Only a few years after J. W. Stevens opened his grand Michigan Avenue hotel, the Depression devastated his family, inducing a series of calamities that included suicide, bankruptcy, and criminal charges. But from the debacle of the Stevens Hotel (now Chicago Hilton and Towers) emerged a young man who today, at 86, sits on the U.S. Supreme Court
Many scientists cite world-impacting weather phenomena—melting glaciers, vanishing snowcaps—as proof of a warming planet. But what does that mean for Chicago?
Like many of the other good men and women profiled in this year’s “Solo Acts” article, I live a pretty public life. As a theatre director, writer, and artistic director, stories about my work get published whenever there’s a cool new play, and I’ve gotten accustomed to it. But nothing could be stranger than the … Read more
Ministering Angel // Rev. Thomas J. Behrens // The Night Ministry Photograph by Katrina Wittkamp Rev. Thomas J. Behrens In 1976, Tom Behrens, then 30, held a job as a mortgage banker. With graduate degrees from the McCormick Theological Seminary and the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, … Read more
Action Figure // Maria Pesqueira // Mujeres Latinas en Acción When your middle name is “Socorro”-the Spanish word for “aid”-helping people must be ingrained in your DNA. Or so it seems with Maria Socorro Pesqueira, the CEO and president of Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Latin Women in Action), a social service agency in the Pilsen … Read more
Captain Composer // Kimo Williams // Buffalo Soldiers Photograph by Katrina Wittkamp Kimo Williams It happened 36 years ago and 13,000 miles away, but James “Kimo” Williams remembers as if it were yesterday. As a young combat engineer in Lai Khe, Vietnam, he was on guard duty one night, and he thought he saw an … Read more
Gotta Dance // Keith Elliott and Harriet Ross // Dance for Life Photograph by Katrina Wittkamp Harriett Ross & Keith Elliott At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, with several of his friends dying, Keith Elliott looked for a way to battle the disease. A dancer with the Joseph Holmes Chicago … Read more
Past Finder // Julieanna Richardson // The Historymakers Photograph by Katrina Wittkamp Julieanna Richardson Though she recalls no overt racism from her childhood, as one of only 1,000 blacks in an Ohio town of about 50,000 people, Julieanna Richardson did feel as one apart. She remembers the day her white grade-school classmates, asked to describe … Read more
Bionic Man // Dr. Todd Kuiken // Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Photograph by Katrina Wittkamp Dr. Todd Kuiken As a high-school student in Twin Falls, Idaho, Todd Kuiken was fascinated by TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man. “I loved that show,” he recalls, “but I got a little sick of it by the time they … Read more
Tom Chambers is a young graduate of Harvard who recently scrapped his job as an actuary to make a living playing online poker. But a new law threatens his livelihood. Can he and others like him hold—or must they fold?
