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A good lake, not a Great Lake
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…
2 months, 1 week ago
Why does Chicago have so little love for the ‘Watchdog’ of the lakefront?
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…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Is This Your Card? A Brief History Of Chicago-style Magic
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…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Where did the term 'Chicagoland' come from?
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…
2 months, 4 weeks ago
How did Hollywood Beach become Chicago’s ‘gay beach’?
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 spearhea…
3 months ago
Why does Chicago use Comic Sans on some elevator inspection certificates?
Comic Sans often signals levity or sarcasm. The font is occasionally used for a key phrase in some official city elevator inspection certificates. Th…
3 months, 1 week ago
Does Chicago have a Filipino neighborhood?
A concentrated Filipino community area is not as easy to spot as neighborhoods like Chinatown or Little Village. In this episode, we’ll look at the l…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
Why are there helicopters flying over my neighborhood every night?
Curious City listeners wondered if helicopters they heard buzzing around their Chicago neighborhoods at night were part of the federal government’s i…
3 months, 3 weeks ago
Why does Chicago have a monument named for fascist leader Italo Balbo?
There’s an ancient Roman column in Chicago hidden in plain sight near Soldier Field. It was a gift given by Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini…
4 months ago
Standing on history: Who built Chicago’s WPA sidewalks?
Have you ever noticed a branded stamp in the sidewalk? Keen-eyed Chicagoans have found some that date back to Depression-era infrastructure projects …
4 months, 1 week ago