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Bynum Island was once a gem in Chicago’s Washington Park, but now it’s abandoned, overgrown and inaccessible to the public. Curious City looks into why, and whether the island will ever reopen.
Former Chicago Public Schools students say school lunch used to be delicious decades ago. That comes as a surprise to current CPS students, who give lunchroom offerings mixed reviews. Also missing from the menu is a once popular butter cookie. What happened to tasty school lunches and this iconic cafeteria cookie?
One of the world’s largest scuba organizations was founded in the Chicago suburbs by Portage Park pool swim instructor Ralph Erickson. Decades later and Chicago still has a small but mighty scuba diving scene, driven in part by Lake Michigan’s many well-preserved shipwrecks. So Curious City jumped into Lake Michigan and talked with people in the local diving community who are carrying on the…
Block club signs are all over the city, usually welcoming you to the neighborhood or telling you what you should or should not do while you’re there. A Curious City listener said they often see these signs on their way to work, and they wondered about the story behind them. What is a block club, what’s their history and who are the people involved? We visited two: the Ada United Block Club of 61st…
Once summer hits, local cover bands are busy working Chicago’s many street festivals. What’s life like for cover band musicians? Curious City spoke with three bands that are regulars on the local festival circuit: The Gingers, Too Much Molly Band, and Dancing Queen: An ABBA Salute.
It’s an invasive species that doesn’t seem harmful at first glance. But if they go unchecked, these little things can disrupt local ecologies.
The Museum of Science and Industry was renamed in 2024 in recognition of megadonor Ken Griffin. The museum’s original founder, Julius Rosenwald, did not want to put his own name on the institution.
For a brief moment in the 1990s, Lake Champlain was known as the sixth Great Lake. The lake wedged between Vermont and New York doesn’t quite measure up to the five Great Lakes. So how did this happen? Curious City partners with the Points North podcast from Interlochen Public Radio to bring you the story.
The name Aaron Montgomery Ward might sound familiar, either from the chain of now-defunct department stores that once bore his name or as the catalog guy who revolutionized mail-order shopping over 150 years ago. His lesser-known legacy, perhaps, is his drawn out fight over Grant Park. Ward spent 22 years and upwards of $1 million in today’s dollars fighting to keep Chicago’s premier downtown park…
Chicago-style magic is close up, funny and usually performed at a bar or restaurant. We learn about its history and talk to several magicians who are part of the tradition. This episode was originally published in 2024.
There’s no New York-land or Boston-land, so why does the Chicago metropolitan area have its own unique name? It turns out this has been a question on the minds of many Curious City listeners. To learn more, we looked at the origins of this term, how its meaning has changed over time and the media mogul — or Colonel — behind it all. This episode originally aired in 2023.
The stretch of beach that starts where DuSable Lake Shore Drive ends wasn’t always as vibrant or as ‘gay’ as it is today. Its transition was spearheaded by Jerry Marcoccia, who was searching for a sense of belonging in the 1990s. "You can't talk about this beach being gay without including me,” he said.
