Chicago is often called “The City of Neighborhoods.” From Rogers Park to Hegewisch, from Austin to the Loop, and everywhere in between, treasures await discovery in every part of the city. Last year, Chicago Office of Tourism research teams scoured every community in search of restaurants, shops, landmarks, and other one-of-a-kind attractions. Award-winning journalist Alan Solomon followed up by visiting each neighborhood, going off the beaten path and into the heart of each community. Over 2000 Chicago attractions are featured in Solomon’s new and engaging essays on ExploreChicago.org, the city’s official tourism website. Collected here for the first time, Solomon’s narratives capture the essence and flavor of each of Chicago’s unique communities. Use this compendium as your guide to exploring Chicago’s unique places and people as you eat, play, and love our neighborhoods!

Alan Solomon has been a writer and editor for four major metropolitan newspapers during a career that began at the Chicago Tribune in 1968. As a travel writer with the Tribune (1994-2008), his work earned 62 national and regional awards, including the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year award in1998 by the Society of American Travel Writers, the highest honor in the field. His food-related works include a story on his participation in a Bologna cooking school (he flunked tortellini), an interview with Julia Child for the Tribune’s Good Eating section, and a piece on chicken-fried steak in the Texas Hill Country that earned him a 1999 James Beard Foundation award.

A lifelong Chicagoan, Soloman is currently a freelance writer and teaches journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Columbia College Chicago, and other area schools.

Recorded Saturday, February 26, 2011 at Kendall College.