Blog

Dearborn Street/Photo: Todd Hieggelke

Get Chicago & Great Lakes culture news sent to your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe to Newcity Today here.

ART

Protest Planned For DePaul Art Museum’s Closure

“Local residents, artists and culture advocates will stage a peaceful civic demonstration, ‘Waiting,’ to protest the [recent] closure of the DePaul Art Museum,” a release advises. The protest “is a commentary on the absurdity of losing a vital cultural anchor, and a heartfelt plea for the value of the arts in Chicago. By standing together, participants will highlight the void left by DPAM’s closure.” Participants are invited to gather to form a massive queue starting from the museum’s currently closed doors and extending down Fullerton Avenue toward Lake Shore Drive. The demonstration will begin at the closed doors of the DePaul Art Museum, 935 West Fullerton. Thursday, October 8, 5pm-6pm.

Kerry James Marshall’s First French Retrospective Opens

The first retrospective of painter Kerry James Marshall in France has opened at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, reports Vogue Adria. “‘Kerry James Marshall: The Histories’ brings together seventy works, including eight new paintings. Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts in London in collaboration with Kunsthaus Zürich, it reveals the breadth of his figurative and politically engaged practice. Alongside paintings, it includes drawings, prints and a sculpture. It also offers a chance to appreciate his considerable influence on artists such as Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley.” Through January 24, 2027.

Bad at Sports Sets MCA Tailgate

“Bad at Sports is taking over the lawn behind the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago for the Great Art Tailgate—a free, sprawling, live-broadcast celebration of art, conversation, friendship and approximately twenty-one years of questionable decision-making,” the podcast relays. “From 11am-3pm, we’ll be broadcasting live conversations across the MCA lawn as we count down toward the end of Bad at Sports Season One. There will be artists. There will be critics. There will be beer. There will be radios. There will be blankets, lawn games, art people behaving like sports people, and whatever else we manage to assemble between now and then.” Read Newcity’s recent feature on the tailgate here.

DESIGN

Chicago Architecture Center Opening Satellite Location

The Chicago Architecture Center is opening the Marquette Hub, a satellite location inside the landmark Marquette Building (Holabird & Roche, 1895) at 140 South Dearborn. “Set amidst the South Loop’s living ‘Museum of Skyscrapers,’ the CAC’s second location expands access to CAC tours and unique Chicago-made retail offerings,” serving as a tour departure point and retail store. The grand opening takes place Monday, October 5 at 11am, “coinciding with World Architecture Day, a global celebration of architecture’s impact on communities and daily life.” After opening week, the Marquette Hub’s regular hours will be Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-6pm. More here.

Chicago Extends Divvy Contract; New Bike Design Coming

The city has extended its contract with Divvy, which is operated by Lyft, through January 2033, reports the Sun-Times. The new contract will include cost-saving measures, like a freeze on the price for annual memberships, a cap on price increases through the contract’s duration and a fifty percent discount on non-member rides that start or end on the South and West Sides. “Thousands more e-bikes and scooters will be added under the new contract and a new model of the classic bike will be introduced. That model adds a cable lock and rear wheel immobilizers.” There are also new plans to improve bike parking at spots with overflow.

City Approves Apartments For 1800s Humboldt Park Church

After years of failed proposals for a late 1800s-era church in Humboldt Park, “Vandy Projects was able to get community buy-in for its plans” to convert the building at 3300 West Pierce into twenty apartments, reports Block Club. “The project would preserve the church façade and some stained glass windows but replace exterior windows, repair the foundation at the southwest corner that’s caving in, make roof improvements and improve the sidewalk.”

DINING & DRINKING

Ryan Field Announces All-Star Food Lineup, Including A Pavilion For Beard Winners

As Ryan Field prepares for its grand opening, the stadium announced a new dining area featuring a lineup of iconic Chicago restaurateurs, reports Evanston Now. “What’s called the ‘Great Chicago Food Festival,’ a game-day food and dining event inside the stadium plaza, will have permanent pavilions featuring restaurants from Michelin-star-winning chef Rick Bayless, James Beard Award winner and Evanston native Stephanie Izard, Chicago’s iconic Gibsons Restaurant Group, the ownership group behind Lincoln Park’s famed Italian and pizza restaurant Dimmi Dimmi and a rotating pavilion reserved for James Beard Award winners, opening with Publican Quality.”

The Land School Wins City Approval For Café 

The City of Chicago’s Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards “officially approved our application to rezone to a B2-2 Neighborhood Mixed Use District designation,” the Land School announces. “This designation will allow us to expand our ability to support and incubate creative and culinary entrepreneurs on Dorchester. An extension of our residency at Retreat at Currency Exchange, we are proud to soon establish an independent café on 72nd and Dorchester in partnership with local coffee purveyors Homecourt Collective.” This will “deepen our commitment to demonstrating our land use processes in real time, and supporting emerging businesses with space, access and mentorship as they grow.”

McDonald’s Sees Opportunity With GLP-1 While Spending Billions On Franchises

Chicago-based McDonald’s “plans to expand its protein-forward menu options to cater to the GLP-1 households that already eat at the fast food chain,” reports Yahoo Finance. New items will include grilled chicken, egg bites and new salad options. “‘Eighty-four percent of households with GLP-1 users visit McDonald’s. This is an opportunity,’ McDonald’s USA president Skye Anderson told investors.” The chain also announced “that it will invest $8.5 billion by 2036 on initiatives including remodeling restaurants, retraining its two million employees and adding new menu items to target high-protein eaters.”

FILM & TELEVISION

A24 Faces Classic Indie Quandary: How To Settle The Rewards Of A Hit Like “Backrooms” With Exhibitors

It’s stymied and even killed independent film distribution upstarts for decades: how do you settle accounts when you’re not an international mega-corporation? This time, the conflict is between A24 and chains like Milwaukee-based Marcus Theaters, writes the Ankler in a keen piece. “Thanks largely to the $400 million-plus global breakout of ‘Backrooms,’ A24 finished the summer behind only Universal, Sony and Disney. And after the biggest hit in its history, the studio has decided it wants to be paid like the majors it just beat. Exhibitors tell me A24 used to command roughly forty to forty-five percent of ticket sales. Now it regularly wants a cut in the low- to mid-fifties.

“The difference may sound like inside-baseball accounting. To theater owners, it’s anything but. Insiders say ten percentage points, or even less, can separate a profitable run from a deal that might not make financial sense. ‘Forty-five versus fifty-three does mean a lot to us,’ says one regional programmer who works across several venues. ‘Disney can demand higher prices because they make us money all the time,’ the programmer adds. ‘A24 can’t do that… Don’t put the cart before the horse.’”

Halsted Street Gets A Third Documentary, From Mouse Collective

“Chicago thoroughfares have been immortalized in song over the years, from State Street to Lake Shore Drive,” records Nina Metz at the Tribune (gift link). “But it is Halsted Street that has been the subject of not one but two documentaries, and a third is in motion. A collection of artists, poets, journalists and neighborhood people are embarking on the latest study of Halsted” after earlier efforts in 1932 and 1998. “They are members of the Mouse Arts and Letters Club, a social club that launched earlier this year and is based in the Bridgeport neighborhood.”

Paramount Absorption Of Warner Bros. Delayed By Judge

“Mere hours before a court hearing on the much criticized settlement between Paramount and a coalition of blue state attorneys general on the $111 billion merger with Warner Bros Discovery, foes have gained a victory that could see an expensive delay on the deal closing,” records Deadline. Paramount is “seeing red,” with fears of being forced “to incur tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars of payments” they had agreed to earlier if closing of the deal took into October or longer.

Letterboxd Five-Stars A Sale

A24, Sony Pictures Entertainment and The New York Times Company have all registered interest in acquiring Letterboxd, the online film review repository built on free labor, reports the New York Times (gift link). “Four years after a sale to a Canadian technology holding company called Tiny, it is attracting interest from suitors enamored by the site’s obsessive audience and the subscription and advertising revenue streams it provides. Any deal is expected to value Letterboxd at more than $300 million—roughly twenty times its projected earnings this year of roughly $15 million.”

LIT

Rahm’s “Superagent” Brother Has A Book To Sell

In Ari Emanuel’s new memoir, “Roll the Calls,” the agent who served as the inspiration for Ari Gold “torch[es] his enemies” as he bets on “a post-work utopia,” profiles Vulture. The book “tells the story of how a dyslexic kid from Chicago ascended from the CAA mailroom to a job where he might negotiate an actor’s next movie role or the WWE’s next TV contract, or pitch President Trump on a film tax credit or Elon Musk on a UFC card with fighting robots. In 1995, he co-founded the agency Endeavor, which merged with William Morris, went public, and was taken private again last year.” Among his leadership roles at WME Group and TKO Group Holdings, he’s also “the co-founder, along with business partner Mark Shapiro, of the live-events company Mari, which owns tennis tournaments, art fairs, a car auction and, pending approval, seventy theaters, including seven on Broadway.” Mari is the parent company of magazine and art fair operator Frieze, which owns Expo Chicago.

MEDIA

Bill “Captain Fun” Linden, Former Sun-Times Page Designer, Was Seventy-Nine

“Bill Linden was a dispenser of gratis grins,” chronicles the Sun-Times. “He had drawers full of silly glasses and hats and owned a white Elvis Presley jumpsuit and a red Sgt. Pepper uniform.” He worked for the Sun-Times from 1969 to 1996 “doing graphic design and page layout. ‘It was a creative world in the art department,’ says former Sun-Times reporter Dave Hoekstra, ‘people sketching and setting up photo shoots. It doesn’t exist anymore, but I liked to visit back then because compared to the pressure of the newsroom it was like a playground, or the circus, and Bill was like the ringleader.’”

It’s Official: AP Stylebook Says AI Bots Not Human

“Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics,” the Associated Press stylebook posts. “This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects. Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”

MUSIC

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association Rebrands

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association has changed its name to Chicago Symphony as it announces a major rebrand. “You’ll see a refreshed visual identity, including a new logo and an expanded palette of reds, all selected to honor the Orchestra’s legacy and reflect a spirit of forward momentum and the ambition of its future,” they write. “The updated C logo conveys the motion and energy of live music and maintains a nod to musical notation. The venue will be known as Chicago Symphony Center, and concerts including piano recitals, chamber music and jazz will fall under the heading of Chicago Symphony Presents. These changes were informed by rigorous market research, including patron surveys and focus groups.” “Music fans will also notice updated red uniforms for the ushers who greet and seat guests,” notes the Sun-Times.

STAGE

Why Johnny Galecki Chose To Leave Tennessee To Play Tennessee In Chicago

As Johnny Galecki hits the stage for a starring role as Tennessee Willams in Lookingglass’ “Kowalski,” Chris Jones covers (gift link) the actor’s time between the production and his last big acting role. “The CBS sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory’ ended seven years ago, last May. Where, an enquiring mind might wonder, has Johnny Galecki, who played the experimental physicist Leonard Leakey Hofstadter on the show, been since then? Living quietly on a farm in Tennessee with his wife and two children. Plus assorted cows and chickens. ‘It was very puzzling to me that I didn’t miss working for so long,’ Galecki says, ‘Because I hated all the hiatus weeks from the show. So it was very strange to me that I did not feel frustrated.’”

Chicago Opera Theater Throws Open Its Costume Vault

Chicago Opera Theater “is throwing open its legendary costume vault and giving the public a rare chance to raid their closet,” retails Time Out Chicago. “These are genuine, stage-worn pieces straight out of past COT productions. Perhaps you’re searching for a regal cloak to add gravitas to your autumn wardrobe, an extravagant headpiece to finish off an outfit or an impossibly voluminous skirt just because.” Warehouse pop-up “Take Home the Drama: COT Costume Sale” takes place during the Fine Arts Building’s Second Fridays event. Friday, October 9, 5pm-9pm. More here.

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Illinois Closing Its Eight Interstate Visitor Information Centers

Eight state-run visitor information centers “located along interstates throughout Illinois are set to close by the end of September, as the state says the way visitors travel has changed,” reports Capitol News Illinois. “The rest stops where the centers are located will remain open and other services will not be affected. The centers offered valuable information, and former employees consider it a loss.”

Send culture news and tips to [email protected]