Curious City went out to find the oldest book in circulation at the Chicago Public Library. Turns out, the title is over 200 years old, and you can still check it out.
Summer is coming to an end, and it’s time to go back to school.
Today, the number of Chicago Public School students complaining about school lunch might only be matched by the complaints over homework assignments. So it may come as a surprise that decades ago CPS students actually looked forward to eating cafeteria lunch.
In our last episode, WBEZ’s Sarah Karp found that privatization of food services and revamped health guidelines shifted the menu for CPS students. During Karp’s reporting, many alumni kept mentioning an old lunchtime staple, the famed CPS butter sugar cookie. This was a cookie served district wide and baked fresh by lunchroom staff during the 1960s-1980s. The cookie has long been discontinued in schools, but there’s still a cult following. Dozens of copycat recipes pop up on a simple internet search, and one woman even turned it into a business.
Curious City decided to put this cookie to the test. With the help of CPS culinary instructor Jeffrey Newman and a dupe recipe, we re-created this classic lunchroom treat. Is it worth all the hype? Will current CPS students like it? Or is this merely a dose of childhood nostalgia?
Some Chicago Public School alumni say school lunch used to be delicious, which might shock current students. How did school lunch go from delicious to disappointing?
Chicago is known for crime bosses like Al Capone, but the city is also home to two Chinese gangs that were once fierce rivals. This story first aired in 2018.
Family associations were once the backbone of social and economic organization for Chicago’s Chinatown. Their evolution over the decades tells the history of the community.
What is it about softball?
“What is it not about softball?” replies Megan Faramio, a star pitcher for the Talons in the all-new Athletes Unlimited Softball League, or AUSL. “I can literally talk about softball for days.”
The AUSL is about to wrap up its first season with a three-game playoff series in Alabama between Faraimo’s Talons and the Bandits, a team name that Chicago softball fans know well. The Chicago Bandits were based mainly in Rosemont and played in the National Pro Fastpitch league from 2005 to 2019 until the league disbanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. The AUSL said it was “re-introducing” the Bandits brand “to make new history.”
AUSL league commissioner Kim Ng acknowledged that pro women’s softball leagues in the U.S. have a “spotty” history, but she says this league will be different.
In this inaugural “barnstorming season,” AUSL teams like the Talons and Bandits are not yet attached to specific cities, so The Stadium in Rosemont has hosted every team in the small league for many of the regular season’s games. Next year, the AUSL plans to attach six teams to six to-be-determined cities, and Ng says Rosemont is on the short-list.
“Absolutely, you have to consider somewhere that has a Jennie Finch Way,” Ng said, a reference to the team’s legendary former player and the street named after her where Rosemont’s pro softball field is located.
In our last episode, we looked back at Chicago’s first professional women’s softball league from the 1940s and ‘50s — one that featured business-sponsored teams like Parichy’s Bloomer Girls or Brach’s Kandy Kids. That softball league rivaled the pro women’s baseball league featured in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”
Today, we’re exploring this new chapter in professional women’s softball history. What’s going to give the AUSL staying power? And what’s all the hype about?
We asked Talons star Megan Faraimo, Commissioner Ng, and — at a sellout crowd on a hot day in Rosemont — the fans.
There was the Rockford Peaches, women’s pro baseball team of the 1940s that was celebrated in the movie "A League of Their Own." But there was also a pro softball league at the time that had Chicago fans going wild.
What would win in a race between a car, bike and the Chicago Transit Authority?
Over the past few years, Chicago has been abuzz with road construction projects. There are more protected bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands and curb bump-outs across the city. As we learned in our last episode, that also includes the installation of miniature traffic circles in residential areas. It’s all in service to make the roads safer by slowing cars down.
Safer streets is a win, but it doesn’t necessarily satisfy the urge to get somewhere fast. Cycling and public transportation are viable alternatives, but sometimes it’s hard to separate yourself from the convenience of driving somewhere.
In this episode, the Curious City team puts the different modes of transportation to the test in a good old-fashioned transit race. From the Garfield Park Conservatory to Navy Pier, who will win? Car, bike or public transportation?
Plus, Midwest correspondent for the Economist, Daniel Knowles makes the case for why we should rethink our relationship with cars, and answers why the fastest isn’t always the best.
“People will always drive if it's the most convenient or the quickest way,” said Knowles, author of “Carmeggedon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It.” “You can't exhort people to change, you have to kind of change the incentives.”
