One of Chicago's newest aldermen, Bob Fioretti (2nd) is taking heat from one of the city's older hotels. The 14-story Congress Plaza Hotel, designed and built to accommodate visitors to the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, has been embroiled in a strike with UNITE HERE Local 1 since June 2003. According to Crain's Chicago Business, the hotel, owned by Albert Nasser Shayo, a Syrian globe-trotting businessman with residences in New York, Argentina, and Switzerland, who......

This weekend we thought we would get you in that holiday spirit with some Christmas parties and shopping. With all that family and travel next weekend, this is really your last weekend of the year to let loose. As always, feel free to leave information on other events around the city in the comments section. This weekend is the holiday bazaar at Country Club Chicago, 1100 N. Damen. The bazaar is from noon - 6......

Because Chicagoist is tired this morning, and because despite what some people think, we can't get up every single morning and just magically bring the funny, we're going to piggyback off this Sun-Times piece about Chicago's "scariest" places so we can whore for comments. We'll give this the old college try and make a brief stab at trying to disguise it as media criticism anyway, because the piece is really no less lazy than what......

This weekend, a hip-hop journalism summit meets here in the city to make renewed calls for substance over style with the theme of “Protecting the Future of Minority Media.” The summit will be held at the Congress Plaza Hotel (watch out for the picketers!) from September 15th through the 18th. It’s part of the Black Press Awards, which include sessions on the “gospel media explosion” and “media management.” During a weekend luncheon, the Historical Black......