Category: Catchup

From school assemblies to “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,” Ella Jenkins was a rhythm specialist and children’s music pioneer. Her childhood in Chicago was her launching pad. In our last episode, we learned that the first Chicago public school named after a Black person was DuSable High School, in honor of Chicago’s first nonindigenous settler, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. It turns out some of the most notable Chicagoans graduated from DuSable, including Mayor Harold Washington, historian Timuel Black and Jenkins. Today, we bring you a conversation about this music icon, who harnessed curiosity, life experience and charisma to create some of the most unique and prolific art of the 20th century. Jenkins forged a path in the music industry during a time when children’s musicians didn’t really exist. She persevered through the civil rights era, took ownership of her music in an industry that often took advantage of women and made the focus about children. Professor of American studies at George Washington University Gayle Wald sat down with Curious City Editor Susie An at the 2025 Evanston Folk Festival to talk about Jenkins’ life. Wald is the author of “This is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children’s Music and the Long Civil Rights Movement.”

Many of Chicago’s oldest schools are named after white men. The first named after a Black person goes back to the 1930s, and it came with some controversy.

If you pay attention to street signs in Chicago, you’ll notice imperfections and many quirks. Paul Durica of the Chicago History Museum said a coworker informed him that North Avenue becomes North Boulevard when you’re east of Clark Street. “And I was like, what?” Durica recalled. “And it does! And it's because here we are, now in the park.” One of Chicago’s major arteries, Ashland Avenue, has a rich history of its own. In our last episode, we looked at why streets like Ashland are occasionally labelled boulevards (like North Boulevard, sometimes the answer is because the street is adjacent to a park). Today, we’re looking closer at the history of Ashland Avenue, including how it became a major thoroughfare and why the city widened it at great expense 100 years ago. (The short answer? To accommodate car traffic.) Contributing are Durica and Northwestern Professor Bill Savage, author of a forthcoming book on the anomalies and politics behind Chicago’s grid system.

Ashland Avenue is one of the longest and oldest streets in Chicago, but sometimes it’s a boulevard. Is this a misprint? Or is this part of the city’s history to promote park land?

From high-speed chases to preposterous parades, Chicago dazzles on the silver screen. Last episode, we attempted to uncover the best movie ever filmed in Chicago. What we found was that it was impossible to name a definitive best, let alone name every movie that deserves recognition. Today, we dive deeper into movies that resonate with Chicagoans with two film critics: Marya E. Gates, author of Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words and Robert Daniels, associate editor of RogerEbert.com. They argue that the city doesn’t just look good on screen, it also helps tell stories that are reflective of its residents. Gates and Daniels talk about Chicago movies that highlight crime and political tropes (like “The Untouchables,” “Medium Cool,” and “Call Northside 777”), movies that bend space and time to navigate through Chicago’s geography (like “The Fugitive” and “Blues Brothers”), and movies that follow teenagers as they romp around the city (like “Cooley High” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”). Plus, they’ve got recommendations for Chicago movies that may have flown under your radar.

It’s awards season. Time to look at some of the best movies filmed in Chicago.

Thanks to the powerful force that is Lake Michigan and the urban heat island that is Chicago, the city has witnessed some unusual and extreme weather events. Last episode was about lake-effect snow and a phrase you hear all the time: “Cooler by the lake.” But Chicago weather definitely gets stranger than that. We’re talking thundersnow, water spouts and even space weather. Why do these weather events happen, what makes them unusual and how can you have a little fun (safely!) when they come around? We talk with Jeff Frame, a teaching professor in the Department of Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

You’ve heard it in the Chicago weather forecast time and time again: “cooler by the lake.” But how close to Lake Michigan do you need to be to feel that dip in the temperature? And why doesn’t Chicago get the same lake effect snow as Northwest Indiana? We look into the powerful force that is Lake Michigan.

Berlin nightclub in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood closed permanently in November 2023, after four decades in business. The closure happened amid stalled negotiations between the bar’s owners and its unionizing employees. Today, the space remains empty, and it’s unclear what will take its place. In our last episode, Curious City looked into a mural that was a staple at Berlin for much of its existence. Today, we revisit an episode of WBEZ’s The Rundown podcast from just after the club closed. In asking some of the people who worked there, danced there and made memories there, it’s obvious that Berlin was more than just a bar. “It felt like a secret almost,” said All The Way Kay, who DJed at Berlin for over 15 years. “It felt like something that you wanted to hold very, very close to you because spaces like that really don't exist.” We talked with Kay, queer historian Owen Keehnen, DJ Greg Haus and several listeners who called The Rundown podcast to share what Berlin meant to them and what they hope for the future.

The large mural hung over the main bar at Berlin. Painted in the Art Deco style, the masculine and feminine figures in the painting watched over the nightly revelry at the storied nightclub until it closed in 2023.