Today's gallery subject: The Cloud Gate sculpture. more ›

For the next ten days Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture and the AT&T Plaza on which it sits will be transformed after dark into a canvas of light and geometrical form, courtesy of a video and light installation from local artistic collective Luftwerk. more ›

Also in today's listings: A Tuesday Sangria special at Nacional 27 and Cabaret at Pritzker Pavilion. more ›

The case may hinge once again on the finer points of municipal real estate law, but it’s the “disproportionately favorable terms” of the Daley-era agreement, as the Emanuel administration's lawsuit put it, that are really on trial. more ›

7:00 p.m., Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, $10 more ›

We want to see a Soul Train dance line under "The Bean." more ›

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Ted Leo's show at Millennium Park last night placed a cherry atop a strong Downtown Sound series. But music at Millennium Park isn't done for the summer. more ›

Need a reminder of why Chicago summers are so great? Check this breathtaking time-lapse that crunches our already compressed glory season into four minutes. more ›

Police have charged one suspect after a suspicious package caused the evacuation The Bean and the shutdown of Michigan Avenue. more ›

I've been at Millennium Park covering the "Unions in the Park" civil unions ceremony. I'll have a full report in the afternoon. For now, here's a shot of a happy family taking it all in. more ›

In the new sci-fi thriller Source Code, a Metra train blows up again and again. Okay, so actually it's a CCR (Chicago Commuter Rail) train, the half-heartedly fictional stand-in. Metra agency spokesperson Judy Pardonnet said, “While it is a movie and movies are based in fiction, the images are of great concern.” Frankly, that's silly. It's a movie; and a damn good one too, which should at least be some kind of consolation. more ›

The owners of Park Grill in Millennium Park have a sweetheart deal with the Park District — a concession arrangement $275,000 and 4 percent of their gross receipts that frees them from paying gas, water, garbage, and property tax bills, with taxpayers footing the bill for half of the restaurant's construction costs. So why are they looking at getting out of the restaurant business now? more ›

Greg Kot broke the lineup for this year's Downtown Sound series at Millennium Park late yesterday. The series, which brings in name artists for free shows at the park Mondays from late May through late July, kicks off with Bonnie "Prince" Billy on May 23 and gets better from there. more ›

Sure, they wear tuxedos to work, but the Chicago Symphony Orchestra still likes to party, and they’re inviting you to a couple throwdowns to kick off the 2010-2011 season. Sunday’s free concert in Millennium Park will mark the official beginning of the reign of new music director Riccardo Muti. The stacked program, featuring Ottorino Respighi’s "Pines of Rome," the Overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s "La Forza del Destino, Franz Liszt’s "Les Preludes," and Peter Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet" (a piece you already know), begins at 5:30 p.m., but performances by various area youth ensembles get started at 2:00 p.m. more ›

Aside serving as cornerstone of the Chicago Public Library system, Harold Washington Library Center is also home to CPL's Special Collections and Preservation Division. Since 1975, the Division has collected, preserved and offered access to the library’s rare and unique materials. Within the Division’s four categories - Special Collections, Archives, Exhibits and Preservation - Harold Washington houses an interesting selection of historic materials. There’s stuff relating to the Civil War, Chicago theatre history, Chicago’s world’s fairs, neighborhood history, and rare books and manuscripts from Chicago authors and publishers and relics from Chicago’s past. The Division also houses the Harold Washington Archives & Collections, which document the Harold Washington’s political career with artifacts, published material and manuscripts, and more than 10,000 photographs, audio and video cassettes. more ›

Ah, the bell tolls for summer: shortening days, screaming locusts, and now the Grant Park Music Festival is set to close its 2010 season this weekend with performances of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony on Friday and Saturday night. more ›

Anyone that attended last Monday's Kid Sister show at the Prtizker Pavilion in Millennium Park was met with an unusually large showing of police force and a great lawn and pavilion seating area sectioned off with temporary fencing. There were literally more people in the area surrounding the concert than there were inside the performance space. We were suddenly reminded of the Bel BivDeVoe / Salt-N-Pepa show during the Taste of Chicago when police created an unsafe situation by closing down the seating area in Grant Park, even though there was still plenty of room for folks to enjoy the music, creating bottlenecks and angry mobs at each gate. Things never got that ugly last Monday but we were left wondering what was to blame for the situation. more ›

If you have any energy left after this year's hot Pitchfork Music Fest, and especially if you skipped out for other fun, there's still a little bit of musical awesome leftover to help you further ease into the week. That awesome is none other than Chicago's own Kid Sister, back in town for the performance at the Pritzker Pavilion, part of the City's ongoing Downtown Sound series. Joining the charming (yeah, we're swooning, stop looking) Kid Sis is Congolese band Konono N°1 who will have the kids dancing with their unique world-beat brand of electronic folk. One note: for whatever reason, the city has noted that for this specific show: "Alcohol, glass bottles and metal cans will not be allowed into the Jay Pritzker Pavilion seating bowl or Great Lawn for the Kid Sister + Konono N°1 concert. Bags, coolers and packages will be screened." So be warned. Given the overcast skies and (slightly) cooler temps than the weekend, it should be a great night for some fun music. more ›

Two of the '90s most heralded and mumble-y rock groups are coming to the Windy City. While it’s certainly no secret that the sardonic, anthemic and recently reunited Pavement are headlining the Pitchfork Music Festival on Sunday (and likely the reason why that date is sold out), the band has announced a new, standalone show at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on September 13, according to Time Out Chicago. more ›

The Grant Park Music Festival kicks off its 76th season tomorrow night with a one-night-only program featuring works by Hector Berlioz, Antonio Vivaldi, and Ottorino Respighi, followed this weekend by concerts of religious music by Joseph Haydn, Paul Hindemith, and Ludwig van Beethoven. more ›

Someone clued in BP or the city about today's planned flash mob protest because when folks arrived at the BP Bridge they found it closed off and under guard by Millennium Park security. We asked the guard who ordered the bridge closed and he said he had no idea, he had simply received the assignment to do so. The plan had been to go onto the bridge and sit down under black umbrellas to show displeasure with BPs handling of its tragic Gulf Oil Spill. more ›

We didn't get around to reminding you last week about Music Without Borders getting underway. The weekly summer world music concert series in Millennium Park is free, though, so we owe you exactly zero dollars. Truth is, we've had today's performance by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba circled on our calendar since we saw them at Bela Fleck's Africa Project show at the Old Town School of Folk Music back in February. more ›

The lamenting of tourists on a bridge earlier today reminded us of why people come to Chicago in the first place. And this time-lapse video is a pretty good visual representation. more ›

The guys over at Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs have given Mondays a new rep, transforming them from miserable to musical. As we’ve already mentioned, their Downtown Sound series features an impressive lineup of free music each Monday after work from May 24 through July. And just last week they announced the lineup for this summer’s Edible Audible Picnic, a series of 16 free hour-long concerts held each Monday (and a few Saturdays) at noon in the Pritzker Pavilion. more ›

We're feeling chipper this morning. Maybe it's the way the sun now stays up until almost 5:30 p.m., or maybe we've just started hallucinating to subconsciously cope with seasonal affective disorder, but gosh darn it if it doesn't feel like spring's right around the corner! more ›

Hum made a LOT of noise down in Champaign back in the day. So much noise it eventually bled into Chicago and then across nationwide radio dials during the Alternative Rock explosion of the mid-'90s. Their sound was very "Champaign-Urbana; lots of heavy guitars, melodic vocals barely audible through the mix, and drums that sounded stadium-wide. They were pretty great and while their break-up a decade ago didn't exactly set tears a-flowin', they were missed. more ›

It's that time of year again...well, almost. It's just about time for the Millennium Park ice rink to open for the winter to fans of ice skating everywhere. It was due to open for business tomorrow but this week's forecast of rain has delayed the opening until noon this Friday (November 20). The rink will remain open until mid-March. It's free and open to the public but if you need to rent skates, that'll cost you $10. Hours are Mondays through Thursdays 12 p.m. -8 p.m.; Fridays 12 p.m. - 10 p.m.; Saturdays 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.; and Sundays 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. more ›

Following up (finally) on 47th Ward Ald. Eugene Schulter's complaint that suburbanites are claiming the best seats at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Mayor Daley lashed out at those who are ungrateful for the benevolent contributions that suburban corporate benefactors have made to build Millennium Park. "Remember, people gave money [to build Millennium Park] who lived throughout the metropolitan area - business leaders. And if you look at many of them, they lived in suburban areas. They should have never given," Daley said Monday. "We have free concerts there. First come, first served. People show up early. I mean - they show up REAL early. So, it's first come, first served," the Mayor told the Sun-Times. "It's a wonderful program. Of course, they [also] have the Grant Park concerts. That goes on." more ›

With the city hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, fewer police on the street to battle crime, and a transit system on the verge of another round of service cuts and fare hikes, the City Council is tackling the tough issue plaguing our city: suburbanites claiming the best seats at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. During the Council's budget hearings yesterday, it was Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th) who spoke up, according to the Sun-Times. Said Ald. Schulter: more ›