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Tag: Long Reads
The Breakaway: Chicago Blackhawks Owner Rocky Wirtz
By Bryan Smith
By the time Bill Wirtz died last fall, his once-proud Chicago Blackhawks had turned into perennial losers playing before dwindling crowds. His son Rocky took over and quickly opened a new era for the team—by repudiating almost everything his old man held dear Read more
Portrait of a Lady
By Geoffrey Johnson
Between the world wars, a beautiful, artistic woman named Bobsy Goodspeed stood at the heart of Chicago's social and cultural scenes. Now, prompted by a salacious if glancing remark in a recent book, this forgotten woman re-emerges and opens the door on a vanished era peopled by painters and pianists, plutocrats and politicians—and an irresistible force named Gertrude Stein Read more
The Audacity of Hope
By Marcia Froelke Coburn
In the 100 years since the Cubs won a World Series, the underachieving team has managed a single unmitigated triumph: inspiring the play Bleacher Bums. On this centennial, we look back at the creation of that memorable drama. Read more
The Adlai Issue
By Richard Babcock
Is Barack Obama the second coming of that other "elitist" Democratic presidential candidate from Illinios, Adlai Stevenson? Read more
The Turnaround Artist
By Robert Sharoff
For years, Laurence Booth, one of the city's most widely acclaimed architects, championed low-scale buildings and decried "antihuman" high-rises. Now he has designed three towers and has a fourth under construction. Why? "We have to make some huge changes in this country," he says. Read more
The Critter Hunter
By Bryan Smith
He stalks skunks, raccoons, foxes, snakes, and more—any wild varmint that's invaded city or suburb. Got bats in the Attic? Rick Wilberschied is on the case Read more
What Makes Jim Run?
By Ben Goldberger
Jim Oberweis earned a fortune in business, but in politics he hasn't fared so well—failing in runs for governor, the Senate, and Congress while burning through $7 million of his own money and one 35-year marriage. Now he's taking his second stab at Dennis Hastert's old congressional seat—even as he risks becoming a political punch line Read more
Collision Course
By Noah Isackson
In 2005, a young woman bent on self-destruction intentionally drove her car into the back of another. She lived. Three musicians on their lunch break died. This year, as her prison sentence comes to its end, the case remains a tragedy without closure or explanation. Read more
Playing the Fields
By Jeff Ruby
In an era when live major-league baseball has retreated to pleasure palaces packed with flashing videos, blaring music, and gut-busting food courts, has the old-fashioned game lost something? Across seven ballparks in seven days, one fan goes looking for an answer Read more
Witness at Haditha
By Bryan Smith
When a deadly roadside bomb ripped through a convoy of U.S. marines in Haditha, Iraq, the violent American response left 24 Iraqi civilians dead. In his first public comments on the incident, a marine sergeant from Chicago describes the terrible things he saw—and did—that day in November 2005. His account bolsters the government's case against his squad leader and friend—that the carnage was a massacre of innocents Read more