America has often written off the mess in Detroit as unique to that city. But Chicago's shrinking population and growing swaths of vacant emptiness on the South Side should have us questioning that solace. more ›

There are a ton of new amenities going in along the Lake for South Siders. Too bad lots of them cannot get across the train track maze and Lake Shore Drive to enjoy the goodies. more ›

A cougar sighting has the folks at Plesantdale Middle School on high alert. Police scoured the area, but haven't yet found the big cat. more ›

Jennifer Hudson will sing a tribute to Whitney Houston at tonight's Grammy Awards, a person was killed after crashing head-on into a CTA bus, and other news. more ›

Bald eagles were spotted nesting near the grounds of a Chicago Police proposed shooting range in Hegewisch earlier this week. The CPD may have to re-evaluate the plans which were backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in January. more ›

For the Chicago woman of the 19th century with sensitive sleuthing needs, Ms. Cora M. Strayer was a special P.I. to whom the ladies could turn. more ›

Not all the neighborhoods in Chicago are packed with swanky restaurants and glitzy architecture. A local filmmaker is highlighting everyday life in neighborhoods that don't fit that image---and he needs your help. more ›

As you gear up for the Bears-Saints game tomorrow, consider this: Julius Peppers owes a debt of gratitude to the nerds on the South Side who paved the way for football here. more ›

Look north from within Sherman Park and you catch a jarring sight: ruins. Towers of rubble loom over the field house, but it isn't nature taking a toll: its the Archdiocese of Chicago! more ›

A few weeks back reader Kimo "Jim" Noelani contacted Chicagoist with an offer to share some of his family's old photographs with the site. Jim says that shortly after his grandfather passed in February, he was going through some of his old personal items, trying to figure out what needed to stay with the family and what could be donated to Goodwill. Along the way, Jim discovered several boxes of photographs and negatives that gave him (and now us) a glimpse into his past, through the eyes of his grandfather, and a view of a Chicago that many had forgotten. He's has donated most of his grandfather's photographs to the Chicago Hawaiian Historical Society in River Grove for documentation and preservation, but sent along a few for us to share with you, scanned from the original film prints. We reached him by telephone earlier this week. more ›

A three-alarm fire at the Lake Motel in the 9100 block of South Stony Island Avenue in Calumet Heights gutted most of the motel and left seven people injured early Saturday morning. Police were notified about the fire around 3:42 a.m., and it was upgraded to a 3-11 alarm around 4 a.m., eventually leaving the motel at a "total loss," said Fire Media Affairs Cmdr. Will Knight to the Chicago Tribune. Around 8:45 a.m., officials declared the fire to be under control. more ›

Joshua Jansky, 23, Scott Suszek, 28, and John Hickey, 23, were arrested by Chicago Police early Saturday when police found cannabis, LSD, and cash. Around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, police raided a space in the 2100 block of South Kedzie Avenue after they received an anonymous tip from a citizen, according to a release from police News Affairs via the Chicago Tribune. Police found a cannabis lab with a "large number of mature marijuana plants," in addition to a small amount of LSD and $900 in cash. Jansky was charged with possession and intent to deliver, and Suszek and Hickey were both charged with intent to deliver. Both charges are felonies. All three are due to appear in bond court today. more ›

Yesterday we looked at some lost murals in Hyde Park, which were whitewashed a couple years ago to make room for new ones. The north wall of the viaduct is now covered with a mosaic-mural bricolage in the style of the North Side murals at Foster and Bryn Mawr, and the south viaduct wall includes more local imagery like a Metra train and prominent black Chicagoans Jean Baptiste Point DuSable and Gwendolyn Brooks. The new murals are gorgeous, no question, but we're still sad to have lost the old ones. more ›

Amid the hullabaloo over the state income tax hike, the state Senate approved a bill that will force Illinois residents to buy roughly a quarter of their heating gas from Power Holdings of Illinois LLC, which is planning a large coal gasification plant in downstate Jefferson County. more ›

It's not a secret that the Chicago Police Department had a rough year last year, and news of this fatal incident is definitely not a happy way for the Chicago Police Department to ring in the new year. more ›

Police are still investigating allegations that someone threw fireworks into the home of Rev. Andre Smith, 42, an aldermanic candidate in the 20th Ward on the South Side. Rev. Smith told police that six of the windows at his home in the 6000 block of South Indiana Avenue were shattered last night. "Somebody threw a bomb through my windows and tried to kill me and my kids," said Smith to the Chicago Tribune. more ›

Without a doubt the most successful group to come from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians was the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The quintet's classic lineup — Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors Maghostut and Famadou Don Moye — was a powerful musical force with a unique stage presence unseen in free jazz musicians. As recently as 2006, the AEC was still a concert draw, even after the deaths of Bowie in 1999 and Favors in 2004. more ›

The Illinois House passed legislation Tuesday that authorized the construction of a plant that would produce synthetic natural gas (seriously, am I the only one that thinks that sounds like an oxymoron?). The bill would have required Illinois suppliers to purchase a portion of the plants production, which makes fuel from Illinois coal and petroleum refinery waste. Yesterday the state Senate put the brakes on the bill, holding it up in the Senate Executive Committee, and legislators saying the bill won't be considered until the General Assembly returns to its lame duck session in January. more ›

Amid the flurry of legislation debated and voted on, plans to build a synthetic natural gas plant on the city's South side cleared the state House of Representatives. The $3 billion plant, which will be built at 11600 S. Burley Ave. at an abandoned steel site on the Calumet River is expected to produce as much as eight percent of the state's natural gas, create 1,200 construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs at the facility. People's Gas, as well as consumer advocates, however, say that the project will end up being a bad deal for rate payers in Illinois, raising future rates in Chicago and especially in the northern suburbs. more ›

Alvin Herbert, 50, of the 500 block of Des Plaines in Forest Park, was charged and cited with a dozen different counts after he allegedly tried to run over police officers around 12:40 a.m. early Saturday morning on the 100 block of East 95th Street. Police shot at the tire of Herbert's vehicle as he drove towards them, but no one was hit by gunfire or injured, police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said to the Chicago Sun-Times. more ›

Another wave of violence started at 6 p.m. on Saturday when a 13-year-old boy playing with a gun accidentally shot himself in the leg in the 2000 block of West Howard Street and ended at 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning when a suspect in a vehicle shot a male in the 0-100 block of West 108th Place, police said to the Chicago Sun-Times. The 13-year-old boy was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston and is listed in "stable" condition and the male on the South Side was listed in good condition at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. more ›

James E. Pickett, 45, of the 8600 block of South Damen Avenue, was arrested on Friday and charged with felony possession of over 900 grams of heroin, according to a police statement via the Chicago Sun-Times. Pickett was arrested after a narcotics unit in the 2100 block of South Canal Street saw him engage in drug-related activity and pursued an investigation. With the assistance of a canine unit, police discovered $176,460 in Pickett's possession, along with 2 kilograms of heroin (an estimated street value of $200,000), and another $14,920 in drugs. Bond information was not available. more ›

In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one who has endured a feeding frenzy at the Pritzker Pavillion or any number of this summer’s street festivals, health officials are reporting this year’s mosquito problem as one of the worst in decades. The Tribune quotes Laura McGowan, spokeswoman for Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management of suburban Roselle as saying, "This is the worst mosquito outbreak in 20 years. The (mosquito) traps are catching three to four times the amount that's usually considered a nuisance." more ›

During an eight-hour period of overnight gun violence as detailed via the Chicago Sun-Times, one man was killed and 15 other people were injured from Saturday evening into early Sunday, police said. David A. Buckner, 47, of the 630 block of East 89th Street, was fatally shot while two rival groups exchanged gunfire at Ada Park. The shooting happened around 8 p.m. and also wounded three other people--a 37-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman suffered gunshot wounds to the leg and a 19-year-old man suffered a graze wound to the neck. All three were taken to nearby hospitals. more ›

The tiny enclave of mansions from the last turn of the century that is the Kenwood neighborhood can be a weird place. Current money mixes comfortably with history---this is, after all, where Leopold and Loeb decided they were supermen. Perhaps, more notably, and certainly more recently, only a couple blocks separate two of the nation's most recognizable African American figures: Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan. The President’s house is typical of the neighborhood’s architecture, while the Minister’s yellow-stoned façade certainly stands out. more ›

An anonymous tip may have led Chicago police to a serial killer on the city’s South Side. DNA from a 24-year old suspect matches traces left with the remains of Siobahn Hampton, found strangled in an abandoned storefront. And DNA evidence from two other similar murders in the Roseland neighborhood match those found on Hampton. Connections to two other similar murders in the area are also being investigated. more ›

Despite the recent excitement over food trucks, the mobile ice cream scene has been thriving for years on the South Side. A fleet of ramshackle trucks glide through the neighborhoods playing nursery rhyme-sounding Christmas songs to engage kids while selling hard frozen popsicles and Good Humor Products. more ›

In a vote that is sure to spark a new round of debate of the future of Chicago's retail landscape, the city's Plan Commission voted Thursday to recommend construction of a new Wal-Mart in Chicago's Pullman neighborhood. The store, which is part of a larger project to develop housing, retail, hotels and dining on the former Ryerson Steel site at 111th Street, next to the Bishop Ford. The final decision goes before the full city council next month for a vote. 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale says he's counting on support from his fellow aldermen to get the project through. "We want to get people out of their homes and back to work. And if we don't find a new source of revenue here in the City of Chicago, we're going to be forced to lay more people off in the years to come," Beale told WBEZ. more ›

Pace is returning this baseball season with shuttle service to U.S. Cellular Field. They are offering three different Southland routes to White Sox home games. Rides will cost $4 each way, and buses will leave about two to two and a half hours before the first pitch. Service is not available for weekday games in April, May, September, or October, excluding the home opener. However, buses will be available for all games in the summer, starting in June and going through August. Pickup points include Markham, Tinley Park, Oak Lawn, Palos Heights, Bolingbrook, and Burr Ridge. more ›

A man who had been stabbed when he stepped between two fighting friends on Saturday morning was reported to be in "stable" condition, after he boarded a CTA bus on the South Side. At 5:52 a.m., a CTA bus driver contacted police about a rider who had stab wounds in his arm and chest, according to police News Affairs officer Robert Perez. The victim claimed he was drinking with friends in the 5300 block of South Paulina when his friends got in an argument and he attempted to break up their fight and was stabbed in the process. The man was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in "stable" condition, according to Perez. [Chicago Sun-Times] more ›