Money flows toward often overlooked but essential facilities
Chicago will spend its federal dollars on shoreline protection, improving broadband networks and the pipes that deliver your water. MARK GUARINO Infrastructure in Chicago goes beyond trains, highways and bridges. Today, it also means pushing back against climate change, expanding broadband internet access and replacing hundreds [...]
A Windfall for Infrastructure
With billions to spend, Chicago's infrastructure is about to get a historic overhaul February 25, 2022 BY MARK GUARINO Anyone who has sat nervously in traffic under a crumbling highway viaduct, waited in gridlock traffic on the Eisenhower or waited for a CTA bus that never [...]
Is there a f***ing golden opportunity out there for Blago?
He's not giving it away for f***ing free. February 20, 2020 11:33 AM Mark Guarino Now that disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is released from prison, what does he do now? Even before Blagojevich landed in Chicago from Colorado where he was serving a 14-year [...]
Can Pete Buttigieg replicate his success in South Bend nationally?
April 22, 2019 06:11 AM The 37-year-old mayor and native of the former Rust Belt town has sparked redevelopment there and inspired younger citizens to take pride in their city. Chicago political backers are taking notice. By MARK GUARINO Like many young people who grew up [...]
The story behind those ‘Save Your Home Now’ ads
A slew of campaign-style commercials slamming both sides of the aisle for Illinois' skyrocketing property taxes are a signal that a significant rift within the Illinois GOP is far from healed. Here's why. October 04, 2018 11:47 AM MARK GUARINO A media campaign raising alarms about [...]
What’s making traffic worse in Chicago? Signs point to Uber, Lyft.
March 16, 2018 By: MARK GUARINO As a driver for a messenger service downtown, John Forbes knows the streets backward and forward. In recent years, he says, his job has become more dangerous, not just because of the increase in cars on the road, but because [...]
He grew up in Chatham. Now he tours with the Stones.
March 06, 2018 By: MARK GUARINO Darryl Jones grew up in Chicago but left when he turned 21 to play bass for Miles Davis. That led to stints with Sting, Herbie Hancock, Madonna, and, in 1993, he joined the Rolling Stones, replacing founding member Bill Wyman. [...]
Everyone dreams of discovering thrift store treasure
December 20, 2017 By: MARK GUARINO Dozens of midcentury treasures—furniture, signs, photographs and oil paintings—line the walls and occupy every inch of the floor of Paul Beaty's North Side apartment. They are mostly items he's rescued from alleys, dumpsters, demolished buildings and thrift stores. Beaty, a [...]
A deal to save Uptown Theatre was all set. Until it wasn’t.
December 08, 2017 By: MARK GUARINO At the intersection of Lawrence, Racine and Broadway in Uptown, the massive, once-grand Uptown Theatre, a shuttered movie palace that has awaited restoration for nearly 40 years, is slowly deteriorating. Its reopening—an expensive proposition that would require public and private [...]
Where is Emanuel in the budget fight?
By: MARK GUARINO June 02, 2017 When Richard M. Daley was Chicago's mayor, legislators in Springfield were assured of one thing: At least one day every year, they'd get a good meal. Daley would direct some of the city's most prominent vendors to the state capital [...]