Normally, by 11 a.m. on the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day, the streets in Beverly are usually teeming with people for the annual South Side Irish parade. But last year, the decision was made to discontinue the parade and it was transformed into a 10-day festival. Still, thousands of people pledged on the internet to “show up to the Southside Irish Parade anyway.' But very few followed through on that virtual promise. more ›

Residents of the Beverly and Morgan Park may have thought they had a reprieve from massive crowds descending to their neighborhood on March 14th, but some people refuse to let the South Side Irish Parade die. Apparently, the 10 day festival and “South Side Irish Parade Family Fest” the former parade planning committee put together isn’t enough for some enthusiasts. With that in mind, the Sun Times reports that one Evergreen Park resident started a Facebook event called “I say we show up at the Southside Irish Parade Anyways.” more ›

We all remember the controversy over the South Side Irish Parade that occurred after this year's event grew unwieldy to organizers who canceled the parade. All sorts of ideas where suggested, including moving the parade to the suburbs. Now, the planning committee is bringing the celebration back, albeit in a slightly altered, longer form. In lieu of a parade will be a 10-day festival which will encompass many Irish-themed events and one large fest day in place of the traditional parade. According to the Sun-Times: more ›

A new study led by a UIC researcher - performed in conjunction with the University of Michigan - shows that "racial residential segregation in the Chicago area may be perpetuated by a lack of knowledge of communities across racial lines." In 2005, researchers surveyed more than 700 adults 21 years of age and older living in Cook County, Illinois to examine how whites, blacks and Latinos differ in awareness of neighborhoods in Chicago and surrounding areas. Respondents in the study were asked to look at a map which highlighted 41 communities located in and around the city and mark any area they didn’t know anything about. The researchers called these areas community blind spots. The 41 areas represented a variety of communities in and outside the city - from communities with expensive housing to those with moderately priced housing, and from communities that are racially segregated to those that are integrated. Regardless of the variety and types of communities represented, the blind spot communities were very different along racial lines. more ›

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, a day to show appreciation for the strong women in your life. And one way of showing that appreciation is the 10th Annual Beverly Breast Cancer Walk in Beverly Hills and Morgan Park. Per the Southtown Star: more ›

We were grabbing a granola bar from the Walgreens by our office this morning and came across these amazing treats. It was then we realized that we've been so caught up in the Leap Year excitement that we nearly forgot that it's time to get excited about St. Patrick's Day. While most of our non-Irish friends celebrate this time of year by getting drunk on green beer and acting like idiots, we like to think we actually do pay proper respect to our Irish ancestors by cooking up a nice Irish stew and flipping through our family tree notes. Of course, our great, great, great grandfather was an Irish moonshiner (true story!) so there is some overlap. more ›

More fascinated by Kelis' milkshake than Daniel Plainview's? Is the only Oscar you'll watch living in a garbage can? Then this Sunday probably means nothing to you. You're burnt out on the "glitz" and "glamor" of the night, not to mention the drama surrounding that writers strike. more ›

more ›

Here are some things going around town to make you consider giving the weather a big ol' raspberry. more ›

On a weekend where gratefulness is foremost on our minds, it’s unfortunate that crime keeps moving forward. We’ll lead off with one story for which we can be thankful is not all bad news:Remember Nicolas Orbovich, the concert violist whose 1892 instrument worth $100,000 was stolen from the back seat of his unlocked car in a Michigan City, Indiana, Wal-Mart parking lot? It’s been found, with the help of Lake Station, Indiana, pawn shop, Orbovich’s... more ›

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the... more ›

The cover story to today's Sun-Times food section deals with inexpensive substitutes for fancy kitchen tools that you can find at the hardware store, which is something we've been down with since we started using the kitchen for more than beer-pong and a mechanic's station for bike repair. We typically use paint brushes to marinade roasts and meats, to butter pastries and to clean out the coffee grinder. We also have a mini-propane torch for making creme brulee and meringues and have been known on occasion to use a rubber mallet as a meat tenderizer when our standard one just isn't enough. more ›

We hope some of you got a chance to go to something at the Chicago Book Festival last week, but if not, here’s your chance. Our take on the second week: Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s senior legal analyst, discusses and signs his newest book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, and maybe adds a few pointers for broke Chicagoists. Monday, Oct. 8, 6 p.m., Harold Washington Library, 400 S. State St., Cindy... more ›

A few days ago we unwittingly created a monster when we expressed our frustration about having to wait to see the schedule for this year's Chicago International Film Festival, which runs October 4-17. Well, we finally have a copy of said schedule in our hot little hands. What follows is a very brief, cursory summary of what you can expect this year (the full schedule will be online within the next few days). Regardless of... more ›

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market... more ›

There was very little else for Londonist to be concerned with when the threat of a Tube strike became a very unpleasant reality. The inconvenience was extreme: there aren't many alternatives to the Tube in London despite the best efforts of the Londonist team to get everyone from A to B. Brighter news came in the form of the first ever female Yeoman Warder, or Beefeater as the position is more commonly known, and... more ›

Thanks largely to the ubiquity of the Food Network, everyone dabbles a bit in gourmet these days. Even bars that one would think should only cater in standard pub grub are going out of their way and dressing up their burgers with buns and sides our grandparents wouldn't dream of when they were our age. We're not knocking it, mind you. We're just saying that sometimes we just want a burger to just be a burger. more ›

Chicagoist isn't usually one to play the ponies, but then it's not every day that the horse racing world is focused on Chicago. On Saturday, Arlington Park will host the 25th Arlington Million, the largest annual stakes race in Illinois. Among the field is last year's winner, Tin Man, with 3-1 odds. The nine-year-old is looking to defend his title against this year's favorite, After Market. The favorite at 2-1 odds, After Market is trained... more ›

Monday morning can usually suck it, but this morning we woke up to discover something that made it all seem OK; the next season of "Top Chef" will be filmed in Chicago! more ›

One of the reasons we feel fortunate living on the south side is when we want to visit a nearby neighborhood, we can do so with relative ease via bicycle. We're a couple minutes away from Pilsen. Bronzeville is a few pedals from the house. Hyde Park is a quick ten minutes via the lakefront bike path. We've even found great West Indian cooking in Englewood en route to Beverly via Damen Avenue and... more ›

The major stories this week are the opening of Crust, the continuing saga of David Hammond, bug eater, and how — if Hammond decides to head to Beverly in the near future — he might have a Tippi Hedren moment fighting with the seagulls who've been dining al fresco on cicadas. There are still plenty of events happening in the next seven days. Here are a few of note. - This weekend would be a... more ›

Nike opened up a store on the South Side and people in the neighborhood are hoping others will too. Motorola is cutting 4,000 more jobs. 27 students died violent deaths this school year. What's grosser than gross? A former nurse's aide was sentenced for raping and impregnating a disabled nursing home resident who couldn't walk, talk or feed herself. He said he did it because he was bored. Tank Johnson binged on junk food... more ›

Vegetarian Hot Dogs? more ›

Yawn. That’s our initial response to the free music at the Taste of Chicago this year. We know not every concert should cater to us alone, but should we suffer because of the need to cater to the balding, khaki-wearer’s bland taste in music? Thanks, XRT, for taking this to a new level of disinterest. Who’s having the BBQ? That’s where we’ll be instead of Grant Park. The Taste of Chicago has released the Fourth... more ›

Our spring rush has netted a fresh new class of pledges for our interview beat: Keidra Chaney, a self-described pop-culture nut, joins us from Lincoln Square, by way of Englewood, West Pullman, and Wisconsin. When she's not interviewing people like the folks at the A+D Gallery for Chicagoist, she works at DePaul, and she freelances for magazines like Venus Zine, Bitch, Friction, and Colorlines. Karl Klockars is also a Chicagoland native, growing up in the... more ›

The death of storytelling has been predicted at least since the dawn of the Industrial Age. And in 1936, philosopher Walter Benjamin declared, "the art of storytelling is reaching its end." It's nonsense, of course; even if storytelling itself has taken on some "new" forms, it's still as prevalent as ever, perhaps even more so with the rise of the blogosphere and the millions of people unfurling their own personal narratives. more ›

There isn't much more we can say about the South Side Irish parade, which rolls out en masse along South Western this Sunday. We know that for some of you it'll be your first — and possibly only — time heading out south to Beverly. We just want to assure you that you needn't be afraid. A dollar is still a dollar, Miller Lite dyed green is still Miller Lite, and there will be more... more ›

Because of the weather it's a little hard for it sink in: spring is coming. And with spring (for us, anyway) comes an overwhelming wanderlust, not just the desire to get out of our coats and gloves but also to see somewhere new. While you could be a bachelor in Paris or take a romantic snorkel for two someplace, you could just as easily stay in town and still see 24 countries that span Europe.... more ›

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... more ›