Results tagged “maxwellstreet”

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We made our way to Kohan to capture some of its food and drink for your eyes. While known for its sushi and teppan grill dishes, it also serves authentic Korean food, as well. Martinis are $5 (1/2 price!) all day Friday and Saturday. [Previous Chicagoist coverage of Kohan: 1, 2]

Chicagoist alum Scott Smith once described Morgan's on Maxwell as "a great destination for anyone who wants to take a date to dinner without missing SportsCenter." The burgers and other sandwiches here, however, have some merit. Although every time we step into Morgan's we can't help but think about all the dugouts, tube socks and "Grown Folks Music" we used to buy in the same location when Maxwell Street was, well, Maxwell Street.

We’ve read (and cried through) her diary and now we get a glimpse into her family photo album. “Anne Frank: A Photo Album” is on display at Ela Area Public Library in Lake Zurich. Funded from a state grant and brought in from the Anne Frank Center in New York, the exhibit features over 70 black and white photos taken by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, who was a talented amateur photographer. The exhibit chronicles Frank family life from when Anne was a baby all the way up until the family's last summer together at home.

Longtime "BotW" readers might remember that we reviewed a barley wine last spring from Louisville's Browning's Brewery. We bought it retail in town but, after making a phone call to the brewmaster in Louisville, didn't disclose where we made the purchase for fear of outing the store in question for selling booze outside the three-tier distribution system.

Lucky enough to get a few days off for the Chrismukkah holidays? Several Chicago area music entities have been kind enough to give you time-filling options.

Maxwell Street, 1941. Sunday mornings are a good time for shopping. Especially if you're looking for things like random socks, hubcaps, lamps, or eyeball tacos. The Maxwell Street Market isn't what it used to be back in the days of the early 1900's, or even before the UIC Expansion starting in the late 60's. Hell, it isn't even on Maxwell anymore - it's on Canal Street at Roosevelt. Regardless of where progress has pushed...

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,...

Chicagoist is headed to London. (Well, OK, not the entire staff, just one of us.) We'll be visiting a friend of ours there who's never been to Chicago and, furthermore, isn't too familiar with Toddler's town and our lovable CTA. Naturally we've taken it upon ourselves to educate him. When he told us that he has a multi-region DVD player a little PowerPoint light bulb went off in our heads. Aha! Buy him a DVD,...

We know that we're not the only ones in the past few weeks to see Vince dashing around town in a Santa suit. Apparently there have been sightings in Wicker Park and on Michigan Avenue among other places. Yes, wearing a Santa suit in January: that's exactly why the man is so well-paid. He's starring in Fred Claus, which has been shooting here off and on since November and is due to wrap next month....

No, we're not talking about the DIY Trunk Show. Although Chicagoist has a love/hate relationship with the "crafting a revolution" movement, we must admit that we do get excited over handmade goods, especially the affordable kind. We know that creating something by hand is time-consuming, and it's better to buy something made locally than some mass-produced crap made by a small child in Korea. We craft, too. We get it. But we often cry "bullshit!"...

We’re busy people, and you probably are, too. So if you’re not getting out to the clubs to see enough live music, this edition of Friday Afternoon Diversion is for you. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah haters will want to skip this clip of the band's recent appearance at the Vic. Turn down your speakers a little for this Wolf Parade clip from Metro back in August, when they peformed a new song called...

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...

Back in March, we told you that James “Piano C Red” Wheeler had been shot and paralyzed in a carjacking and how he vowed to play again. That day has arrived. Wheeler will take the stage set up at the Chicago Carriage Cab Co. (2617 S. Wabash) with his Flat Foot Boogie Band.

The Maxwell Street blues scene is a shadow of its former self. So it’s with sadness and worry that we read this piece in the Sun-Times this morning about Piano C. Red, one of the men who’s worked tirelessly to keep this part of Chicago’s history alive. Red, whose real name is James Wheeler, is known as one of the last remaining bluesmen in the Maxwell Street market, which is now located on Canal St....

The one new restaurant in University Village Marketplace that arouses our curiosity the most is Kohan Japanese Restaurant. There is such a glut of sushi bars in Chicago that even the addition of a small, nondescript place like Kohan feels like supersaturation. But diversity is the spice of life, or so goes the adage, and if your personality is such that you simply want sushi without the extra trappings of dim lights, exposed brick walls,...

It seems like yesterday that preservationists and historians protested in vain about the relocation of the old Maxwell Street Market. Indeed, ten years does pass like a fleeting memory. It was a contentious debate that was eventually wasted breath. Most of us have lived in Chicago long enough to know that when Mayor Daley lobbies for something, he gets it. And this was a project both he and the University of Illinois at Chicago put...

Calling attention to unique and threatened urban spaces, Preservation Chicago has released their annual list of endangered Chicago buildings. Not much on the list will surprise anyone who follows the ongoing drama of developer/preservationist smackdowns. We expected to see: Promontory Point, with its beautiful but fading limestone steps. If the City has its way, these will go the way of their concrete-laden counterparts to the north. DePaul University’s Hayes-Healey Center, which the CTA plans to...

The Chicago Tribune’s readers nominated “Chicago blues” as their fourteenth and final nominee for the 7 Wonders of Chicago. But Chicagoist is wondering if we’ll soon speak of the blues as an ancient wonder of the city instead of a living one.

Pilsen is a neighborhood currently battling the winds of change from the neighborhoods surrounding it. With the gigantic University Village development project reaching its northern edge businesses throughout the neighborhood are undertaking minor repairs or full-on overhauls in the hope of courting new homeowners down to spend their money in the galleries, storefronts, and taquerias, while still maintaining the working-class family feeling that draws so many Mexican immigrants to settle down there and the...

As the city’s nighttime streets lend an air of authenticity to this weekend’s number one movie and Vince Vaughn's new flick shuts down a portion of Michigan Avenue for most of the day, the Sun-Times reminds us why The Blues Brothers is responsible for bringing moviemaking back to the city of Chicago. As we watched Batman Begins this weekend, we noticed three things: 1) It is possible for Chicago’s mass transit system to get worse...

While we’ll miss the full Cloud Gate experience this summer, we can still look forward to spending nights inside the nearby Pritzker Pavilion cage. The Pritzker provides that upscale picnic feel without the commute to Ravinia. And once again, it will be the home of the Grant Park Music Festival, the country’s only remaining free classical music fest. This is its second year in Millennium Park, which seems confusing until you remember that such concerns don’t stop Maxwell Street Polish from going wherever they want.

An article in The Chicago Journal last week detailed the efforts of a Japanese television crew that sought to document the last vestiges of the Maxwell Street blues scene. The authenticity of the current scene could most charitably be described as “in question” (if for no other reason but its presence on Canal Street rather than Maxwell Street. Fortunately, the flag for Chicago blues is still carried nightly by an army of local musicians in...

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