Lee Bey

Aug. 24, 2010

How Sox Park almost had a Household name

Aug. 24, 2010

Seven years have passed since Comiskey Park–home of the White Sox–was renamed “U.S. Cellular Field” under a $68 million naming-rights deal.

Cash from the deal made some much needed improvements to pretty-up what had been the ugliest professional baseball stadium in America. But take a gander at what could have been: an improved Comiskey Park, not as the “Cell” but, perhaps, as “The House”?

Before the U.S. Cellular arrangement, the White Sox in 2001 preliminarily worked on a naming-rights deal with Household Finance Corporation. Had the deal gone through, it would have brought a slate of improvements including fixing the then-torturous rake of the upper deck. But it would have given the stadium fixes the U.S. Cellular deal didn’t, most notably giving the stadium a pedestrian-friendly, but monumental entrance at 35th Street, as seen in the image above.

Behind the entrance would have been a mall-like concession concourse.

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Steve Dolinsky

Aug. 24, 2010

Video: When in British Columbia, be sure to shuck and slurp

Aug. 24, 2010

I'm not sure what I was more excited about, the fact that I could have pristine oysters from a number of British Columbia bays everyday of my vacation, or the fact that my nine-year-old son was now also a rabid fan of slurping the mollusks right alongside me. We saw Fanny Bay, Gorge Inlet and Kusshi varieties on just about every menu in BC, and since Gulf oysters are now most likely a questionable commodity for the near future, these BC beauties are not to be missed.

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Jim DeRogatis

Aug. 24, 2010

Graveface Records holds a benefit auction

Aug. 24, 2010

Last month's torrential rain storms hit a lot of Chicagoans hard, and the music scene was not exempt: The local indie label Graveface Records, home of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Jason Molina, Octopus Project, and other worthy acts, took three feet of water in its Logan Square headquarters, and the owners say insurance didn't cover the loss of more than half of their inventory.

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Robert Feder

Aug. 24, 2010

WGN lures investigative producer from Fox Chicago

Aug. 24, 2010

Marsha Bartel, a top investigative producer at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32, has been hired as special projects producer at Tribune Co.-owned WGN-Channel 9, where she'll work on stories for broadcast, print and online.

Greg Caputo, news director of Channel 9, announced Bartel's hiring, effective Sept. 7, in a memo to staffers Monday. "In addition to producing stories for TV, Marsha will also work closely with reporters from the Chicago Tribune to help create multi-platform stories for us, the paper, and our websites," Caputo said.

The move will reunite Bartel with Mark Suppelsa, principal news anchor at Channel 9.

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Robert Feder

Aug. 24, 2010

Radio Disney looks ahead by borrowing from the past

Aug. 24, 2010

If radio has even a prayer of winning over anyone born in the 21st‚ century, it'll be thanks in large part to Radio Disney, the round-the-clock network geared to preteens (and their good-natured parents who let them control the car radio).

After all, where else can you hear Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Mitchel Musso over and over and over again with the energy, personality and listener interaction of an old-fashioned Top 40 station?

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City Room Blog

Aug. 23, 2010

Life in Libya: Crashing the Ambassador's party

Aug. 23, 2010

I had a little mini-adventure when I arrived in Tripoli. I went to, er, sort of crashed, a party the U.S. Ambassador to Libya held at his compound. No, it wasn't this kind of situation. Everyone was really nice and let me in. The U.S. is promoting study-abroad programs for Libyan students. Hostesses passed out U.S.-Libyan lapel pins. The gathering was a Ramadan celebration that highlighted Muslim contributions to American society. There were large photos of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Keith Ellison. Large placards showcased the diversity of Islam in the U.S. (Perhaps a celebration of this order is needed in New York to stamp out the xenophobia around the building of an Islamic cultural center.)

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Anne Elizabeth Moore

Aug. 23, 2010

Revision Street: West Loop

Aug. 23, 2010

Normally I wouldn’t post advertisements, but these hand-made posters for the West Loop clothing store Tonya’s Hush (“We got a Passion for Fassion”)—are some of the most charming I’ve ever seen. I took them a few years ago, so last time I stopped by the store had replaced these with some slightly more professional looking ads. Bummer!

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Achy Obejas

Aug. 23, 2010

Brooklyn: Red Hook Mercado

Aug. 23, 2010

I’m off getting married and honeymooning and all that so, in my absence, some good friends are filling in. Today’s look at Brooklyn’s Red Hook Mercado comes from Ana Sofia Peláez.

I didn’t know it then, but I dreamed of Brooklyn my entire life. Moving here 13 years ago, I was part of a wave of post-graduates trading Manhattan shoe box apartments for Brooklyn’s mom-and-pop coziness, though most of my friends were hold outs. I was just over the Brooklyn Bridge but had to beg friends to visit my Cobble Hill apartment only to find myself trekking out to see them in Fort Greene, Williamsburg and Sunset Park a few years later. As a minority, I felt exempt from gentrification guilt though I knew it was only a technicality. A Cuban-American from middle-class Miami, I wanted the same things my friends did — coffee houses, bookstores, and farmer’s markets set against a shabby chic urban landscape — rough but friendly, quiet but accessible.

Red Hook was the exception.

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