Features

Critic’s Choice
by Dennis Ray Wheaton
The verdict is in: New blood enlivens our critics’ picks for the city’s best restaurants. And in these times of change, many of the restaurants that are perennially on the list have themselves changed a lot.

Power Drive
by Iris Krasnow
His tenacity, smarts, and no-apologies operating style have made him a star in Washington, where he heads the powerful Ways and Means Committee and hobnobs with George Bush. But does Democratic congressman Dan Rostenkowski still thrill the hometown crowd that put him there?

The Death of Playboy
by Terry Sullivan
In a year when gang crime is on the rise, the murder of Gabe Farley says a lot about what makes gangs so seductive. He had many chances to get out. But he just kept going back.

Against the Odds
by Mark Jannot
The Sun-Times has survived the best and worst of times. Now new management is positioning the paper for the nineties, and it has its work cut out for it.

A Little Night Music
by Chris Vartanian
Making the scene at the Gold Star Sardine Bar, where Eden Atwood’s torch songs light up the sky

Departments

Letters

Frontlines
Old clothes, new chapeaux, and poetry to go; Scoops du Jour, by Carla Kelson
Art Works
by Henry Hanson
Femmes fatales; camera-ready couples; Barenboim at bat

Prime Time
Hot dates around town this month

Metro
by Richard Lalich
Night court was supposed to speed up drug cases, and it did – at first. But now cracks are starting to show in the system.

Chicago Woman
by Marcia Froelke Coburn
It’s hard to believe that a towed car could lead to this.

Movies
by Penelope Mesic
Marching brooms, dancing mushrooms – more Disney dazzle on videotape

Books
by Robert C. Marsh
Remembrances of the University of Chicago’s most controversial man in charge

Theatre
by Anthony Adler
Plumbing the phenomenon of gay chic

Real Estate

by Dennis Rodkin
High anxiety on the Gold Coast. Plus, recent residential real-estate transactions

Budget Beat
by David Novick
Bucktown’s Gavroche is arty but not arch – it just might be the perfect neighborhood bistro.

Back Talk
by Henry Hanson
Studs Terkel, Jimmy Dean, Robbin Lockett, Madonna, Monet, Elmer Gertz, Nelson Algren