in the system. It's going to take more than server problems to get Torontoist into hot pants -- and if the short short post wasn't enough to cause us some server problems of our own, how about those eye gazing parties? It's enough to make them contemplate joining the EU. Our friends at Phillyist are having server problems in places where the sun don't shine, caused perhaps by the great Thai food they ate last week. Well, when you're having server problems of the stinky kind, perhaps it's for the best that you stick to phone sex. We thought about asking Gothamist if this building collapse had our server inside it (thus explaining the server problems, you see) , but then we found out the collapse was part of marriage gone wrong. New York's new lacrosse team needs a name, might we recommend "The Server Problems"? Screw lacrosse, we're playing bocce. Or maybe we'll forgo the sports all together and hit Movable Hype 9.0. But how will we get there when server, we mean, traffic problems go unchecked? Over at Miamist, they debate the benefits of server problem-free Starbucks, over local joints. They also look into crashes of a nonserver problem nature, and a court TV show shot on their beaches. It's no server problem when Austinist's local boys The Mercers get love from Esquire. MySpace is also no stranger to server problems but that's not what has Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott pissed at them. Greg, have a crack cookie. Seattlest found a great way around the server problems, as they took it live with their inaugural trivia night. Perhaps author and radio personality John Moe will be an answer at next week's competition? But if you drive there, better not piss off Keith Gormezano, or server problems like you never imagined might rain down on your poor little car. Bostonist would like to send some some server problems toward rejoicing gay marriage opponents. Sigh. Bostonist seems pretty good at bartering, so maybe they can trade some of those anti-marriage busybodies for some problem-free servers. How we regret the server problems in the language section of our brain that keep us from learning Portuguese! We'd love to read Sampaist, but will have to settle for the visual. This week we see "an advertisement from 1974 talking about the inauguration of the subway in São Paulo (also know as SP). The funny thing about this video is that it is totally nonsense. They mixed the subway with a carnival parade and a party inside the subway car." Our pals down south also posted this music
video released by the band Cansei de Ser Sexy. Scroll down for the English portion of this post. Houstonist refuses to butter up nemesis Ken Lay, who had his official send off to that server problem down below last week. (Jesus wept.) Shanghaiist causes us the enviable server problem of "too many awesome social options", as they rock our world with , and encourage us to fag hag it up. Then there's DJ Jazzy Jeff to see. Whatever we do in Shanghaii, we're bringing this guy. But not her. more ›

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City to local dogs: Time to shut up, unless of course you’re scaring away seagulls – then bark away. more ›

You may have noticed that it rained literally all day yesterday, which just means one more example of the weather not cooperating in Chicago on a holiday. more ›

Reader's Digest thinks Chicago is the dirtiest big city in America, but Mayor Daley says that's a load of horseshit. You might have seen the RD ranking yesterday - Chicago came out on the bottom of the list when ranked on air pollution, water pollution, toxic emissions, hazardous waste and the number of sanitation workers per capita. Even New York City was ranked cleaner than us. Which is so strange because all we ever hear is that Chicago is like New York, but cleaner! more ›

Anyone that's lived through a summer in Chicago knows that, from time to time, choice lakefront beaches may be temporarily closed due to high levels of E. Coli in the water. Yeah, it's gross, but you deal with it and just look forward to going back to the beach (like Frankie and Annette) when things settle down... but who knew that the sand at the beach can be just as toxic as the water? Researchers... more ›

Chicagoist's little desktop WeatherBug is currently showing a temperature of 59 degrees, along with a little cloud and tiny, menacing lightning bolt. Those conditions fall well outside the parameters of what we consider ideal swimming weather, but we're still excited that the Chicago Park District's stellar collection of lakefront beaches officially opens today. more ›

Illinois wants it some gay money. Hoping to show the world that Chicago is gay friendly and to grab a slice of the $54 billion gays and lesbians spend on travel yearly, the Illinois Bureau of Tourism will step up efforts to target gay and lesbian travelers. more ›