Category: Catchup

If you’ve had your car towed in Chicago, there’s a decent chance you had to journey down to Lower Lower Wacker Drive — likely not in the best of moods — to open your wallet and recollect your vehicle. “It's supposed to be a happy process,” said Michael Lacoco, the deputy commissioner of the city’s bureau of traffic services. In our last episode, we answered some of your many questions about Lower Wacker Drive, a.k.a. Chicago’s basement. Today, we try to demystify a notorious Chicago landmark within: the Central Auto Pound. Lacoco is a 33-year veteran of this department, the perfect person to help us on this journey. He explains why you shouldn’t try to steal your own car from the lot, why that white inventory number they draw on your window is so hard to wash off, and what you can do if you think you were wrongfully towed.

Curious City has gotten several questions about Wacker Drive over the years. We head down to the lower levels in search of some answers.

Nuclear fallout shelters are still among us, though they are not exactly ready for the apocalypse. These remnants of Cold War-era infrastructure do exist across Chicago, often in places you might not expect.

Tucked in the city’s municipal code is a law that prohibits the production, storage and launching of nuclear weapons in Chicago. We find out why the city decided this law was necessary.

It’s typical to see moving trucks winding through streets and alleys of Chicago on the first day of any month. The act of moving hardly sounds like a luxury, but as we heard in the last episode, it could be worse. About a century ago, Chicagoans only moved on May 1 and sometimes Oct. 1. That meant thousands of moving wagons clogging the streets, price gouging and exploitation. Today, people move any time of the year and there are more protections for tenants. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use some advice to make moving and renting in Chicago easier. Host Erin Allen talks with local U-Haul representative Constance Turner about best practices when it comes to packing up and moving in. Then, she sits down with Sam Barth, staff attorney with Law Center for Better Housing, to talk about what renters can do to protect themselves.

You think moving is hard work? For about 100 years, Chicagoans used to move at the same time. Moving Day: May 1.

Samuel Gompers fought for the eight-hour work day and helped create child labor laws. But for all he achieved, he was also fiercely anti-immigrant. We explore Gompers’ life, legacy and the statue built to this complicated man.

In our last episode, Curious City question-asker Emily Porter sent us on a quest exploring the world of local fashion designers, all after she found a thrift shop sweater with a tag that reads: “Maria Rodriguez Chicago.” Who is Maria Rodriguez? How did she get into the industry? And what is it like to be a fashion designer in Chicago? To answer those questions, we take a trip to the basement of the Chicago History Museum, where collection manager Jessica Pushor has archived several Maria Rodriguez ensembles and a case file of news clippings, photos and look books. We also stopped by El Nuevo Mexicano, a Mexican restaurant in Lakeview that Rodriguez now owns and operates, to get the story from the fashion designer herself.

A question about a sweater in a thrift store turns into a search for a prominent Chicago designer of the 1980s. Along the way, we discover the city’s golden age of fashion designers.

Folk music surged in popularity across America in the late 1950s through the ‘70s, including here in the Chicago area. Last episode, we looked at how a few area coffeehouses catered to many patrons in their teens and early twenties. These were alcohol-free spaces where people could listen to live music and hangout for hours. Curious City host Erin Allen looks at one of those beloved coffeeshops of the 1970s: AmazinGrace, which was born out of Vietnam War protests on the campus of Northwestern University and later moved to the heart of downtown Evanston. She was joined by a panel of AmazinGrace founders, performers and patrons at last year’s Evanston Folk Festival. WBEZ is a programming partner of the Evanston Folk Festival, which is taking place this year Sept. 6-7, 2025. A pre-sale is happening now through April 22. Enter the code EFFWBEZ to access the sale.