The crowd at Bernice's Tavern was separated into smaller groups. They were huddled together, studying a board containing ten photographs of church steeples and facades. The goal was to correctly identify each church from a corresponding list at the side of the board. We were with fellow Chicagoist-o Kevin Robinson and his significant other, who were of little help in this round, since these churches were all located in Bridgeport. As much as we walk......

More news today about the state's case against Reginald Potts, and the evidence is really piling up. Potts was charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend Nailah Franklin over the weekend and on Monday was denied bail. According to Assistant State's Attorney Bob Milan, Potts left a voicemail for Franklin saying he could have her "erased" after Franklin sent an e-mail to some of her friends detailing Potts's criminal past. (According to Potts's blog entry on his......

Where Can I Go Sledding?...

With the ongoing and impending budget crisis at CTA on the brink of exploding, it nearly slipped our minds that the full Dan Ryan expressway re-opened for business, after nearly two years of construction. The project was completed ahead of schedule, but the cost of the project nearly doubled (it is the Chicago Way, after all). The project added an extra local lane between 47th and 67th Streets, and an additional lane each way from......

Anyone know the artist behind this work? Ian's dying to know, and frankly, so are we. Crain's is reporting today that Apple, Puma, Zara, J. Crew and Coach are all in talks to set up shop in the Block 37 project. File under: Things We Will Believe When We See Them. Also, we cannot hear "Block 37" without thinking "Block. Thirty. Seven. Starbucks." Alleged dirty cop Jerome Finnigan waived his hearing today, which means......

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......

Please be careful, ladies. A woman at Northwestern University was assaulted and raped on her way into her apartment late Tuesday night. Chicago's got CHiPs on the Dan Ryan! The Field Museum is helping to build the Encyclopedia of Life. University of Chicago students started on a multi-state scavenger hunt this morning. Fun! "tower, sunset" by abmarfia......

This Week's Theme: Rise and Fall Fred Solomon Would Agree, Because He Likes Fire: We noticed that Kohan, the teppen grill and sushi bar on Maxwell Street, is expanding. They recently bought an empty space next to their current location and will be building it out. We also hear that once the expansion is complete, they'll focus more on the teppen grill side of the menu, including tableside teppen service. Chicagoist is pleased by this,......

Bridgeport, like many neighborhoods around the city, has a glut of Mexican restaurants with varying quality. So when we noticed on a cab ride home one night that Carbón (300 W. 26th St., 312-225-3200, open 11 a.m. – 10 p.m., 7 days a week), a “live fire” Mexican grill, had recently opened in a vacant-for-years storefront mere steps away from neighborhood mainstay Ricobene’s, we were skeptical. Carbón serves fire-grilled tacos and burritos, veering away......

One firefighter is dead, and 3 others were injured this morning when a fire truck collided with a school bus. The fire truck was traveling westbound on 59th street with its sirens and lights on. The school bus was traveling southbound and could not stop in time. Eyewitnesses say that the truck attempted to swerve but hit the bus and flipped onto its right side. As far as positives go, the only person on......

As March comes roaring in like a lion, our fearless leaders here in town and downstate have been doing some roaring of their own. Let's take a look back at some of the more noteworthy events thus far: Illinois' crappy reputation with elections is yielding news calls for an audit. State rep Mike Boland (D - Moline) has introduced an amendment to the election code requiring an election-night audit in each precinct in Illinois instead......

Metra still can't pay the bills. Bonus time to party on the Dan Ryan local lanes! Prince Charles hates McDonald's. Perhaps he would change his mind if he had a smoothie? Bobby Jenks, hulking pile of muscle that he is, tweaked his shoulder in spring training. So long, Burt. We'll have to find new reasons to use this picture. Lollapalooza 2007 = Pearl Jam. A con man scammed some women out of $1 million......

How 'bout that weather, Chicago? OK, we'll shut up now. A armed 19-year-old man holed himself up in his mother's apartment overnight with four hostages, but let them go without incident Sunday morning. Police responded to reports of a man with a gun at a four-unit building in the South Shore neighborhood around 1 a.m. The man in question gained access to his mother's place and locked himself in with three of his siblings, two......

The Illinois Department of Transportation is still sticking to completion date for the Dan Ryan reconstruction project. Resuming heavy work on the project, the department has indicated that the ramp from the Skyway to the Dan Ryan local lanes will be closed until June. For those that can't take an alternate route, it's a little confusing. All Skyway traffic will be directed into the express lanes. If you normally exit at 59th Street, Garfield Boulevard,......

Didn't someone yesterday just say it's a good thing Papa Daley never built the fabled Crosstown Expressway? Well, Mike Madigan must have been reading, and he disagrees. The Illinois House Speaker brought up the idea again yesterday to the surprise of many, including Governor Rod. Madigan's version of the Crosstown Expressway would be a toll road running from the Kennedy/Edens junction in the north, along Cicero Avenue to 75th Street, then cutting east to the......

The good news: Metra posted a single-year ridership record with approximately 80 million passengers. This was partly due to construction on the Dan Ryan, expanded rail service, and high gas prices. Amtrak also rang in with a 69 percent increase on expanded routes between Chicago and St. Louis, Carbondale and Quincy. The Chicago-to-St. Louis line showed a 95 percent increase in riders for last quarter over the same period last year. The news: The Regional......

What's With the Highway Names?...

One provision of President Bush's proposed budget could affect Chicagoans and city-dwellers all over the country. Bush is proposing a "congestion initiative" that would award federal grants to cities and states for building toll systems that charge drivers new or increased tolls for traveling in and out of cities during peak times. Congestion pricing could take the form of "cordon tolls," charges to enter the city proper, or monthly/annual fees for using High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV)......

Dan Ryan commuters will get a taste of sweet, sweet, open lanes this winter, as the rebuilt express lanes reopen. Outbound lanes will open starting tomorrow -- a month early -- and inbound lanes will be reopened by early December, returning the Ryan-arrera to its normal configuration. But any relief is fleeting of course, because the local lanes will close in March for the second half of the construction project. IDOT's Avoid the Ryan campaign......

We all know cell phones and driving go together like nitro and glycerin. That's why Chicago enacted the infamous (some would say useless) cell phone driving ban. "Yeah, big deal, I see 20 people yammering away on cells in their cars every day," you say. And it may not be that big a deal, since so many other things can distract drivers besides phones. Since the ordinance went into effect, no fatalities have occurred......

After being sent back to the drawing board following its proposed dual-stadium opening ceremonies, the group organizing Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics have unveiled their revised stadium plan. Rather than a temporary stadium immediately south of Soldier Field, the new proposal calls for a stadium to be built in Washington Park, just west of the University of Chicago on the city's South Side. This plan seems to make a lot more sense.......

The price tag on the Dan Ryan construction project wasn't the only thumping big number in the news this past weekend. True to the predictions that we wrote about a couple weeks ago, ComEd announced the results of their first energy auction late Friday afternoon, translating into a whopping 25 percent increase in monthly electricity bills come January. You may think that you're out of luck when it comes to such increases, because it's not......

The cost of the Dan Ryan reconstruction project will undoubtedly top $1 billion before it's all said and done. That headline probably jumped out at you as you scanned this weekend's papers just for the sheer massiveness of that figure. One beeeellion dollars. That's nine frickin' zeros, people. We're not saying it's not worth it, because before the construction the Ryan had to be one of the most terrifying driving experiences in the country. But......

As more and more details are revealed about Q101’s new morning show, we’re more and more perplexed. We initially wrote off this new venture as the kind of generic Morning Zoo that has never worked here for long. But this interview with head writer Michael McCarthy indicates that the brain trust behind it knows more about what works in Chicago radio than its website of reheated song parodies and viral video would have you believe.......

What Happened to the Murals?...

We're not gonna lie. We're suckers for a survey. We're flattered to be asked to take a taste test, review a product, to fill out a questionnaire. When we found out in our 20s that you could get *paid* to do just such a thing, we were tingly all over. And we promptly signed up with as many places as would take us. We were always bummed as kids that our house wasn't one of......

A Trib reporter in Sudan has been jailed and accused of espionage. On Friday, one of our fair citizens was arrested for trying to bust into the White House. In 2 weeks, a single express lane in each direction will open on the Dan Ryan. Has it been a while since you... uh... you know...? Head over to Soldier Field, where they're still frisking and patting away. Take a good look, these Carson Pirie......

"So, the U.S. Olympic Committee comes into town and...." Sounds like the beginning of a joke. To us, at least. We might be in the minority of people who *don't* want the Olympics to come to town in 2016. The U.S. Olympic Committee is in town today to look around and check revisions to Chicago's bid and to help better shape each U.S. city's bid (also in the running are Los Angeles and San Francisco)......

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......

We’re guilty and now we know everyone else is, too. A national survey of licensed drivers over 18 revealed that shockingly 9 out of 10 drivers belt out tunes while driving. Who is that one person who doesn’t sing? We’re betting it’s that dentist who doesn’t recommend Trident to his patients who chew gum. Most of us are singing along to the rock music, rather than Gregorian chant, while in our SUVs stuck in traffic......