WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

The Viceroy Hotel, which stands at the southern edge of Union Park on Chicago's Near West Side, wears different chapters of its history on its sleeve.On the building's front facade are Art Deco stylings that date to the building's construction in 1929 and 1930 as one of the city's “apartment hotels.

 Lake Shore Drive in its present incarnation is a relatively recent addition to Chicago’s landscape.

There are plans to build a 3280-foot skyscraper in Saudi Arabia. It will be the tallest structure in the world, 500 feet higher than anything else.But on this date in 1956, Frank Lloyd Wright announced plans for an even grander Chicago structure.

The Art Institute of Chicago board just named Douglas Druick as the museum’s new director Wednesday morning.Druick, who’s been serving as the interim director, has been with the institution for 26 years.He headed the department of prints and drawings, as well as the department of medieval to modern

The head of the preservation group Landmarks Illinois is leaving his post at the end of October.President and Executive Director Jim Peters will move on to consult and teach historic preservation at the University of Illinois at Chicago and other places.Peters joined the group about ten years ago af

That monstrous traffic jam Sunday on the Dan Ryan had one benefit: It pushed me off the expressway and onto Halsted Street, where I passed the Ramova Theater, battered, shuttered, but still holding on.The city owns and wants to redevelop the 82-year-old former 1,500-seat theater near 35th and Halste

All the talk about The High Line in New York City and the planned Bloomingdale Trail on Chicago's North Side brings to mind another potential railroad-to-park conversion in the South Side's Bronzeville community.If only the money and effort existed to actually make it happen.The embankment, overgrow