The September Issue Of Chicago Magazine

As I have mentioned (complained about) several times before on this blog, Chicago Magazine is no longer doing mail subscriptions, only delivering their magazine by newspaper carrier (the magazine is owned by the Chicago Tribune). And so, the only way for me to read it is the e-edition, which is just not the same, but not the end of the world, I suppose. In any case, I checked out the September issue online, and the cover story is "The Case for a Parking Revolt." Back in 2008, Mayor Richard M. Daley and the city council signed rights to 36 thousand parking meters to a group of investors for a term of 75 years for 1.16 billion dollars. So far, those investors have received a return of almost twice its investment, with 57 years still left on the contract, while Chicago faces massive deficits. Understandably, people are still upset about this deal. One local citizen is trying to get people to simply not pay for parking at those meters, and if they get a ticket, just pay it, since the City of Chicago gets all the ticket revenue. He claims it actually winds up costing less than feeding the meters. Also in this issue, the "City of Big Questions" column recounts the adventures of Lar "America First" Daly, who ran for office in Chicago from the 1930s to the 1970s, often wearing an Uncle Sam suit. He ran for the senate, governor, mayor, and many other offices, and never once won. His last campaign was in 1978, when he ran in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, received 15% of the vote, and died the next month. I remember this guy from back when I lived in Chicago but never gave him another thought from that last campaign until now. Not surprisingly, he was a pretty strange ranger.

And of course, there are lots of articles on restaurants, bars and other food places, including the Guillotine Bakery (owned by three French ex-pats), Kitty's Cosmopolitan Club, and All Well, which has fine dining but gives patrons the ability to choose their ingredients, which is evidently a revolution in dining. And no, the tavern in the photo on the right was not mentioned in the article. It is a tavern I used to walk past on the way to the "L" when I lived in Forest Park years ago. I took the photo back in 2010 when I last visited Chicago. I used to drink Old Style when I lived in Chicago and cannot for the life of me remember why. In the "Chicago Stories" section, there is an article by Meaghan Garvey titled The Torch Singer, which tells about her finding, when a teenager, a binder with 8 x 10 black and white photographs of Helen Morgan, all personally inscribed. Morgan started out as a singer at various nightclubs in Chicago before going on to Broadway and Hollywood, only to descend to Skid Row. Evidently both Garvey's father and grandfather were involved with Morgan, and her father was one of the pallbearers at her funeral. An interesting story of someone who became briefly famous only to come to a sad end. There is also an article titled "Seven New Reasons to Get Away this Fall," which includes Big Sur, which I get, but then also lists Bentonville, Arkansas to visit an art museum, Saugatuck, Michigan for a food and wine festival, the Wisconsin Dells for a medieval themed resort (I would pay big money NOT to go there), New Buffalo, Michigan for a wellness retreat, Indianapolis for its new biking trails (Indianapolis - my God!), and Reykjavik, Iceland in order to "embrace winter adventure." One word of advice for all you people looking to get away this fall - Big Sur or Bust.