Portal:Chicago/Selected article
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[edit]Portal:Chicago/Selected article/1
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago in 1988. While the group has gone through several lineup changes, The Smashing Pumpkins consisted of Billy Corgan (vocals/guitar), James Iha (guitar/vocals), D'arcy Wretzky (bass/vocals), and Jimmy Chamberlin (drums/percussion) for most of the band's recording career. The Smashing Pumpkins broke into the musical mainstream with their second album, 1993's Siamese Dream. The group built their audience with extensive touring and their follow-up, 1995's double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. With approximately 18.3 million albums sold in the United States alone as of 2006, The Smashing Pumpkins were one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands of the 1990s. However, internal fighting, drug use, and diminishing sales hampered the band and led to a 2000 break-up. In April 2006, the band officially announced that they were reuniting and recording a new album. Returning members Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin were joined by new additions Jeff Schroeder (guitar) and Ginger Reyes (bass) in 2007 to tour behind their new release, Zeitgeist.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/2
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). They are currently the NFC Champions, after winning the 2006 NFC Championship Game. The Bears have won nine Professional American Football league championships (eight NFL Championships and Super Bowl XX), trailing only the Green Bay Packers, who have twelve. The Bears have the most enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with 26 members. The club was founded in Decatur, Illinois, in 1919 and moved to Chicago in 1921. The team played home games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season. With the exception of the 2002 season, they have played their home games at Chicago's Soldier Field every year since 1971. The stadium is located next to Lake Michigan and was recently remodeled in a modernization that has attempted to bring stadium amenities expected by today's fans to a historic Chicago building. The team has a fierce, longstanding rivalry with the Packers, whom they have played in over 170 games.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/3
The Bank of America's Chicago Marathon (formerly the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon) is a major marathon held yearly in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Alongside the Boston, New York, London and Berlin Marathons, it is one of the five World Marathon Majors. The 2017 running was the 40th Anniversary running of the race. It has been run every year since the September 25, 1977, running of the first race under the original name the Mayor Daley Marathon drew a field of 4200 runners. It is among the fastest growing marathon road races in the world, due in part to its largely fast and flat course which facilitates the pursuit of personal records and world record performances. The race has achieved its elite status among marathons by developing relationship with sponsors who provide prize money to lure elite runners who have produced American and world record performances. There is no qualifying time to participate in the Chicago Marathon, but only runners who finish within 6½ hours are officially timed. The race is limited to 45,000 runners on a first-come, first-served basis. Although the race has limited registration, exceptions include elite runners and charity representatives. Increasingly, local, national and global charities and humanitarian organizations encourage sponsored participation in the event as a means of fund raising. The 2008 marathon featured a new sponsor name in Bank of America, (as Bank of America acquired LaSalle Bank in 2007).
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/4
The 1880 Republican National Convention convened from June 2 to June 8, 1880, at the Interstate Exposition Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and nominated James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur as the official candidates of the Republican Party for President and Vice President of the United States, respectively, in the 1880 presidential election. Of the 14 people nominated for the Republican nomination, the three strongest candidates leading up to the convention were Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine and John Sherman. Grant had served two terms as President from 1869 to 1877, and was seeking an unprecedented third term in office. He was backed by the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party, which supported political machines and patronage. Blaine was a senator and former representative from Maine who was backed by the Half-Breed faction of the Republican Party. Sherman, the brother of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, was the then Secretary of the Treasury under President Rutherford B. Hayes. He was also a former senator from Ohio and was backed by a delegation that did not support the Stalwarts or Half-Breeds. Garfield's Ohio delegation chose Chester A. Arthur, a Stalwart, as Garfield's vice-presidential running mate. Arthur won the nomination by capturing 468 votes, and the longest-ever Republican National Convention was subsequently adjourned. The Garfield-Arthur Republican ticket later defeated Democrats Winfield Scott Hancock and William Hayden English in the close 1880 presidential election.
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Grand Central Station was a passenger railroad terminal in downtown Chicago, Illinois, from 1890 to 1969. It was located at 201 W. Harrison Street in the south-western part of the Chicago Loop, the block bounded by between W. Harrison Street, S. Wells Street, W. Polk Street and the Chicago River. Grand Central Station was designed by architect Solon Spencer Beman for the Wisconsin Central Railway, and was completed by the Chicago and Northern Pacific Railroad. Grand Central Station was eventually purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which used the station as the Chicago terminus for its passenger rail service, including its glamorous Capitol Limited to Washington, D.C.. Major tenant railroads included the Soo Line Railroad, successor to the Wisconsin Central, the Chicago Great Western Railway, and the Pere Marquette Railroad. The station was eventually shuttered in 1969 and torn down in 1971.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/6
Wilco is an American rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure from the band. Wilco's lineup has changed frequently, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt remaining from the original incarnation. The other current members are guitarist Nels Cline, multi-instrumentalists Pat Sansone and Mikael Jorgensen, and drummer Glenn Kotche. Wilco has released six studio albums, a live double album, and three collaborations: two with Billy Bragg, and one with The Minus 5. Wilco garnered media attention for its fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002), and the controversy surrounding it. After the recording sessions were complete, Reprise Records rejected the album and dismissed Wilco from the label. As part of a buy-out deal, Reprise gave Wilco the rights to the album for free. After streaming Foxtrot on its website, Wilco sold the album to Nonesuch Records in 2002. Both record labels are subsidiaries of Warner Music Group, leading one critic to say that the album showed "how screwed up the music business [was] in the early twenty-first century." The album was the most successful of Wilco's career, selling over 590,000 copies. Wilco won two Grammy Awards for their fifth studio album, 2004's A Ghost Is Born, including Best Alternative Music Album.
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The South Side is a major part of the city of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township, that have been annexed by the city. Regions of the city, referred to as sides, are divided by the Chicago River and its branches. The South Side of Chicago was originally defined as all of the city south of the Chicago River, but it now excludes the Loop. The South Side has a varied ethnic composition, and it has great disparity in income and other demographic measures. The South Side covers 60% of the city's land area, with a higher ratio of single-family homes and larger sections zoned for industry than the rest of the city. The South Side boasts a broad array of cultural and social offerings, such as professional sports teams, landmark buildings, nationally renowned museums, elite educational institutions, world class medical institutions, and major parts of the city's elaborate parks system. The South Side is serviced by bus and train via the Chicago Transit Authority and a number of Metra lines. In addition, it has several Interstate highways and United States highways to serve vehicular traffic.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/8
The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The Oliver Typewriter was the first effective "visible print" typewriter, meaning text was visible to the typist as it was entered. Oliver typewriters were marketed heavily for home use, utilizing local distributors and sales on credit. Oliver produced more than one million machines between 1895 and 1928 and licensed its designs to several international firms. Competitive pressure and financial troubles resulted in the company's liquidation in 1928. The company’s assets were purchased by investors who formed The British Oliver Typewriter Company, which manufactured and licensed the machines until its own closure in the late 1950s. The last Oliver typewriter was produced in 1959.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/9
The Pioneer Zephyr is a diesel-powered railroad train formed of railroad cars permanently articulated together with Jacobs bogies, built by the Budd Company in 1934 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), commonly known as the Burlington. The train featured extensive use of stainless steel, was originally named the Zephyr, and was meant as a promotional tool to advertise passenger rail service in the United States. The construction included innovations such as shotwelding (a specialized type of spot welding) to join the stainless steel, and articulation to reduce its weight. On May 26, 1934 it set a speed record for travel between Denver, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois, when it made a 1,015-mile (1,633 km) non-stop "Dawn-to-Dusk" dash in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of 77 mph (124 km/h). For one section of the run it reached a speed of 112.5 mph (181 km/h), just short of the then US land speed record of 115 mph (185 km/h). The historic dash inspired two films and the train's nickname, "Silver Streak".
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/10
Prairie Avenue is a north–south thoroughfare on the South Side of Chicago, which historically extended from 16th street in the Near South Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, to the city's southern limits and beyond. During the last three decades of the 19th century, a six-block section of the street served as the residence of many of Chicago’s elite families and an additional four-block section was also known for grand homes. The upper six-block section includes the historic Prairie Avenue District. Several of Chicago's most important historical figures have lived on the street. This is especially true of the period of recovery from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 when many of the most important families in the city moved to the street. Residents of the street have influenced the evolution of the city and have played prominent national and international roles. The street still has landmark buildings and is the backbone of an historic district. Recently, developments have extended the street north to accommodate new high-rise condominiums along Roosevelt Road (12th street) bordering Grant Park with Prairie Avenue addresses.
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is a particular church of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The Archdiocese of Chicago is one of the largest dioceses in the nation by population and comprises Cook and Lake counties, covering 1,411 square miles (3,653 km²) of Illinois. The original Diocese of Chicago was created on November 28, 1842, and was elevated to the status of an archdiocese on September 10, 1880. On September 27, 1908, the Diocese of Rockford was broken off from the Archdiocese. The Archbishop of Chicago concurrently serves as metropolitan bishop of the Ecclesiastical Province of Chicago, whose suffragan bishops are the bishops of Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield. It has become customary for each successive Archbishop of Chicago to be raised to the rank of Cardinal by the Pope in consistory, but the offices are not formally linked. Holy Name Cathedral in downtown Chicago is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The Archdiocese also has three minor basilicas, the most of any diocese in the United States: Basilica of Saint Hyacinth administered by the Congregation of the Resurrection, Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica administered by the Servite Order, Queen of All Saints Basilica administered by the archdiocese
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/12
Rush Street is a northbound one-way street in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It runs northbound from 401 North and 65 East to 1138 North and 0 E in the Chicago street address system, making it slightly less than a mile long. It runs parallel to and one block west of the Magnificent Mile on the two-way traffic street North Michigan Avenue, which runs at 100 east up to 950 north. The street, which is also one block east of the one-way southbound Wabash Avenue, formerly ran slightly further south to the Chicago River where over time various bridges connected it to the Loop. Rush Street's history traces back to the original incorporation of the city. The street, which was named after Dr. Benjamin Rush, is currently known for its nightlife, especially at the northern end, but was an integral part of the city as a main river crossing at the southern end from the mid-1800s until the 1920s. However, the Michigan Avenue Bridge has taken over this role for this neighborhood.
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Man Enters the Cosmos is a cast bronze sculpture by Henry Moore located on the Lake Michigan lakefront outside the Adler Planetarium in the Museum Campus area of downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The planetarium, which is both a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located in the Near South Side community area of Chicago. Moore's sculpture is a functional bowstring equatorial sundial created in 1980 measuring approximately 13 feet (4.0 m). The sundial was formerly located slightly further south at the steps of the main entry plaza to the Planetarium, but it now sits directly on the lakefront.
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The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Incorporated in 1890 by the American Baptist Education Society, the school has traditionally dated its founding to July 1, 1891, when William Rainey Harper became President and first member of the faculty; the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller is officially designated "Founder." The University of Chicago held its first classes on October 1, 1892. Chicago was one of the first universities in the United States to be conceived as a combination of the American interdisciplinary liberal arts college and the German research university. Affiliated with 100 Nobel Prize laureates, the University of Chicago is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost universities. Historically, the university is noted for the unique undergraduate core curriculum pioneered by Robert Hutchins in the 1930s, and for influential academic movements such as the Chicago School of Economics, the Chicago School of Sociology, and the Law and Economics movement in legal analysis. The University of Chicago was the site of the world's first man-made self-sustaining nuclear reaction. It is also home to the Committee on Social Thought, an interdisciplinary graduate research program, and to the largest university press in the United States.
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The S.S. Christopher Columbus was an excursion liner on the Great Lakes, in service between 1893 and 1933. She was the only whaleback ship ever built for passenger service. The ship was designed by Alexander McDougall, the developer and promoter of the whaleback design. Columbus was built between 1892 and 1893 at Superior, Wisconsin by the American Steel Barge Company. Initially, she ferried passengers to and from the World's Columbian Exposition. Later, she provided general transportation and excursion services to various ports around the lakes. At 362 feet (110 m), the ship was the longest whaleback ever built, and reportedly also the largest vessel on the Great Lakes when she was launched. Columbus is said to have carried more passengers during her career than any other vessel on the Great Lakes. After a career lasting four decades, she was retired during the Great Depression and scrapped in 1936 by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company at Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
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Fall Out Boy is an American band from Wilmette, Illinois, (a suburb of Chicago) that formed in 2001. The band consists of Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, and Andy Hurley. Fall Out Boy has won several awards for their album From Under the Cork Tree. Released in 2005, the album has achieved triple platinum status after selling more than 2.5 million albums in the United States. In support of the album, Fall Out Boy headlined tours in 2005 and the year before 2007 in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe. In February 2007, the band released Infinity on High to major chart success, reaching #1 on the Billboard 200 and selling 260,000 copies in its first week. The first single, "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race", reached #1 on the Pop 100 and #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. To promote the album, the band performed at the Live Earth concerts July 7, headlined the Honda Civic Tour through mid-2007, and the band performed at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 9.
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Interstate 355 (I-355), also known as the Veterans Memorial Tollway, is an interstate highway and tollway in the western and southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Like other tollways in the northeastern portion of the state, I-355 is maintained by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (abbreviated ISTHA, but commonly referred to as the "tollway authority"). I-355 runs from Interstate 80 in New Lenox north to Interstate 290 in Itasca, a distance of 32.5 miles (52.3 km). The highway is six lanes wide for its entire length. The tollway authority opened I-355 as the North–South Tollway in 1989 to ease congestion on Illinois Route 53 (IL 53), a parallel two-lane state highway in central DuPage County. Initially, I-355 ran from Interstate 55 north to I-290. On November 11, 2007, the tollway authority opened a southern extension of I-355 from I-55 to I-80, a distance of 12.5 miles (20.1 km); on its opening, the tollway authority changed the name of the tollway to "Veterans Memorial Tollway".
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Alpha Kappa Alpha (ΆΚΆ) is the first Greek-lettered sorority established and incorporated by African-American college women. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at Howard University in Washington, D.C. by a group of nine students, led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle. Forming a sorority broke barriers for African-American women in areas where little power or authority existed due to a lack of opportunities for minorities and women in the early twentieth century. Alpha Kappa Alpha was incorporated on January 29, 1913. Alpha Kappa Alpha is part of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). The current International President is Barbara A. McKinzie, and the sorority's document and pictorial archives are located at Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. Consisting of college-educated women of African, Caucasian, Asian, and Hispanic descent, the sorority serves through a membership of more than 200,000 women in over 975 chapters in the United States and several other countries. Since being founded over a century ago, Alpha Kappa Alpha has helped to improve social and economic conditions through community service programs. Members have improved education through independent initiatives, contributed to community-building by creating programs and associations and influenced federal legislation by Congressional lobbying through the National Non-Partisan Lobby on Civil and Democratic Rights. The sorority works with communities through service initiatives and progressive programs relating to education, family, health, and business.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/19
Road to Perdition is a 2002 period drama directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self, from the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins. The film stars Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Tyler Hoechlin, and Daniel Craig. Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, an enforcer who is forced to flee with his son from the crime syndicate for whom he had worked. Filming took place in the Chicago area. Director Sam Mendes, having recently finished 1999's acclaimed American Beauty, pursued a film that had minimal dialogue and conveyed emotion in the imagery. A "cold look" was created for the locations to emphasize the characters' emotional states. Cinematographer Conrad L. Hall took advantage of the lighting and the environment to create symbolism for the film, for which he won several awards. Road to Perdition explored the themes of violence's consequences and the relationship between father and son. The film was released on 12 July 2002, and received mostly positive reviews. The cinematography, setting, and the performances of Paul Newman and Tom Hanks were well-received, though the film was criticized for not creating a strong emotional attachment to its audience.
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Crown Fountain is an interactive public fountain in Millennium Park, in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Designed by Jaume Plensa, it opened in July 2004. The fountain consists of a black granite reflecting pool located between a pair of artistic and technically sophisticated opposing glass brick sculptures measuring 50 feet (15 m) in height. The structure involved numerous complicated electronics and architectural considerations, and the construction and design cost $17 million. Throughout most of the warmer months, it incorporates water in the form of a cascade and spouting water nozzle as well as a reflecting pool. The sculptures are known for the digital videos of Chicago residents that they display continuously throughout the year. The fountain has been praised by both trained architects and ordinary city residents for its artistic contribution to Millennium Park. In addition, the fountain has a reputation as a public play area that accommodates a need to escape from summer heat. At times when the National Weather Service issues summer heat advisories and the Illinois Governor is compelled to declare state office buildings as official daytime cooling centers, the national press points to Crown Fountain as a respite not only for Chicagoans, but also for residents of the most remote reaches of the Chicago metropolitan area.
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"My Kind of Town" or "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)" is a popular song composed by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It was originally part of the musical score for Robin and the 7 Hoods, a 1964 musical film starring several members of the Rat Pack. It was nominated for the 1964 Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost to "Chim Chim Cher-ee" from Mary Poppins. Although the song predated the Grammy Award Best Original Song for a Motion Picture category, the entire score was nominated for the 1964 Grammy Award in the category Best Original Score Written for A Motion Picture, but it lost to the eponymously titled Mary Poppins score. Frank Sinatra has recorded several versions which have appeared on many of his albums. Also, many artists have performed the song as a tribute to Sinatra in posthumous tribute albums. In addition, the song had been recorded by many other artists prior to Sinatra's death. The lyrics, which praise the city of Chicago for its people and institutions, repeat the phrase My Kind of Town several times, usually in a line that says "My kind of town, Chicago is".
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Chicago Midway International Airport (IATA: MDW, ICAO: KMDW, FAA LID: MDW), also known simply as Midway Airport or Midway, is an airport in Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's southwest side, eight miles (13 km) from Chicago's Loop. The airport's northern half is within the Garfield Ridge community area, and the southern half is within the Clearing community area. The airport is managed by the Chicago Airport System, which also oversees operations at O'Hare and Gary/Chicago Airports. Midway is heavily used by low-cost carriers, such as AirTran and Southwest Airlines, and to a lesser extent by legacy carriers, such as Continental, Delta, and Northwest Airlines. Both the Stevenson Expressway and Chicago Transit Authority's "L" Train Orange Line provide passengers access to downtown Chicago. Chicago Midway Airport is the second largest passenger airport in the Chicago metropolitan area. In its 80-year history, Midway Airport has had 21 incidents and accidents, and only one accident since 1976.
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The Chicago Spire was a planned supertall skyscraper that began construction in Chicago, Illinois. The skyscraper would have stood taller than Chicago's Sears Tower and New York's upcoming Freedom Tower, as well as Toronto's CN Tower, thereby becoming North America's tallest free-standing structure and the world's tallest all-residential building. The building was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and was being developed by Garrett Kelleher of Shelbourne Development Group, Inc. Originally announced in July of 2005 by Christopher T. Carley of the Fordham Company, the project was supported by many Chicagoans and city officials. After several months of development, Carley failed to acquire necessary financing and the project was taken over by Garrett Kelleher of the Shelbourne Development Group. Since that time, three major revisions were made to the design. After the initial construction began and then stopped, the project was eventually transferred to developer Related Midwest, which in 2014 announced the project would not be completed.
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The 3rd Congressional District of Illinois includes part of Cook County, and has been represented by Democrat Dan Lipinski since January 2005; the district was previously represented by his father Bill Lipinski beginning in 1993. This district includes west and southwest suburbs of Chicago as far as the DuPage County border, as well as a portion of the southwest side of the city of Chicago itself, and covers 124.5 square miles (322.45 km²), making it one of the 50 smallest districts in the U.S., although there are five smaller districts in Illinois. The district was created following the 1830 Census and came into being in 1833, five months before Chicago was organized as a town; it initially included northern and western Illinois before representing areas of east central and northwestern Illinois from 1843 to 1873. The district has included part of Chicago since 1873, and part of the city's southwest side since 1895; the district has been primarily suburban since 1973. Although the district has elected Democrats to Congress in 24 of the last 25 elections, and has voted for the Democratic nominee in the last four presidential races, there is also a strong tradition of social conservatism in the area which has resulted in the election of conservative Democrats, as well as greater support for Republicans than might be expected based on voter identification by party.
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The Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical comedy directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, characters developed from a "Saturday Night Live" musical sketch. It features musical numbers by R&B and soul legends James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker, and epic car chase scenes. The story is a tale of redemption for paroled convict Jake and his brother Elwood, who take on "a mission from God" to save the Roman Catholic orphanage in which they grew up from foreclosure. To do so they must re-form their rhythm and blues band, the Blues Brothers, and organize a performance to earn $5,000 to pay the tax assessor. Along the way they are targeted by a destructive "mystery woman," Neo-Nazis, and a country and western band – all while being relentlessly pursued by the police, and eventually the military and a SWAT team. The film is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, and also features non-musical supporting performances by John Candy, Carrie Fisher and Henry Gibson.
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Rainbow/PUSH is a non-profit organization formed as a merger of two non-profit organizations — Operation PUSH (People United To Save Humanity) and the National Rainbow Coalition — founded by Jesse Jackson. The organizations pursue social justice, civil rights and political activism. In December 1971, Jackson resigned from Operation Breadbasket after clashing with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and founded Operation PUSH. Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition in 1984 which merged with PUSH in 1996. The combined organization keeps its national headquarters on the South Side of Chicago and has branches in Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, the Silicon Valley, and New Orleans. Operation PUSH was successful at raising public awareness to initiate corporate action and government sponsorship. The National Rainbow coalition became a prominent political organization that raised public awareness on numerous political issues and consolidated a large voting block. The merged entity has undertaken numerous social initiatives.
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Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Pritzker Pavilion, or Pritzker Music Pavilion is a band shell in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The Frank Gehry-designed pavilion, named for Pritzker family member Jay Pritzker, was constructed between June 1999 and July 2004 in Millennium Park. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street directly across from some of the tallest buildings in the world and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. It is the park's outdoor performing arts venue and the new home of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. As home of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus it is also the home of the Grant Park Music Festival, the nation's only remaining free outdoor classical music series. The structure is built partially atop the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the park's indoor performing arts venue. It serves as the centerpiece for the park that was opened on July 16, 2004. The first mainstream concert at the Pavilion was performed by Tori Amos and took place on August 31, 2005. The performance venue is designed with a large fixed seating area, a great lawn, a trellis network to support the sound system and a signature Gehry stainless steel headdress. It features a sound system with an innovative acoustic design that replicates an indoor concert hall sound experience. The pavilion and the park in general are well-known and respected for their accessibility.
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The Franklin Center was the 4th tallest completed skyscraper in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States and the 9th tallest in the United States at a height of 1,021 ft (307 m) containing 60 floors. Completed in 1989, the 1.7 million square foot (158,000 m²) supertall building stands two blocks east of the Chicago River and northeast of the Sears Tower at 227 West Monroe Street (100 South Franklin alternate address) in the Loop community area of downtown Chicago. Composed of retail and commercial office space, the tower is the tallest building constructed in Chicago in the last quarter of the 20th century. The building was built to consolidate American Telephone & Telegraph Company central regional headquarters offices.
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The Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic is an annual parade in Chicago, Illinois, and the largest African American parade in the United States. Since 1929, it has always been held on the second Saturday in August. The idea for the parade came from Robert S. Abbott, the founder of the Chicago Defender. It is now the second largest annual parade in the United States. The 78th Annual Parade took place on August 11, 2007, and was televised on WLS-TV as well as nationally on WGN-TV in addition to local coverage. The parade features celebrities, politicians, businessmen, civic organizations and youth. It occurs on the South Side of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States and concludes in Washington Park. National and international celebrities have attended and some have served as the parade's Grand Marshal. The focus of the parade is on the betterment of Chicago youth.
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Hyde Park Township, Cook County, Illinois is a former civil township in Cook County, Illinois, United States that existed as a separate municipality from 1861 until 1889 when it was annexed into the city of Chicago. Its borders are Pershing Road (formerly 39th Street) on the north, State Street on the west, Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line on the east, and 138th Street and the Calumet River on the south (see map in footnote). This region comprised most of what are now known as the South Side of Chicago including the entirety of the following community areas: Hyde Park, Kenwood, Woodlawn, South Shore, South Chicago, East Side, Hegewisch, Avalon Park, Calumet Heights, South Deering, Burnside, Pullman, and Riverdale as well as the Southern part of Oakland and the eastern parts of Grand Boulevard, Washington Park, Greater Grand Crossing, Chatham, Roseland, and West Pullman. During its brief history it developed from unpopulated wildlife to a largely developed residential, commercial and resort community. However, due to infrastructure limitations, legislative incentives and the lure of better municipal services it, along with numerous adjoining townships, agreed to be annexed into the city of Chicago, creating the largest city in the United States at that time.
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Loose Fur was an American rock band composed of Wilco members Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, and Wilco collaborator Jim O'Rourke. The trio first convened in May 2000 in preparation for a Tweedy performance at a festival in Chicago. Tweedy was offered the opportunity to collaborate with an artist of his choosing, and he decided to work with O'Rourke. O'Rourke brought Kotche to a rehearsal session, and the trio recorded an album's worth of songs. The trio have since released two albums, 2003's Loose Fur and 2006's Born Again in the USA, for Drag City. The band was a side project of Wilco, and only toured once. The band is noted for its influence on Wilco's fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Tweedy was unhappy with how music from the initial recording sessions for the album were sounding, resulting in a lineup change for the band.
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Haystacks is the title of a series of impressionist paintings by Claude Monet. The primary subjects of all of the paintings in the series are stacks of grain that have been stacked in the field after the harvest season. The title refers primarily to a twenty-five canvas series (Wildenstein Index Number 1266-1290) begun the fall of 1890 and continued through the following spring, using that year's grain harvest. Some use a broader definition of the title to refer to other paintings by Monet with this same theme. The series is known for its thematic use of repetition to show differences in perception of light across various times of day, seasons, and types of weather. The subjects were painted in fields near Monet's home in Giverny, France. The series is among Monet's most notable works. Although the largest collections of Monet's work are held in Paris at the Musée d'Orsay and Musée Marmottan Monet, Boston, Massachusetts at the Museum of Fine Arts, New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art and Tokyo at the National Museum of Western Art, six of the twenty-five haystacks pieces are currently housed at the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, United States holds two, and The Louvre in Paris, France holds one. Other museums that hold parts of this series in their collection include the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, Minneapolis Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, Kunsthaus Zürich in Zürich, Switzerland, and Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont, United States. Several private collections also hold Haystack paintings.
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T. B. Blackstone Memorial Library is a building that is part of the Chicago Public Library System and is named after Timothy Blackstone. The building was designed by Chicago architect Solon S. Beman. It is now known as the Chicago Public Library – Blackstone Branch and commonly referred to as Blackstone Library, or Blackstone Branch and sometimes Blackstone for short. The Concord Granite building's two-year construction started in 1902, and it was dedicated on January 8, 1904. Blackstone Library marks the beginning of the Chicago Branch Library System as the first dedicated branch in the system. Blackstone is also the only branch of the 79-branch Chicago Public Library branch system that was constructed using private funding. The Blackstone Library was designated as a Chicago Landmark. (Full article...)
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The Near South Side is a community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located just south of the downtown central business district, the Loop, which is itself a community area. The Near South Side's boundaries (see map) are as follows: North—Roosevelt Road (1200 S); South—26th Street; West—Chicago River between Roosevelt and 18th Street, Clark Street between 18th Street and 22nd Street, Federal between 22nd and the Stevenson Expressway just south of 25th Street, and Clark Street again between the Stevenson and 26th Street; and East—Lake Michigan. The portion of the Near South Side located east of Lake Shore Drive contains some of the most well-known structures in Chicago: Soldier Field (the home of the National Football League Chicago Bears), the eastern half of McCormick Place (Chicago's primary convention center), the Museum Campus (which contains the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planetarium), and Northerly Island. The remaining area is currently undergoing a major residential and mixed-use redevelopment. As part of the unsuccessful Chicago 2016 Olympic bid, the Olympic Village was planned to be located on a 37 acre truck parking lot south of McCormick Place that is mostly in the Douglas community area and partly in the Near South Side.
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Washington Park is a 372 acre (1.5 km²) park between Cottage Grove Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard, (originally known as "South Park Blvd.") located at 5531 S. Martin Luther King Dr. in the Washington Park community area on the South Side of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It was named for President George Washington in 1880. Washington Park is the largest of 4 Chicago Park District parks named after persons surnamed Washington (the others being Dinah Washington Park, Harold Washington Park and Washington Square Park, Chicago). This park was the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium for the unsuccessful Chicago bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Washington Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 20, 2004.
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Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman. Christopher Nolan directed the film, which stars Christian Bale as Batman, as well as Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman and Tom Wilkinson. The film reboots the Batman film series, telling the origin story of the character with inspirations from classic comic book storylines such as Batman: The Man Who Falls, Batman: Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween. After a series of unsuccessful projects to resurrect Batman on screen following the critical and commercial failure of Batman and Robin (1997), Nolan and Goyer began work on this film in 2003. Aiming for a dark and realistic tone, the filmmakers created a new interpretation of the Batmobile, here a military vehicle called the "Tumbler". The film was primarily shot in England and Chicago, and relied on traditional stunts and miniatures; computer-generated imagery was used minimally. Batman Begins was critically and commercially successful, and a sequel titled The Dark Knight was commissioned for a 2008 release with both Nolan and Bale returning.
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Arts Club of Chicago is a private club located in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, a block east of the Magnificent Mile, that exhibits international contemporary art. It was founded in 1916, inspired by the success of the Art Institute of Chicago's handling of the Armory Show. Its founding was viewed as a statement that art had become an important component of civilized urban life. The Arts Club is said to have been pro-Modernist from its founding. The Club strove to break new ground with its shows, rather than collect the works of established artists as the Art Institute does. The club presented Pablo Picasso's first United States showing. In addition, the 1951 exhibition by Jean Dubuffet and his "Anticultural Positions" lecture at the Arts Club were tremendous influences on what would become the mid 1960s Imagist movement. Another important presentation in the history of the Arts Club was the Fernand Leger showing of Le Ballet Mecanique. The Club's 1997 move to its current 201 E. Ontario Street location was not without controversy, because the club demolished its former interior space designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and moved only the central staircase to the new gallery space. However, the new space is 19,000 square feet (1,800 m2), which is 7,000 square feet (650 m2) larger than the old space.
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Chevelle is an American rock band that formed in 1995 in Grayslake, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The band was originally composed of two brothers: Pete Loeffler (lead vocals/guitar), Sam Loeffler (drums/percussion) and Matt Scott (bass/backing vocals). Scott was later replaced by brother Joe Loeffler. When Joe left the band in 2005, Geno Lenardo subbed-in as the bassist until he was replaced by Pete and Sam's brother-in-law, Dean Bernardini.
Chevelle has sold over four million albums in the United States. The band's first studio album, Point #1 was released on a small record label called Squint Entertainment. Chevelle's second album, Wonder What's Next, was certified Platinum by the RIAA after a debut at No. 14 on the United States albums chart, Billboard 200. This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In), the band's third album debuted at No. 8 and has been certified Gold. Chevelle has since three more albums, Vena Sera, Sci-Fi Crimes, and Hats Off to the Bull.
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SummerSlam 1994 was the seventh annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It took place on August 29, 1994 at the newly-opened United Center in Chicago, Illinois, which had opened eleven days earlier. The tagline was "So Hot it's Scary". The pay-per-view had two main events. The first featured Owen Hart fighting his brother Bret Hart in a steel cage match. Bret won the match, but the storyline feud escalated after Owen and his brother-in-law Jim Neidhart attacked Bret after the match. The other main event was a match between The Undertaker, the original Undertaker portrayed by Mark Calaway, and Brian Lee, who portrayed a "fake" Undertaker. The original Undertaker won the match, and the impostor did not appear in the WWF again. The undercard featured a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship between Diesel and Razor Ramon, which Ramon won to regain the title. The other major angle going into SummerSlam was a feud in which Tatanka accused Lex Luger of joining the Million Dollar Corporation, a stable of heel wrestlers. This storyline turned out to be a swerve, as Tatanka was revealed to have secretly joined the corporation.
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The Joffrey Tower is a high rise commercial real estate development on the northeast corner of North State Street and East Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States that was developed to include the headquarters and related spaces for the Joffrey Ballet. It is located immediately south of the Chicago Theatre and directly across the street from Macy's on State Street, the flagship location of the Chicago Landmark Marshall Field and Company Building of the former Marshall Field's within the Loop Retail Historic District. Its address had once been the site of the Masonic Temple. The placement of the Joffrey Ballet in this building appears to have involved political dealings with the Mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley and his brother, William Daley, a co-chairman of the Joffrey board of trustees. The building completed 2008.
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108 North State Street, also known as Block 37, is a development located in the Loop community area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. It is located on the square block bounded clockwise from the North by West Randolph Street, North State Street, West Washington Street and North Dearborn Street that is known as "Block 37", which was its designated number as one of the original 58 blocks of the city. Above-ground redevelopment is complete, but work stopped on underground public transit facilities when they were only partially complete.
The previous buildings on the block were demolished in 1989 for a hotly contested redevelopment plan under the then new Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. The debates included the demolition of the Chicago Landmark McCarthy Building, which proceeded after the Illinois Supreme Court decided private preservation groups did not have standing to challenge the city's decision. Once the site was cleared, the initial redevelopment plan fell through, as did several subsequent plans, leaving the block vacant and undeveloped. Financial difficulties continued even after construction began in 2006, but the three new buildings were completed in 2016.
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Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of the blue notes. It emerged in African-American communities of the United States from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The use of blue notes and the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics are indicative of African influence. The blues influenced later American and Western popular music, as it became the roots of jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, hip-hop, and other popular music forms.
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William W. Powers State Recreation Area is an Illinois state park administered by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources on 580 acres (2.35 km2) in the Hegewisch community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The area includes 419 acres (1.70 km2) of water in Wolf Lake that provides about 6 miles (9.7 km) of shoreline to fishermen. The park hosts about half a million visitors annually. The park hosts numerous species, which are the concern of ecologist. As a result, some of these species have been placed on special watch lists, and the park has been the subject of extended study as well as the focal point of extensive volunteerism.
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The Reputation were an indie rock band from Chicago, Illinois. The band was fronted by former Sarge singer-songwriter Elizabeth Elmore, with other positions filled by various members. The band, which formed while Elmore was attending law school, released two albums between the years of 2001 and 2006, both of which were met with generally positive reviews. The band has toured the United States and the United Kingdom.
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Washington Park Race Track was a popular horse racing venue in the Chicago metropolitan area from 1884 until 1977. It was first situated in what is the current location of the Washington Park Subdivision of the Woodlawn community area of Chicago. This is immediately south of both the current Washington Park community area and Washington Park. The track was later relocated to Homewood, Illinois, which is also in Cook County. The original track and its accompanying Jockey Club were social draws in the late 1800s, but modern developments and changes in the law led to the decline of both. In its prime, the track was an important social gathering place on opening day and the day of the American Derby, which ranked as one of horse racing's highest purses. The Jockey club, designed by Solon Spencer Beman, hosted a social gathering led by early track and club leader General Philip Sheridan. The track was closed and reopened according to the contemporary gambling laws and eventually waned in popularity and social importance. Over the years, numerous famous horses and jockeys appeared at the track. In the 19th century, notable horses, such as Emperor of Norfolk and Domino raced. In the 20th century, notable Thoroughbreds to race at Washington Park included Triple Crown winners Citation and Whirlaway. Other notable horses included Native Dancer and Swaps, who each won legs of the Triple Crown. Jockey Eddie Arcaro won both the 1948 and 1953 American Derby races at the track. In addition to the American Derby, several other notable graded stakes races were run at the track such as the Stars and Stripes Turf Handicap and the Washington Park Handicap. In addition, notable match races were held at the track.
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The Rock N Roll McDonald's (formerly The Original Rock 'N Roll McDonald's) was one of the most famous McDonald's locations in the world, and was once the busiest in the United States. It was a flagship location. The restaurant/museum, located in the Near North Side community area (neighborhood) of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States a few city blocks west of the Magnificent Mile, was a tourist attraction since it opened in 1983. The site had a Rock & Roll exhibit in a building adjacent to the restaurant and a small upstairs McDonald's museum display. The restaurant had a maximum occupancy of 300, which was about three times the standard patron capacity. The building featured the first two-lane McDonald's drive-through, relatively luxurious decor, a cafe, plasma display flat screen televisions and a green roof.
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Super Bowl XLI was an American football game played on February 4, 2007, at Dolphin Stadium to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion following the 2006 regular season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts (16-4) defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears (15-4), 29-17. Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was named the game's Most Valuable Player, completing 25 of 38 passes for 247 yards and a touchdown, with one interception. This was Peyton Manning's first Super Bowl title after being one of the league's most dominant quarterbacks for some eight years. Nielsen Media Research reported 93 million viewers for Super Bowl XLI, making it the fourth most-watched program in U.S. television history (trailing only the M*A*S*H finale and Super Bowls XLII and XXX). This game featured two teams ending long Super Bowl appearance droughts. The Colts made their first appearance in a Super Bowl game since winning Super Bowl V in the 1970 season during the team's tenure in Baltimore; they moved to Indianapolis in 1984. Meanwhile, the Bears made their first appearance since winning Super Bowl XX in the 1985 season. It was only the second time that two pre-expansion era (pre 1960) teams met in the Super Bowl. The first was Super Bowl XIV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams.
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The Museum of Contemporary Art, often abbreviated to MCA, is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The current location at 220 East Chicago Avenue is in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area.
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Burnham Park is a public park in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The six mile (9.66 km) long 598 acre (2.4 km²) park is composed of Chicago Park District property that connects Grant Park to Jackson Park (14th St. to 56th St.) along the Lake Michigan lakefront. It was named for urban planner and architect Daniel Burnham in 1927. Burnham was one of the designers of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Businessman A. Montgomery Ward felt that Chicago needed to have a publicly accessible, "forever open, clear and free" lakefront lest the city descend into the squalor typical of American cities of the time, with buildings and heavy industry destroying any chance for beauty. To this day the city's lakefront is open from the former city limits at Hollywood down to the steel mills near Rainbow Beach.
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Prison Break is a Golden Globe and Emmy nominated American action/serial drama television series that premiered on the Fox Broadcasting Company on August 29, 2005. The story revolves around a man who was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and his brother's elaborate plan to help him escape his death sentence. Created by Paul Scheuring, the show is produced by Adelstein-Parouse Productions in association with Original Television and 20th Century Fox Television. The current executive producers are Scheuring, Matt Olmstead, Kevin Hooks, Marty Adelstein, Dawn Parouse, Neal Moritz, and Brett Ratner. Its theme music is composed by Ramin Djawadi, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2006. The show recently concluded its third season. A fourth season of 22 episodes has been confirmed by FOX as of March 25 2008. It is expected to be back on television later in the year. The production for the fourth season will move from Dallas to Los Angeles. The uniqueness of Prison Break is attributed to its serialized story structure, a similar format used by Lost and 24, and to its setting, as very few television series were primarily set and filmed in a prison.
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Douglass Park is a large Chicago Park District park that also serves as a cultural and community center in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who died in 1861. Originally named South Park, its 173 acres (0.70 km2) are in the North Lawndale community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States with an official address of 1401 S. Sacramento Drive. Currently, Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid included plans to host the Olympic swimming competitions in this park.
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Harold Washington Cultural Center is a performance facility located in the Grand Boulevard community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It was named after Chicago's first Afro-American Mayor Harold Washington and opened August 17, 2004 ten years after initial groundbreaking. In addition to the 1000 seat Com-Ed Theatre, the center offers a Digital Media Resource Center. Both Chicago City Council Alderman Dorothy Tillman and singer Lou Rawls take credit for championing the center, which cost $19.5 million. It was originally to be named the Lou Rawls Cultural Center, but Alderman Tillman changed the name without telling Rawls. Although it is considered part of the Bronzeville neighborhood it is not part of the Chicago Landmark Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District that is in the Douglas community area. The limestone building, which is located on the same site as a former historic black theatre, has become the subject of controversy stemming from nepotism. After a construction phase marked by delays and cost overruns, it has had a financially disappointing start and has been underutilized by many standards. These disappointments were chronicled in an award winning investigative report.
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The Frank Borman Expressway is an east-west highway in northwest portion of the U.S. state of Indiana, carrying Interstate 80, Interstate 94, and U.S. Highway 6, as well as a short section of U.S. Highway 41. The designation begins from the Illinois state line east to the Lake/Porter County Line, just east of the junction with the Indiana Toll Road. The Borman Expressway has been identified in federal transportation legislation as part of High Priority Corridor 18, Segment 27, making current and future construction projects on I-94 eligible for federal funding in association with extending Interstate 69 to the Texas/Mexico border. The Borman Expressway is a major truck thoroughfare, providing a free alternative to the Indiana Toll Road/Chicago Skyway combination (Interstate 90) to the north. Originally constructed in segments starting in the 1950s, with its Illinois counterpart, the Kingery Expressway, reconstruction of the expressway began in 2004. The Borman Expressway is named after Frank Borman, commander of the Apollo 8 space mission, who was born in Gary.
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Sixteen was the restaurant located on the sixteenth floor of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois. It was one of three original food and dining options that complemented the hotel's room service offering. Sixteen opened in early February 2008, and an adjoining outdoor patio terrace, named The Terrace at Trump, opened on June 25, 2009 following the completion of the hotel's construction. The restaurant and its terrace featured views of the city. The restaurant was considered expensive, but its prices were not unlike those of other top Chicago restaurants. The eastward view included Lake Michigan, Chicago River, and the Wrigley Building clock tower. During the summer the view included the seasonal semi-weekly fireworks displays over the lake from Navy Pier. It closed in 2018.
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The 2003 Chicago balcony collapse was a disaster that occurred on 29 June 2003 in the city of Chicago, resulting in the deadliest porch collapse in United States history. An overloaded balcony collapsed during a party in an apartment building, killing thirteen people and seriously injuring fifty-seven others. The ensuing investigation was highly critical of the way the balcony was built, finding a large number of errors in its construction which ultimately resulted in the collapse. However, the building's owner continues to blame overcrowding on the balcony for its complete structural failure, although he has taken steps to strengthen the balconies at his properties to prevent a recurrence of the disaster. The accident resulted in sweeping inspections of similar structures across Chicago, with 1,260 cases being actioned by the city authorities.
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Washington Park is a well-defined community area (and neighborhood) on the South Side of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. It includes the 372 acre (1.5 km²) park named Washington Park, stretching east-west from Cottage Grove Avenue to the Dan Ryan Expressway, and north-south from 63rd Street to 51st. The park is the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium in Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Half of the neighborhood's lots are vacant, reflecting the fact that Washington Park is one of the poorest in Chicago, with a median household income of only $15,000 per year, As of the turn of the century nearly half of the residents lived below the poverty level.
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Lane Technical College Preparatory High School (also known as Lane Tech), is a public, four-year, magnet high school located on the north side of Chicago. Lane is one of the oldest schools in the city and has an enrollment of over four thousand students. Lane is a selective-enrollment-based school in which students must take a test and pass a certain benchmark in order to be offered admission. As a result of consistent victories in the fields of sports and academics, the school is known as the "School of Champions". Lane has also produced more Ph.D. holders than any other high school in the country.
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The Northern Illinois University shooting was an incident that took place on February 14, 2008, during which a gunman shot multiple people on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois; five of his victims were killed, eighteen were wounded. The incident happened on the campus's Cole Hall at approximately 3:05 p.m. local time. The school placed the campus on lockdown and cancelled all classes until February 25. Students and teachers were advised to head to a secure location and take cover, avoiding the scene and all buildings in the vicinity of the area. Six people died in the incident, including the perpetrator, making it the fourth-deadliest university shooting in United States history, after the Virginia Tech massacre, the University of Texas Clock Tower shooting, and the California State University, Fullerton library massacre.
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Mirth & Girth is a portrait painting by School of the Art Institute of Chicago student David K. Nelson, Jr. It was painted in response to what the artist described as the deification of the popular African-American mayor of Chicago, Illinois, Harold Washington, after his sudden death on November 25, 1987 due to cardiac arrest. After a brief showing at a May 11, 1988 private student exhibition in the institute, angry African-American aldermen arrived with Chicago Police Department officers and confiscated the painting, triggering a First Amendment and race relations crisis. Free-speech advocates condemned the seizure of the painting, while the aldermen maintained that the painting was an insult to Washington and should have been taken down. Some students at the SAIC showed their support for free speech by holding rallies in front of the school and at the Richard J. Daley Plaza. Remembering the city's recent "Council Wars" between Washington and mostly-white aldermanic majority, other students criticized Nelson for poor timing in showing a racially insensitive image. At some point between when the painting was confiscated and when it was returned, a 5 inches (13 cm) gash was made in the painting. Nelson filed and later won a federal lawsuit against the city, claiming that the painting's confiscation and subsequent damaging violated his First Amendment rights. He was awarded US$95,000 in compensation for the damaged painting after the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the lower court's decision.
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The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois, on July 27, 1919, and ended on August 3. During the riot, dozens died and hundreds were injured. It is considered to be the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer of 1919, so named because of the violence and fatalities across the nation. The combination of arson, looting and murder was also the worst race rioting in the history of Illinois. The sociopolitical atmosphere of Chicago was filled with ethnic and racial tension caused by competition among many new groups. With the Great Migration, thousands of African Americans from the South had settled next to ethnic neighborhoods on Chicago's South Side, near jobs in the stockyards and meatpacking plants. Post World War I tensions caused frictions between the races, especially in the competitive labor and housing markets. Overcrowding and increased African American militancy by veterans contributed to the visible racial frictions. Also, ethnic gangs and police neglect strained the racial relationships. According to official reports, the turmoil came to a boil after a young African American was struck by a rock and died at an informally segregated beach. Tensions between groups arose in a melee that blew up into days of unrest.
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McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink or McCormick Tribune Plaza is a multi-purpose venue located along the western edge of Millennium Park in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District of the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. Opening in 2001, it was the first attraction in Millennium Park. The plaza was funded by a donation from the McCormick Tribune Foundation. For four months a year, it operates as McCormick Tribune Ice Rink, a free public outdoor ice skating rink, and one of the ten parks on ice in the Chicago Park District. It is generally open for skating from mid-November until mid-March. It is known as one of Chicago's better outdoor people watching locations during the winter months. For the rest of the year, it serves as Plaza at Park Grill or Park Grill Plaza, Chicago's largest outdoor dining facility. The park grill hosts various culinary events as well as music during its months of outdoor operation.
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The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo hotel under construction at 401 N. Wabash Avenue in downtown Chicago, Illinois, named for famed real estate developer Donald Trump. It is located in the River North Gallery District of the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The Trump International Hotel and Tower is expected to be 1,362 feet (415 m) tall w/spire – 1,170 feet (360 m) w/o spire – and contain 92 floors for various uses. Despite ongoing difficulties, construction is proceeding. It is located on a jog of the main branch of the Chicago River with an unobstructed view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges that cross the river. It is notable for the publicity it received in association with the first season of the The Apprentice when the winner, Bill Rancic, selected its construction as his job choice. The building was designed by Adrian Smith, who worked for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill during the building's planning and design stages, and is being constructed by Bovis Lend Lease.
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Lurie Garden is a 2.5-acre (1.0 ha) garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. Designed by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, it opened on July 16, 2004. The garden is a combination of perennials, bulbs, grasses, shrubs and trees. It is the featured nature component of the world's largest green roof. The garden cost $13.2 million and has a $10 million endowment for maintenance and upkeep. It was named after Ann Lurie. The Garden is composed of two "plates". The dark plate depicts Chicago's history by presenting shade-loving plant material. The dark plate has a combination of trees that will provide a shade canopy for these plants when they fill in. The light plate, which includes no trees, represents the city's future with sun-loving perennials that thrive in the heat and the sun.
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BP Pedestrian Bridge or simply BP Bridge is a pedestrian bridge crossing Columbus Drive in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States that connects Millennium Park to Daley Bicentennial Plaza in Grant Park. Designed by Frank Gehry, it had a May 22, 2004, ribbon-cutting ceremony before officially opening along with the rest of Millennium Park on July 16, 2004. The girder bridge is the first bridge designed by Pritzker Prize-winner, Gehry, and was named for British Petroleum, which donated $5 million to the construction of the Park. The bridge is referred to as snakelike or serpentine in character due to its curving form. The bridge's design enables it to bear a heavy load without structural problems caused by its own weight, has won awards for its use of sheet metal and is known for its aesthetics. Additionally, it serves acoustic needs as a sound barrier and functional needs as a connecting link between Millennium Park and points east.
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Lakeshore East is a master planned mixed use urban development being built in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located in the northeastern part of the Loop, which along with Illinois Center is called the New Eastside. The development is bordered by Wacker Drive to the north, Columbus Drive to the west, Lake Shore Drive to the east, and East Randolph Street to the south. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the master plan. The development is scheduled for completion in 2011. Although the majority of the buildings in the neighborhood will be 21st-century constructions resulting from the master plan, some of the current buildings were built as early as the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, the term Lakeshore East refers only to the components of the new master plan, while the term New Eastside refers to the greater neighborhood surrounding Lakeshore East that extends westward to Michigan Avenue. However, there is little distinction between buildings in the masterplan and other buildings in the region because the pre-existing buildings are referred to as being located in the Lakeshore East area. The neighborhood features several of the tallest buildings in Chicago and will include a few of the tallest buildings in the United States. The overall planned development, the park and several of the individual buildings have won awards for architecture or urban planning. The buildings are planned for various types of residential use (condominiums, apartments, or hotels). Due to the neighborhood's proximity to both Lake Michigan to the east and the Chicago River to the north, many of the buildings are named with aquatic or nautical themes.
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McDonald's Cycle Center is a heated and air conditioned indoor bicycle parking facility located in the northeast corner of Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The facility provides lockers, showers, a snack bar with outdoor summer seating, bike repair, bike rental and 300 parking spaces for bicycle commuters. The station also provides space for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group. The cycle center was part of a larger effort by the city, called "Bike 2010 Plan", which aimed to make the city more accommodating to bicycle commuters. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who notes it is also an environmentally friendly effort to cut down on traffic, was an advocate of the plan. Later, the cycle center fit so well with an effort by the suburban Chicago-based McDonald's to encourage "balanced, active lifestyles" as part of the solution to help its customers become more healthy, that the company committed to sponsoring the center.
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Boeing Galleries are a pair of outdoor exhibition spaces within Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The spaces are located along the south and north mid-level terraces, above and east of Wrigley Square and the Crown Fountain. In a conference at the Chicago Cultural Center, Boeing President and Chief Executive Officer James Bell to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced Boeing would make a $5 million grant to fund both the construction of and an endowment for the space.
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Wrigley Square is a public square located in the northwest section of Millennium Park in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District of the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The square is located at the southeast corner of the intersection of East Randolph Street and North Michigan Avenue. It contains the Millennium Monument, a nearly full-sized replica of the semicircle of paired Greek Doric-style columns (called a peristyle) that originally sat in this area of Grant Park, near Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street, between 1917 and 1953. The square also contains a large lawn and a public fountain.
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Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Harris & Harris Theater or most commonly Harris Theater is a 1525-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. Constructed from 2002–2003, it is the city's premier performance venue for small and medium sized performance groups. The theater was named for its primary benefactors, Mr & Mrs. Irving Harris. Although the theater was founded to serve as the home to several local mid-sized performance organizations, the theater began offering subscription series of traveling performers in its fifth season.
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Cloud Gate is a public sculpture by British artist Anish Kapoor in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza, and is located above the Park Grill and adjacent to the Chase Promenade. The sculpture was constructed from 2004-2006, with a temporary unveiling in the summer of 2004. Nicknamed "The Bean" because of its legume-like shape, Cloud Gate's exterior consists of 168 highly polished stainless steel plates. It is 33 by 66 by 42 feet (10 by 20 by 13 m), and weighs 110 short tons (99.8 t; 98.2 long tons). It was inspired by liquid mercury. The sculpture's highly polished exterior reflects and transforms the city's skyline. Visitors are invited to walk around and under Cloud Gate's 12-foot (3.7 m)-high arch, which contains a concave chamber called the "omphalos" that multiplies and warps image reflections.
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Millennium Park is a public park located in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago within Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a prominent civic center of the City of Chicago's Lake Michigan lakefront. In 2004, a 24.5-acre (9.9 ha) section of northern Grant Park, previously occupied by Illinois Central railyards and parking lots, was built over and redeveloped as Millennium Park. The park is bounded by Michigan Avenue, Randolph Street, Columbus Drive and East Monroe Drive. Planning began in October 1997, construction began in October 1998 and was completed in July 2004. Millennium Park, which has become the world's largest rooftop garden, was opened in a ceremony on July 16, 2004, as part of a three-day celebration that included an inaugural concert by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. 300,000 people took part in the grand opening festivities. The park's design and construction won awards ranging from accessibility to green design. Since then, Millennium Park has become a major tourist destination for Chicago. Admission to the park is free. The park features the Cloud Gate, Crown Fountain, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Lurie Garden and other attractions. The park is connected by bridges to other parts of Grant Park (BP Pedestrian Bridge, Nichols Bridgeway).
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The Exelon Pavilions are a set of four solar energy generating structures in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The Northeast Exelon Pavilion and Northwest Exelon Pavilion (jointly the North Exelon Pavilions) are located on the northern edge of the park along Randolph Street. The Southeast Exelon Pavilion and Southeast Exelon Pavilion (jointly the South Exelon Pavilions) are located on southern edge of the park along Monroe Street. The pavilions provide sufficient energy to power the equivalent of 14 star-rated energy-efficient houses in Chicago. The Pavilions were designed in January 2001 and construction began in January 2004. The South Pavilions were completed and opened in July 2004 and the North Pavilions were completed in November 2004, with a grand opening on April 30, 2005. In addition to producing energy, three of the four pavilions provide access to the park's below ground parking garages and the fourth serves as the park's welcoming center. Exelon, a company that generates the electricity transmitted by its subsidiary Commonwealth Edison, donated $5.5 million for the Pavilions.
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Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States, north of the Chicago River in Cook County. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the north and east. Thus, it can be described as the Magnificent Mile plus all land east of it. The majority of the land in this neighborhood is reclaimed landfill and sandbar. The neighborhood contains a combination of hotels, restaurants, professional office centers, residential high rises, universities, medical facilities, and cultural venues. The area has undergone increased development in the early 21st century as numerous empty lots in Streeterville have been converted into commercial and residential properties, especially in the southern part of the neighborhood. The neighborhood had earlier experienced booms following World War I and World War II.
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Midtown Madness is a racing video game developed for the personal computer by Microsoft Game Studios and Angel Studios, and published by Microsoft in 1999. A downloadable demo was released on January 21, 2001. The game is set in vehicles on the streets of a recreated simulation of Chicago, with numerous game modes available. There is no storyline; the goal of the game is to obtain all the available cars and win all the races. As well as having multiple game modes to choose from, players can manipulate the weather and traffic of Chicago. Midtown Madness supports multiplayer gaming over a LAN or the Internet. Midtown Madness distinguished itself from other racing games by the amount of freedom given to players; where traditionally they would be restricted to a race track, Microsoft and Angel Studios added numerous shortcuts and bonus destinations to the Chicago they designed. The game was generally received positively and scored highly on aggregator review websites. The game was praised for its fun aspect and general gameplay, though some reviewers pointed out that the game's non-player graphics were poor.
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The Cool Kids are a hip hop duo from Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan. The duo consists of Antoine "Mikey Rocks" Reed (originally from Matteson, Illinois) and Evan "Chuck Inglish" Ingersoll (originally from Mount Clemens, Michigan).[1] The Cool Kids' music has been released primarily via their MySpace page, but have been signed to the independent Chocolate Industries via their own label C.A.K.E Recordings. Reed and Ingersoll have collaborated with several other musical artists and made appearances in numerous media.
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Chase Promenade (formerly Bank One Promenade) is an open-air, tree-lined pedestrian walkway that opened July 16, 2004. It is part of Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The Promenade was made possible by a gift from the Bank One Foundation. It is 8 acres (3.2 ha) and used for exhibitions, festivals and other family events as well as private rentals.
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AT&T Plaza (formerly Ameritech Plaza and SBC Plaza) is a public space that hosts the Cloud Gate sculpture. It is located in Millennium Park, which is a park built to celebrate the third millennium and which is located within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The sculpture and the plaza are sometimes jointly referred to as Cloud Gate on the AT&T Plaza. It was opened in the summer of 2004 with the initial unveiling of the sculpture during the grand opening weekend of the park. Ameritech Corporation/SBC Communications Inc. donated US$3 million for the naming right to the space. The plaza has become a place view the McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink and during the Christmas holiday season, the Plaza hosts Christmas caroling.
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"All the Way" (also known as "(Someday We'll Go) All the Way" and referred to as "Go All the Way") is a song written and performed by Evanston, Illinois native and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder about the Chicago Cubs. It was first performed in public on August 2, 2007, recorded on August 21, 2008 and August 22, 2008, and released as a single on September 18, 2008. The Cubs franchise last won the World Series in 1908, and Vedder has been a lifelong Cubs fan. The song, which fondly looks forward to the Cubs' next World Series victory, was written with the encouragement of certain Chicago Cubs, most notably Ernie Banks. The song was first performed in Chicago and was recorded at the Chicago ending of Vedder's first solo tour.
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The Cubs Win Flag is a victory flag that is flown at Wrigley Field after every Chicago Cubs home win. The flag is variously referred to by an approximately a dozen names, combining; either Cubs or Chicago Cubs; Win, W, White, White W, or W Win; and flag, banner or banner flag. Other common names for the symbol include Chicago Cubs W Win Flag and Chicago Cubs Win Banner Flag. It has become an important symbol for fans that one retailer describes as a fan banner instead of flag, or banner flag. In addition, days when the win flag is flown are known as "White Flag Days". The tradition of flying a win or loss flag over the stadium began soon after the construction of the scoreboard in 1937. The flag has used two different color schemes with the letter "W" on a solid background, and there is a loss indicator flag with a letter "L". Additionally, the flags have been complemented by different color schemes of indicator lights. The flag has become a very symbolic emblem for devout Cubs fans. Some retailers sell slightly different versions that also have the Cubs logo at the bottom.
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The Dark Knight is a 2008 American superhero film directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. Christian Bale reprises the lead role. The plot of the film focuses on Batman's fight against a new villain, the Joker (Heath Ledger), and his relationships with police lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman), district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and his old friend and love interest, assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). For his conception of the film, Nolan was inspired by the Joker's first two appearances in the comics and Batman: The Long Halloween. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. Nolan used an IMAX camera to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film. On January 22, 2008, after he had completed filming The Dark Knight, Ledger died of a sleeping pill overdose, leading to intense attention from the press and more people showing interest in the film. Warner Bros. had created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screen shots of Ledger as the Joker, but after Ledger's death, the studio refocused its promotional campaign. The film was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Prior to its box office debut in North America, record numbers of advance tickets were sold for The Dark Knight. It was greeted with positive reviews upon release, and became the second movie ever to earn more than $500 million at the North American box office, setting numerous other records in the process.
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Silver Springs State Fish and Wildlife Area is an Illinois state park on 1,350 acres (5.46 km2) in Kendall County, Illinois, United States. The park was established in the late 1960s and is named for the natural spring within its boundaries. The park has two artificial lakes and the Fox River flows through the northern end of the park. Silver Springs hosts a variety of activities including fishing, hunting, boating and hiking. The park has areas of native prairie restoration, a sledding hill and a seven mile (11 km) equestrian trail. The prairie restoration areas hold many species of plants including lead plant, and purple coneflower.
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Lincolnshire is an affluent village located in the Vernon Township region of Lake County, which is located in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a suburb of Chicago, which is located in adjacent Cook County. The population was 6,108 at the 2000 census, the ethnicity of village inhabitants largely Caucasian. Lincolnshire was incorporated on August 5, 1957 from land in the unincorporated Half Day area when land was purchased to build a residential subdivision, and underwent an aggressive era of expansion from 1983 to the 1990s. The Des Plaines River splits the village in half; geographically, it is halved again by a major traffic artery that enters the village at the border that it shares with neighboring Vernon Hills. It is the headquarters of a variety of corporations including global outsourcing company Hewitt Associates, and is the base of operations for the Newman/Haas Racing team. The village of Lincolnshire holds several festivals (including one mirroring the Taste of Chicago) annually in either commercial establishments such as City Park and the Village Green, or in one of the nine public parks and nature reserves that it has created for recreation purposes. Lincolnshire retrieves all of its water from the city of Highland Park, which lies on the coast of Lake Michigan. The village is governed by a Council–manager government, and is a Home rule municipality. The mayor of the village is Brett Blomberg.
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The Merle Reskin Theatre is a performing arts venue located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Originally named the Blackstone Theatre, it was founded in 1910. The Merle Reskin Theatre is now part of DePaul University, although it is still used for events not affiliated with the university. It serves as the home of The Theatre School at DePaul University. The building was designed by Marshall and Fox and developed by Tracy C. Drake and John Drake of Drake Hotel fame on the former site of Timothy Blackstone's mansion. The theatre has a rich history of live performances that have traditionally been touring productions of hit and prize-winning shows.
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The DuSable Museum of African American History is the first and oldest museum dedicated to the study and conservation of African American history, culture, and art. It was founded in 1961 by Dr. Margaret Taylor-Burroughs (sometimes Margaret Burroughs or Margaret Goss Burroughs), her husband Charles Burroughs, Gerard Lew, and others. Dr. Taylor-Burroughs and other founders established the museum to celebrate black culture, then overlooked by most museums and academic establishments. It is located at 740 E. 56th Place at the corner of Cottage Grove Avenue on the South Side of Chicago in the Washington Park community area.
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No Mercy was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which took place on October 7, 2007 at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. It was the 10th annual No Mercy event and starred wrestlers from the Raw, SmackDown! and ECW brands. Nine professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card, which featured a supercard, a scheduling of more than one main event. The first main event featured wrestlers from the Raw brand in a Last Man Standing match—a match where the first person unable to respond to a ten count by the referee lost—between WWE Champion Triple H and Randy Orton. Orton won the match and became the WWE Champion. The other main event featured wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand, in which defending World Heavyweight Champion Batista defeated challenger the Great Khali in a match in which a large wooden structure known as a Punjabi Prison surrounded the ring. Two featured bouts were scheduled on the undercard. In a standard wrestling match between wrestlers from the Raw brand, WWE Champion Triple H defeated Umaga to retain his title. The other was a standard match between wrestlers from the SmackDown! brand in which Finlay and Rey Mysterio fought to a no contest.
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"Go Cubs Go", "Go, Cubs, Go" or "Go, Cubs, Go!" is a song written by Steve Goodman in 1984. At various times the Goodman version of the song has been the official Chicago Cubs team song and the official Cubs victory song. The Goodman version of the song is now referred to as the official Chicago Cubs victory song. The Goodman version has been included in both a 1994 Steve Goodman anthology album and a 2008 Cubs songs and sounds album. An alternate 2008 version by Manic Sewing Circle has also been released.
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The Washington Park Subdivision is the name of the historic 3-city block by 8-city block subdivision in the northwest corner of the Woodlawn community area, on the South Side of Chicago in Illinois that stands in the place of the original Washington Park Race Track. The area evolved as a redevelopment of the land that the track had previously occupied. It was originally an exclusively white neighborhood that included residential housing, amusement parks, and beer gardens. During the late 1920s and 1930s, the area became the subject of discriminatory twenty-year covenants, which were determined to be invalid by the United States Supreme Court, when challenged in a seminal case by Carl Hansberry. The case is a vital part of legal studies and considered an important part of a broad class of histories. The play Raisin in the Sun is based on Lorraine Hansberry's struggles in this neighborhood.
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The Chicago 2016 Olympic bid is the attempt by the city of Chicago and the United States—with the support of municipalities in the Tri-state region of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin—to be selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics. On April 14, 2007, Chicago was selected as the United States Bid city, and on June 4, 2008, the IOC named Chicago as one of four finalists to host the 2016 Olympic games. The final selection will be made on October 2, 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Currently, Chicago's rival cities for the hosting of the Games are Madrid, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo, Japan. If Chicago is chosen, the games would be held from July 22 to August 7, with the Paralympics held between August 12 and August 28. The bid plan emphasizes use of Chicago Park District parks to host the games, but other existing facilities such as Soldier Field and McCormick Place will host events. The bid includes a plan for North side, downtown Loop and South Side celebration locations that will have JumboTrons for unticketed visitors. The bid notes that there is a very high concentration of event locations and training facilities in very close proximity to each other and that the majority of event sites are clustered together. Thus, the vast majority of athletes will be close to their competitions.
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Washington Park is a well-defined community area (and neighborhood) on the South Side of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. It includes the 372 acre (1.5 km²) park named Washington Park, stretching east-west from Cottage Grove Avenue to the Dan Ryan Expressway, and north-south from 63rd Street to 51st. The park is the proposed site of the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Aquatics Center in Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Including the park, the community area hosts two listings on the National Register of Historic Places. It includes and is surrounded by smaller neighborhoods that have gone though notable and often turbulent racial transitions.
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Wanted is a 2008 action film which is very loosely based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar. The film is directed by Timur Bekmambetov and stars James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp, Angelina Jolie and Konstantin Khabensky. The storyline follows Wesley Gibson, a frustrated office worker who discovers that he is the son of a professional assassin and decides to join the entity in which he used to work, a secret guild called The Fraternity. Production began in April 2007, with filming in the Czech Republic to later superimpose the sets on images of Chicago. Wanted was released on June 25, 2008 in the United Kingdom and June 27, 2008 in the United States, to both critical and commercial success. On January 22, 2009, it was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
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Fountain of Time, or simply Time, is a sculpture by Lorado Taft, measuring 126 feet 10 inches (38.66 m) in length, situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance within Washington Park in Chicago. This location is in the Washington Park community area on Chicago's South Side. Inspired by Henry Austin Dobson's poem, "Paradox of Time", and with its 100 figures passing before Father Time, the work was created as a monument to the first 100 years of peace between the United States and Great Britain, resulting from the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. Although the fountain's water began running in 1920, the sculpture was not dedicated to the city until 1922. The sculpture is a contributing structure to the Washington Park United States Registered Historic District, which is a National Register of Historic Places listing. Part of a larger beautification plan for the Midway Plaisance, Time was the first finished work of art made of concrete. Before the completion of Millennium Park in 2004 it was considered the most important installation in the Chicago Park District. Time is one of several Chicago works of art funded by Benjamin Ferguson's trust fund. Time has undergone several restorations, due to the deterioration and decline caused natural and urban elements. During the late 1990s and the first few years of the 21st century it underwent repairs that corrected many of the problems caused by these restorations. Although extensive restoration of the sculpture has been completed as recently as 2005, supporters of Time continue to seek resources for additional lighting, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation has nominated it for further restoration funding.
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Fountain of the Great Lakes or Spirit of the Great Lakes Fountain is an allegorical sculpture by Lorado Taft in the Art Institute of Chicago South Stanley McCormick Memorial Court south of the Art Institute of Chicago Building in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is bronze work of art created between 1907-1913. The fountain depicts five women arranged so that the water flows through them in the same way water passes through the Great Lakes. The fountain was originally installed facing south where it remained until 1963 when it was moved next to the Morton Wing addition facing west where it sits today. In its original location it was visible from the Jackson and Michigan Avenue intersection once known as "route center" to the south. The fountain was commissioned by the Benjamin Ferguson fund and one surface references the title B. F. Ferguson Fountain of the Great Lakes. There is a relief sculpture of Benjamin Ferguson on the rear panel that has been hidden from view since the fountain was moved. As the first commission from the Ferguson Fund, it experienced various funding delays. Additionally, the legal environment for land use in Grant Park was in flux at the time the commission was made, which caused delays in location selection. Once erected, the fountain received largely positive reviews, but a few critics questioned symbolism of the sculpture. Others were caught up in sociopolitical subtexts of the day, with regard to obscenity laws as it related to public art and this semi-nude work.
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Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 1999. Their current lineup consists of Tim McIlrath (vocals, guitar), Joe Principe (bass guitar), Brandon Barnes (drums), and Zach Blair (guitar), all of whom are straight edge (excluding Barnes) PETA supporters and strict vegetarians. The band is currently signed to Geffen, a record label owned by Universal Music Group. As of 2009, Rise Against has released five studio albums, two EPs, and one DVD. Rise Against spent its first five years signed to the independent record label, Fat Wreck Chords, on which it released two studio albums. The band gained mainstream popularity with its first two releases on Geffen, Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) and The Sufferer & the Witness (2006), which produced several high-charting singles, including "Swing Life Away", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". Their most recent studio album, Appeal to Reason, was released in North America on October 7, 2008, peaking at number three on the U.S. Billboard 200 and producing the singles, "Re-Education (Through Labor)" and "Audience of One".
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Pulaski is an elevated station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system. Pulaski serves the Orange Line, which runs between Midway Airport and The Loop; it is situated between Midway and Kedzie stations. Pulaski is located at Pulaski Road and 51st Street on the Southwest Side of Chicago, Illinois. The station is within the Archer Heights neighborhood, which is both residential and commercial, and the station itself is in a commercial district on Pulaski Road. Pulaski opened on October 31, 1993, the opening date of the Orange Line. The Pulaski station was proposed in 1980 and constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. When the station opened in 1993, it spurred commercial development in the surrounding area and led to a parking controversy on nearby residential streets. Pulaski consists of an elevated island platform above a station house which is set back from Pulaski Road. The station also includes a bus terminal and a park and ride lot. Over 1,000,000 passengers boarded Orange Line trains at Pulaski in 2008. Trains serve Pulaski approximately every ten minutes during rush hour but are less frequent at other times. In addition to offering train service, Pulaski also connects to several CTA bus routes.
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The Magnificent Mile is the portion of Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois extending from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side community area. The district is located adjacent to downtown; it is also one block east of Rush Street, which is known for its nightlife. The Magnificent Mile serves as the main thoroughfare between Chicago's Loop business district and its Gold Coast. It also serves as the western boundary of the Streeterville neighborhood. Real estate developer Arthur Rubloff of Rubloff Company gave the nickname to one of the city's most prestigious residential and commercial thoroughfares in the 1940s. It includes fine restaurants, hotels, and stores and several of the tallest buildings in the United States. In addition, numerous prestigious buildings are located along the Magnificent Mile, such as the Wrigley Building and the John Hancock Center, places listed on the National Register of Historic Places such as The Old Chicago Water Tower District and Chicago Landmarks such as Tribune Tower and the Allerton Hotel.
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The Burnham Pavilions are public sculptures by Zaha Hadid and Ben van Berkel in Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Both pavilions are located in the Chase Promenade South. Their purpose is to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago, and the pavilions will serve as the focal point of Chicago's year-long celebration while they symbolize the city's continued pursuit of the Plan's architectural vision with contemporary architecture and planning. The sculptures are privately-funded and reside in Millennium Park. The pavilions are designed to be temporary structures. Both Pavilions were scheduled to be unveiled on June 19, 2009. However, the Pavilion by Hadid endured construction delays and a construction team change, which led to nationwide coverage of the delay in publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Only its skeleton was availed to the public on the scheduled date, and the work was completed and unveiled on August 4, 2009. The van Berkel pavilion endured a temporary closure due to unanticipated wear and tear from August 10–14.
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The Indian Creek massacre occurred on May 21, 1832 when a group of settlers living 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Ottawa, Illinois, United States, along Indian Creek, were attacked by a party of Native Americans. The massacre likely resulted from a local settler's refusal to remove a dam which jeopardized a key food source for a nearby Potawatomi village, violating Native American water rights. A band of between 20 and 40 Potawatomi and three Sauk warriors attacked the cabin site. Fifteen settlers, including women and children, were massacred at the site near the present-day border of LaSalle and DeKalb Counties. Several people escaped the massacre and two young women were kidnapped by the raiders to be released about two weeks later unharmed. In the aftermath of the massacre white settlers fled their homes for the safety of frontier forts and the protection of the militia. The Indian Creek massacre was later used as justification when U.S. soldiers and militia massacred many in Black Hawk's band at the Battle of Bad Axe. The events at Indian Creek were peripherally related to the Black Hawk War and are seen as an act of personal revenge that was not sanctioned by Black Hawk. Though there are a number of historical discrepancies in the details surrounding the events at Indian Creek, historians have generally agreed on the contentious points. Today, the site of the massacre is marked by a memorial in northern LaSalle County.
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Radioland Murders is a 1994 black comedy mystery film directed by Mel Smith and co-written/produced by George Lucas. Radioland Murders is set in the 1939 atmosphere of old-time radio and pays homage to the screwball comedy films of the 1930s. The film tells the story of writer Roger Henderson trying to settle relationship issues with his wife while dealing with a whodunit murder mystery in a radio station. Starring an ensemble cast, roles are provided by Brian Benben, Mary Stuart Masterson, Scott Michael Campbell, Michael Lerner and Ned Beatty. Radioland Murders also supplies the use of numerous small roles and cameo appearances, including Michael McKean, Bobcat Goldthwait, Jeffrey Tambor, Christopher Lloyd, George Burns, Billy Barty and Rosemary Clooney. George Lucas began development for the film in the 1970s, originally attached as director for Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's script. Universal Pictures commenced pre-production and both Steve Martin and Cindy Williams had already been approached for the two leads before Radioland Murders languished in development hell for over 20 years. In 1993 Lucas told Universal that advances in computer-generated imagery from Industrial Light & Magic (owned by Lucasfilm), particularly in digital mattes, would help bring Radioland Murders in for a relatively low budget of about $10 million, which eventually rose to $15 million. Mel Smith was hired to direct and filming lasted from October to December 1993. Radioland Murders was released on October 21, 1994 to negative reviews from critics and bombed at the box office, only grossing $1.37 million in US totals.
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Tucker: The Man and His Dream is a 1988 biographical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Jeff Bridges. The film recounts the story of Preston Tucker and his attempt to produce and market the 1948 Tucker Sedan, which was met with scandal between the "Big Three automobile manufacturers" and accusations of stock fraud from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Joan Allen, Martin Landau, Elias Koteas, Frederic Forrest and Christian Slater appear in supporting roles. In 1973, Coppola began development of a film based on the life of Tucker, originally with Marlon Brando in the lead role. Starting in 1976, Coppola planned Tucker to be both a musical and an experimental film with music and lyrics written by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The project eventually collapsed when Coppola's American Zoetrope experienced financial problems. Tucker was revived in 1986 when Coppola's friend, George Lucas, joined as a producer. Principal photography, shot mostly in Marin County, California, started in April 1987 and finished the following July. Development and production for Tucker: The Man and His Dream included the involvement of Tucker's children and grandchildren. The film received critical praise, but was a box office bomb. Nonetheless, Tucker: The Man and His Dream produced a spike in prices of Tucker Sedans, as well as a renewed appreciation for Tucker and his automobiles.
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Encyclopedia of Chicago is an historical reference work covering Chicago and the entire Chicago metropolitan area published by the University of Chicago Press. Released in October 2004, the work is the result of a ten-year collaboration between the Newberry Library and the Chicago Historical Society. It exists in both a hardcover print edition and an online format, known as the Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago. The print edition is 1117 pages and includes 1400 entries, 2000 biographical sketches, 250 significant business enterprise descriptions, and hundreds of maps. Initially, the internet edition included 1766 entries, 1000 more images and sources. The concept was fueled by other regional encyclopedias that had met with commercial success in 1980s and 1990s. Eventually, the vision to create the book found initial financing from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The book was well received and became a bestseller during the 2004 Christmas season following its October 2004 release. The following May the Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago was released. Northwestern University joined the Newberry Library/Chicago Historical Society collaboration for the internet edition. The internet edition was the second of its kind for a U.S. city.
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The Pui Tak Center (Chinese: 培德中心; pinyin: Péidé Zhōngxīn; Cantonese Yale: Pùihdāk Jūngsām; lit. 'cultivating virtue center'), formerly known as the On Leong Merchants Association Building, is a building located in Chicago's Chinatown. Designed by architects Christian S. Michaelsen and Sigurd A. Rognstad, the building was built for the On Leong Merchants Association and opened in 1928. The Association used it as an immigrant assistance center, and the building was informally referred to as Chinatown's "city hall." In 1988, the FBI and Chicago Police raided the building as part of a racketeering investigation. The US federal government seized the building that same year. The building was purchased by the Chinese Christian Union Church (CCUC) for $1.4 million and renamed the Pui Tak Center in 1993. That same year, the On Leong Merchants Association Building was designated a Chicago landmark by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. The CCUC spent $1 million raised from community donations to renovate and update the building's neglected interior. The newly-named Pai Tak Center now hosts various religious, community and educational programs, such as English-as-a-Second-Language courses. In 2007, the Pui Tak Center won a $100,000 grant from the Partners in Preservation, a program sponsored by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which led to an evaluation of the building's eastern and southern facades, focusing on its terra cotta portions. Restoration work began in spring 2009. Fully restoring the building's exterior terra cotta pieces and clay roof tiles is the first step in a long-range $2 million repair plan.
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The Avery Coonley School, commonly Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade in Downers Grove, Illinois, U.S. Avery Coonley (ACS) was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive educational theories developed by John Dewey and others, and was a nationally recognized model for progressive education well into the 1940s. From 1943 to 1965, ACS was part of the National College of Education (now National-Louis University), serving as a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research. In the late 1960s, ACS became a regional research center and a leadership hub for independent schools. It became a school for the gifted in the early 1970s. The school has had several structures in its history, including a small cottage on the Coonley Estate and a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building. It moved to Downers Grove in 1916 and became Avery Coonley in 1929, with a new 11-acre (4.5 ha) campus designed in the Prairie and Arts and Crafts styles, landscaped by Jens Jensen. The campus has been expanded several times since the 1980s. ACS was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. The modern curriculum retains many progressive traditions from the beginning of the school. Students work a minimum of one year above their grade level. Opportunities to build on classroom studies are offered through a range of extracurricular activities. Admission is competitive and an IQ score of at least 120 is required. ACS is notable for its record of success in academic competitions and was recognized as a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in 1988.
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An Illinois Tollway oasis is a type of commercialized rest area sited along interstate highways that are toll roads in Illinois, United States. The seven oases offer food and gasoline vendors and are found in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, DeKalb, and Belvidere. Although the oases date back to the original tollway construction in 1958, they were redeveloped in 2003–05 by Wilton Partners, a private developer. The redevelopment of the oases has been the focal point of alleged political corruption. The seven oases are administered by a court-appointed manager following default of their developer, Wilton Partners.
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The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (often abbreviated ISTHA) is an instrumentality and administrative agency of the State of Illinois, United States. The roads, as well as the Authority itself, are sometimes referred to as the Illinois Tollway. The system opened in 1958 in the Chicago area, and has subsequently expanded to include Interstate-88 across the state. Beginning in 2005, the system was reconstructed to include more lanes and open tolling. Open tolling uses I-Pass transponders to collect revenue as vehicles pass antennas at toll plazas or designated entrance or exit ramps. ISTHA has been linked to political corruption cases which have resulted in the impeachment of an Illinois Governor and turnover of top ISTHA officials. As of 2010[update], ISTHA maintains and operates 286 miles (460 km) of interstate tollways in 12 counties in Northern Illinois. ISTHA is in the midths of a $3.6 billion construction program scheduled over 2005 through 2012. The Tollway also recently considered a "green lanes" program to provide uncongested service in exchange for paying premium tolls.
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Schwa is an acclaimed, upscale restaurant run by chef-owner Michael Carlson located in the West Town community area of Chicago and is considered a leader in the emerging molecular gastronomy style of cooking. Schwa is known for its unconventional approach to business. Simple table settings match the building's drab exterior and its tiny 26-seat interior. The restaurant employs no support staff; Chefs interact directly with customers and are encouraged to act as silly as they wish, as long as they make quality food. Opening in 2005, Schwa quickly drew local and national attention resulting in a large backlog of reservations. New York magazine ranked it among the five hardest U.S. reservations to get. In 2007, Schwa hosted the opening night of Charlie Trotter's 20th anniversary celebration, which placed a great deal of stress on Carlson, causing him to close Schwa the following day. After a four-month hiatus Schwa returned to the delight of culinary enthusiasts. Schwa's food is difficult to classify and its menu is famous for shocking ingredients and innovative food combinations, such as Carlson's version of pad Thai made with jellyfish tentacles instead of noodles. The quail egg ravioli is considered the restaurant's signature dish. Schwa has received positive reviews from both local and national critics. It has received three star to three-and-a-half star ratings from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago magazine, and the Mobil Travel Guide. BlackBook Magazine says Schwa features "some of the best food you will ever consume", while it is among Grant Achatz' personal favorites. Below-average service prevents higher ratings. Schwa made Citysearch's Top 10 New Restaurants of 2006. In 2009, Schwa made Frommer's international list of 500 exceptional restaurants.
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Illinois Route 22, also known as Half Day Road for part of its length, is an east–west state highway in northeastern Illinois. It runs from U.S. Route 14 (Northwest Highway) in Fox River Grove to U.S. Route 41 (Skokie Highway) in Highland Park. It travels a distance of 19.7 miles (31.7 km) and is one of the few roads that runs almost entirely across southern Lake County while also providing access to southeastern McHenry County. Throughout its length, it shifts between two and four lanes as it passes through a frequently changing setting of scenic forestry and smaller populations, as well as busy intersections and larger developments. It originally started as a massive loop around the Chicago area, however it has retained its current, much shorter route ever since 1937. During the 1990s, it became the subject of much concern for local residents regarding expansion which slowed down any progress for capacity improvement. By the late 2000s, the delays have come and gone and it has emerged as a state route that has been largely modernized to deal with heavy traffic.
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Benet Academy (/ˈbɛnɛt/ or BEN-et), often shortened to Benet, is a co-educational, college-preparatory, Benedictine high school in Lisle, Illinois, overseen by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet in Illinois. Founded in 1887, the school was initially established as the all-boys St. Procopius College and Academy by Benedictine monks in Chicago, who also operated the St. Joseph Bohemian Orphanage. The orphanage moved in 1898 to Lisle, approximately 25 miles (40 km) west of Chicago, and in 1901 St. Procopius followed. Benedictine nuns constructed the all-girls Sacred Heart Academy nearby in 1926. The orphanage closed in 1956 to make room for St. Procopius, which then separated from the college in 1957. Sacred Heart merged with St. Procopius Academy in 1967 to establish Benet Academy on the St. Procopius campus. Since then, numerous building projects have been undertaken to expand Benet's programs. Admission is competitive and relies primarily on test scores. All students complete a college-preparatory curriculum and may earn college credit through programs including Advanced Placement. The school's academic program has been featured in reports such as US News and World Report. Benet's average ACT test score has exceeded statewide and national averages, and more than 99 percent of students have gone on to college after graduation. The athletic program fields 23 teams, several of which have placed in their respective state tournaments. The boys basketball team has broken two state records, including a 102 home-game winning streak. Other activities include the annual Christmas Drive. Benet's performing arts program has staged annual musicals since 1997, and the Benet bands have been invited before to perform in state events.
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Ping Tom Memorial Park is a 17.24-acre (6.98 ha) public urban park in Chicago's Chinatown owned and operated by the Chicago Park District (CPD). Located on the south bank of the Chicago River, the park is divided into three sections by a Santa Fe rail track and 18th Street. Currently, only development in the area south of 18th Street has been completed. It was designed by Ernest C. Wong of Site Design Group and features a pagoda-style pavilion, bamboo gardens and a playground. The park is named in honor of civic leader Ping Tom; a bronze bust of Tom is installed near the park's pavilion. The 1962 construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway demolished the only two Chinatown area parks. Sun Yat-sen Playlot Park, a small, 1/3-acre park, was created in the mid-1970s, however, the community wanted a larger open park space. A private real estate firm formed by Ping Tom, then purchased a former 32-acre (13 ha) rail yard in 1989. After construction of Chinatown Square began on this property, the CPD purchased approximately 12 acres (4.9 ha). The in the southern-half of the area the retaining wall along the river was repaired and an at-grade rail crossing was installed at the park's western boundary. Construction then began in 1998 and concluded in fall 1999 at a total cost of $5 million. The park was officially opened on October 2, 1999. In 2002, the CPD acquired five additional acres immediately east of the park's undeveloped northern half. In September 2009, a $10 million budget was approved to start development on the six-acre area along the Chicago River and in 2013 the renovations were unveiled.
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Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American comedy film written and directed by John Hughes. It stars Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones and Jennifer Grey. The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller, who decides to skip school and spend the spring day in downtown Chicago. Accompanied by his girlfriend Sloane Peterson and his best friend Cameron Frye, he creatively avoids his school's Dean of Students Edward Rooney, his resentful sister Jeanie, and his parents. During the film, Broderick occasionally speaks to the camera to explain to the audience his character's techniques and thoughts. Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week and shot the film – on a budget of $6 million – over several months in Fall 1985. Featuring many famous Chicago landmarks including the Sears Tower and The Art Institute of Chicago, the film was Hughes' love letter to the city: "I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could. Not just in the architecture and landscape, but the spirit." Released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986, Ferris Bueller's Day Off became one of the top grossing films of the year and was enthusiastically received by critics and audiences alike.
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Grant Park Music Festival (formerly Grant Park Concerts) is an annual ten-week classical music concert series held in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It features the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus along with featured guest performers and conductors. The Festival has earned non-profit organization status. It claims to be the nation's only free, outdoor classical music series. The Grant Park Music Festival has been a Chicago tradition since 1931 when Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak suggested free concerts to lift spirits of Chicagoans during the Great Depression. The tradition of symphonic Grant Park Music Festival concerts began in 1935. The Festival is housed in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago. The 2004 season, during which the Festival moved to the Pritzker Pavilion, was the 70th season for the Festival. On occasion, the Festival has been held at the Harris Theater instead of the Pritzker Pavilion. Formerly, the Grant Park Music Festival was held at the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park. The Festival began when the music shell was located in its original location and moved when it was relocated. Over time the Festival has had various financial supporters, three primary locations and one name change. The Festival has at times been nationally broadcast and has consistently enjoyed the efforts of many of the world's leading classical musicians. Recently, the Festival organizers have agreed to release some of the concerts to the public via compact disk recordings.
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The 2008 American League Central tie-breaker game was a one-game playoff for Major League Baseball's (MLB) American League (AL) Central division. The game took place on September 30, 2008 between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins at US Cellular Field. It was necessary after both teams finished the season with records of 88–74. The White Sox won a coin flip late in the season which, by rule, awarded them home field in the game. The White Sox won the game, 1–0, on a home run by Jim Thome, the lowest-scoring game in MLB tie-breaker history. The Sox advanced to the American League Division Series, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Rays, three games to one. In baseball statistics, the tie-breaker counted as the 163rd regular season game by both teams, with all events in the game added to regular season statistics.
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James C. Petrillo Music Shell or simply Petrillo Music Shell or Petrillo Bandshell as it is more commonly known, is an outdoor amphitheater/bandstand in Grant Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It serves as host to many large annual music festivals in the city such as Chicago Blues Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Taste of Chicago and Lollapalooza. It is also the former host of several smaller (less than 10,000) attendance annual events that have moved to the newer Jay Pritzker Pavilion such as the Grant Park Music Festival, Chicago Gospel Music Festival, and Chicago Latin Music Festival. It was formerly located at the South end of Grant Park and was relocated in 1978. The shell was commissioned in 1931 by Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak in the wake of the Great Depression to help lift the spirits of the citizenry with free concerts. The music shell was named after James C. Petrillo, president of the Chicago Federation of Musicians from 1922 to 1962 and president of the American Federation of Musicians from 1940 to 1958, who created a free concert series in Grant Park in 1935. Petrillo was a commissioner of the Chicago Park District from 1934 to 1945. Until the 1990s, the music shell was known for a traditional Independence Day concert celebration coordinated with the city's fireworks display on July 3.
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The Park Grill is the only full-service restaurant included in the multi-billion dollar Millennium Park project in Chicago, Illinois. Its outdoor seating area is the largest al fresco dining area in Chicago. It regularly places among the leaders in citywide best-of competitions for best burger and is widely praised for its views. The exclusive location, the lucrative contract terms, the investor list, and a close personal relationship between a managing partner of the restaurant and the Chicago Park District's project manager led to a formal ethics investigation, court litigation, and extensive press coverage, and ranked among the most prominent scandals of the administration of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2005. The more than 80 investors include some of Daley's friends and neighbors. One of the most financially successful restaurants in Chicago, the Park Grill remains exempt from property taxes after a multi-year litigation which reached the appellate courts in Illinois.
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Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare and originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features. Perfect Dark was first released in Canada and the United States in May 2000 to critical acclaim; PAL and NTSC-J releases followed. A remake with enhanced graphics, online multiplayer and some other minor changes was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade game for the Xbox 360 on March 17, 2010. The game features a single-player mode consisting of seventeen missions in which the player assumes the role of special agent Joanna Dark, an operative for the fictional Carrington Institute, as she attempts to stop a conspiracy. It also features a range of multiplayer options, including co-operative and "counter-operative" modes in addition to traditional deathmatch settings. Technically, it is one of the most advanced games developed for the Nintendo 64, with optional high-resolution graphics and Dolby Surround Sound. In August 2000, a separate game starring agent Joanna Dark, also titled Perfect Dark, was released for the Game Boy Color. Although set in the same universe, it follows a separate storyline. With the use of the Transfer Pak, the Game Boy game allows certain features within the Nintendo 64 version to be unlocked. Perfect Dark Zero, a prequel to Perfect Dark also developed by Rare, was a launch title for the Xbox 360 in 2005. Perfect Dark: Initial Vector (2005) and Perfect Dark: Second Front (2007) and Perfect Dark: Janus' Tears (2006–07) were published.
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The 1998 National League Wild Card tie-breaker game was a one-game playoff to decide the winner of Major League Baseball's (MLB) National League Wild Card. The game took place on September 28, 1998 between the Chicago Cubs of the National League Central and the San Francisco Giants of the National League West at Wrigley Field. It was necessary after both teams finished the season with records of 89–73. The Cubs won a coin flip late in the season which, by rule at the time, awarded them home field for the game. The Cubs won the game 5–3, holding the Giants scoreless for the majority of the game until the Giants threatened heavily in the ninth inning and scored all three of their runs. This victory advanced the Cubs to the 1998 National League Division Series (NLDS) where they were swept by the Atlanta Braves, ending the Cubs' season. In baseball statistics the tie-breaker counted as the 163rd regular season game for both teams, with all events in the game added to regular season statistics.
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The 1966 NBA Expansion Draft was the second expansion draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held from April 30 to May 1, 1966, to stock the expansion Chicago Bulls for the 1966–67 season. The Bulls selected players from the previously established teams in the league after each team protect seven players from being selected. Bulls' general manager, Dick Klein promised Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics that he would not draft Boston's K. C. Jones, if Auerbach would share his opinions of other NBA players. The Bulls selected two from each of the nine other NBA teams, including former first overall pick Bob Boozer, three-time All-Star Johnny Kerr and one-time All-Star Len Chappell. Kerr retired as a player and was named the franchise's first head coach. Al Bianchi also retired and was named assistant coach. Klein had plans for Kerr and Bianchi as coaches all along, but because they were under player contracts Klein had to draft. Ten expansion draft picks joined expansion 1966–67 Bulls. Guy Rodgers—who was acquired in exchange for Jim King and Jeff Mullins—and Jerry Sloan were named to the 1967 All-Star Game, becoming the franchise's first All-Stars. Sloan played ten seasons with the Bulls, coached the team from 1979 to 1982 before coaching the Utah Jazz for 23 seasons. Sloan has since been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach, as has fellow draftee John Thompson who never worked for the Bulls.
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The Gerald Ratner Athletics Center is a $51 million state-of-the-art athletics facility within the University of Chicago campus in the Hyde Park community area on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The building was named after University of Chicago alumnus, Gerald Ratner. The architect of this suspension structure that is supported by masts, cables and counterweights was César Pelli, who is best known as the architect of the Petronas Towers. The Ratner Athletics Center was approved for use in September 2003. The facility includes, among other things: a competition gymnasium, a multilevel fitness facility, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a multipurpose dance studio, meeting room space, and athletic department offices. It serves as home to several of the university's athletic teams and has hosted numerous National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III regional and University Athletic Association conference championship events. Located at the southwest corner of Ellis Avenue and 55th Street, the Ratner Center has an award-winning design that substitutes a complex external mast and counterweight system for interior support devices to allow for large open-space areas inside the building. Cesar Pelli & Associates Inc. was credited as the design architect and OWP/P was the architect of record.
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Shimer College or just Shimer (/ˈʃaɪmər/ SHY-mər) is a small, private, liberal arts college in Chicago. Founded in 1853 as the Mt. Carroll Seminary in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, by Frances Wood Shimer, it was a women's school for most of its early years. It joined with the University of Chicago (U. of C.) in 1896, and became one of the first U.S. junior colleges in 1907. It became a co-educational four-year college in 1950, took the name Shimer College, and adopted the Hutchins Plan of Great Books and Socratic seminars. The U. of C. relationship ended in 1958. Shimer enjoyed national recognition and strong growth in the 1960s but was forced by financial problems to abandon its campus in 1979. The college moved to a makeshift campus in Waukegan, Illinois until 2006, when it moved to the National Register of Historic Places-listed Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed main campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology in the Douglas community area of Chicago. Classes are exclusively small seminars in which students discuss original source material in lieu of textbooks. Shimer has a study abroad program in Oxford, England and a Weekend Program for adults. An Early Entrant program allows students who have not yet completed high school to matriculate. It has the highest rates of doctoral productivity of any U.S. liberal arts college. Half of its students go on to graduate study; twenty percent complete doctorate degrees. Shimer practices democratic self-governance to "an extent that is rare among institutions of higher education." Since 1977, the college has been governed internally by faculty, staff, and students. Shimer enrolled 100 students in 2009.
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Cumberland is a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system. It is situated between the Rosemont and Harlem stations on the Blue Line, which runs from O'Hare Airport to Forest Park. The station is located in the median of the Kennedy Expressway at Cumberland Avenue in the O'Hare neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest Side, and it is in close proximity to both the Norwood Park neighborhood and the city of Park Ridge. The area surrounding the station consists of mixed commercial and residential development. Nearly 1.4 million passengers boarded trains at Cumberland in 2009. The Cumberland station was first proposed in 1972 as part of an extension of the 'L' to O'Hare Airport. The station opened on February 27, 1983, along with the Harlem and Rosemont stations. The three new stations brought 6,000 new riders to the northwest CTA line in the following month, and Cumberland became especially attractive to suburban commuters. The station at Cumberland consists of a single island platform; a pedestrian overpass connects the platform to a station building to the south and an exit stairway to the north. The station also includes a bus terminal and a park and ride lot. Trains serve Cumberland 24 hours a day every day; the headway between trains is 10 minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. In addition to trains, Cumberland also serves CTA buses, Pace buses, and Greyhound buses.
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Pill Hill is a three-act play by American dramatist Sam Kelley. Set in a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago known informally as Pill Hill, the play examines the failures, successes, and relationships of six African American steel mill workers as they transition from blue-collar jobs to white-collar professions between 1973 and 1983. The play is regarded as an allegory of economic progress related to the American Dream. Pill Hill debuted at the 1990 Yale Repertory Theatre Winterfest series of plays in progress, and was subsequently performed in several venues across the United States. The play was published by Dramatic Publishing Company in 1995.
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The Chicago and North Western Railway's Kinzie Street railroad bridge (also known as the Carroll Avenue bridge) is a single leaf bascule bridge across the north branch of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, Illinois. At the time of its opening in 1908 it was the world's longest and heaviest bascule bridge. Previous bridges on the same site included the first bridge to cross the Chicago River, Chicago's first railroad bridge, and one of first all-steel bridges in the United States. The Chicago Sun-Times, the last railroad customer to the east of the bridge, moved their printing plant out of downtown Chicago in 2000, and the bridge has been unused since. It was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2007.
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Sauganash Hotel (originally Eagle Exchange Tavern) is a former hotel; regarded as the first hotel in Chicago, Illinois. It was located at Wolf Point in the present day Loop community area at the intersection of the north, south and main branches of the Chicago River. The location at West Lake Street and North Wacker Drive (formerly Market Street) was designated a Chicago Landmark on November 6, 2002. The hotel changed proprietors often in its twenty-year existence and briefly served as Chicago's first theater. It was named after Billy Caldwell, an interpreter in the British Indian Department.
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Illinois (printed Sufjan Stevens Invites You To: Come On Feel the Illinoise) is a 2005 concept album by American songwriter Sufjan Stevens, with songs referencing places and persons related to the U.S. state of Illinois. It is Stevens' fifth studio album and his second based on a U.S. state—part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan. The album was recorded between late 2004 and early 2005 at multiple venues in New York City with Stevens producing the album and performing a variety of instruments using low fidelity recording methods. Illinois was released on July 4, 2005, through Rough Trade Records in Europe and was distributed domestically by Asthmatic Kitty Records starting July 5, 2005. The album was praised by critics for its well-written lyrics and complex orchestrations, noting Stevens' progress as a songwriter since the release of Michigan. Illinois was named the best reviewed album of 2005 by review aggregator Metacritic, and was also named on multiple reviewers' "best of the decade" lists—including those of Paste, National Public Radio, and Rolling Stone. The album resulted in Stevens' greatest success among the public, being his first to place on the Billboard 200, and topping the Billboard "Heatseeksers Albums" list. Musical influences for the album cited by reviewers include Steve Reich, Neil Young, and The Cure due to the varied instrumentation and experimental indie folk songwriting. Besides numerous references to Illinois' history and locations, Stevens also included multiple references to his Christian faith.
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Wolf Point is the location at the confluence of the North, South and Main Branches of the Chicago River in the present day Near North Side, Loop, and Near West Side community areas of Chicago. This fork in the river is historically important in the development of early Chicago. This was the location of Chicago's first three taverns, its first hotel, Sauganash Hotel, its first ferry, its first drug store and the first bridges across the Chicago River. The name is said to possibly derive from a Native American Chief whose name translated to wolf, but alternate theories exist. Historically, the west bank of the river at the fork was called "Wolf Point," but in the 1820s and 1830s it came to denote the entire area and the settlement that grew up around the fork. Wolf Point is now often used more specifically to refer to a plot of land on the north side of the fork in the Near North Side community area that is owned by the Kennedy family as part of the larger Merchandise Mart Center complex. Today the north bank at the fork is used for a parking lot, the west bank includes a condominium high rise and railroad tracks, and the south bank serves as the transition point of Wacker Drive from an east-west street to a north-south street.
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350 West Mart Center is the official name of the 24-floor multipurpose building located in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, at the intersection of the North Branch and the Main Branch of the Chicago River. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1977, the building is located in the River North district north of the Main Branch and east of the North Branch. In 1988, Helmut Jahn designed an enclosed pedestrian walking bridge over Orleans Street connecting the building to Merchandise Mart. Originally built to serve as the world's largest wholesale buying center for the apparel industry, the building is more commonly known by several other names including Holiday Inn Chicago-Mart Plaza, Holiday Inn Mart, Merchandise Mart Annex, Merchandise Mart Annex Apparel Center, Apparel Mart, Chicago Apparel Center and Apparel Center. The building opened on November 6, 1976. The property was formerly owned by Marshall Field who sold it to Joseph P. Kennedy and the building's grand opening was attended by the entire Kennedy family. The family owned the land upon which the building was constructed for over 50 years. After the building was constructed in 1976, it remained in the family for over 20 years, but it was sold to Vornado Realty Trust in 1998 as part of a larger $625 million ($1,168.3 million today) transaction including Merchandise Mart and several other properties. However, the family has retained its ownership interest in adjacent properties and continues to manage the Marchandise Mart business.
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The Manhattan Project was the effort, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, which led to the development of the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946 the project was under the command of Major General Leslie R. Groves Jr. of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The project had its roots in the Einstein–Szilárd letter, which warned that Nazi Germany might develop nuclear weapons. The letter was written by prominent physicists, signed by Albert Einstein, and delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in October 1939. The Manhattan Project, which began as a small research program that year, eventually employed more than 130,000 people at a cost of nearly US$2 billion. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites, some secret, including universities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The three primary research and production sites of the project were the plutonium-production facility at the Hanford Site in eastern Washington state, the uranium enrichment facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the weapons research and design laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Little Boy, the bomb that was eventually dropped at Hiroshima, was a gun-type fission weapon made from uranium-235, an isotope of uranium that makes up only 0.7% of natural uranium that was produced at Oak Ridge. Fat Man, the more complex plutonium-core bomb dropped at Nagasaki, was an implosion-type nuclear weapon that required a concerted design and construction effort from Los Alamos. A plutonium bomb was the first nuclear device ever detonated, at the Trinity test in July 1945.
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Meet the Parents is a 2000 American comedy film written by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg and directed by Jay Roach. Starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller (pictured), the film chronicles a series of unfortunate events that befall a good-hearted but hapless male nurse while visiting his girlfriend's parents. Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, and Owen Wilson also star. Meet the Parents is a remake of a 1992 film of the same name that Universal Studios purchased the rights to. Jim Herzfeld expanded the original script but development stalled. Jay Roach read the expanded script and asked to direct the film but Universal declined. At that time, Steven Spielberg was interested in directing the film while Jim Carrey was interested in playing the lead role. The studio offered the film to Roach once Spielberg and Carrey left the project. Released in the United States and Canada on October 6, 2000 and distributed by Universal Studios, the film recouped its initial $55 million budget in eleven days. It became one of the highest grossing films of 2000, earning over $160 million in North America and over $330 million worldwide. Meet the Parents received several awards and nominations. Ben Stiller won two comedy awards for his performance and the film was chosen as the Favorite Comedy Motion Picture at the 2001 People's Choice Awards. Meet the Parents inspired the film sequels Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers as well as a reality television show titled Meet My Folks and a situation comedy titled In-Laws.
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Chasing Vermeer is a 2004 children's art mystery novel written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist. Set in Hyde Park, Chicago near the University of Chicago, the novel follows two children, Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee. After a famous Johannes Vermeer painting is stolen while they are on the way to their art gallery, Calder and Petra work together to try to recover it. The thief publishes many advertisements in the newspaper, explaining that he will give the painting back if the community can discover which paintings under Vermeer's name were really painted by him. This causes Petra, Calder, and the rest of Hyde Park to examine art more closely. Themes of art, chance, coincidence, deception, and problem-solving are apparent. The novel was written for Balliett's classroom intended to deal with real-world issues. Balliett values children's ideas and wrote the book specifically to highlight that. Chasing Vermeer has won several awards, including the Edgar and the Agatha. In 2006, the sequel entitled The Wright 3 was published, followed by The Calder Game in 2008.
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American Airlines Flight 191 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight in the United States from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles International Airport. On May 25, 1979, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 operating the route crashed moments after takeoff from Chicago. All 258 passengers and 13 crew on board were killed, along with two persons on the ground. The accident remains the deadliest airliner accident to occur on United States soil. Investigators found that as the jet was beginning its takeoff rotation, engine number one on the left (port) wing separated and flipped over the top of the wing. As the engine separated from the aircraft, it severed hydraulic fluid lines and damaged the left wing, resulting in a retraction of the slats. As the jet attempted to climb, the left wing aerodynamically stalled while the right wing, with its slats still deployed, continued to produce lift. The jetliner subsequently rolled to the left and reached a bank angle of 112 degrees (partially inverted), before impacting in an open field near a trailer park located near the end of the runway. The engine separation was attributed to damage to the pylon rigging structure holding the engine to the wing caused by inadequate maintenance procedures at American Airlines. While maintenance issues and not the actual design of the aircraft would ultimately be found responsible for the crash, the accident and subsequent grounding of all DC-10s by the Federal Aviation Administration added to an already negative perception of the jet in the eyes of the public caused by other unrelated accidents.
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a 2011 American science fiction-action film based on the Transformers toy line. It is the third installment of the live-action Transformers film series. Directed by Michael Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg, the film was released on June 29, 2011, in both, 2D and 3D formats, including IMAX 3D, and featured Dolby Surround 7.1 sound. Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro reprised their starring roles, with Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving returning as the voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley replaced Megan Fox as the female lead and the cast added Patrick Dempsey, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand. The script was written by Ehren Kruger. The film's story is set three years after the events of the last film. The Autobots discover a hidden alien technology in possession of humans, which is the fuel cell for a crash landed ship, which was found by the Apollo 11 in the Moon. During a lunar trip seeking the Ark, they unveil a Decepticon plan to enslave humanity in order to save the home planet of the Transformers, Cybertron. Dark of the Moon was shot with both regular 35mm film cameras and specially developed 3D cameras in locations including Indiana, Washington, D.C., Moscow, Florida and Chicago. Dark of the Moon has grossed $1.095 billion worldwide, being the 10th film to cross the $1 billion mark, the second highest grossing film of 2011 (behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2), and the fifth highest-grossing film of all-time—in unadjusted dollars. Critical reception was mixed to negative, praising the visuals but criticizing the writing and acting.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/131
Argo Tea is a chain of tea cafes that was founded in the Lincoln Park community area in Chicago, Illinois, in June 2003. It is now headquartered in Chicago's Loop community area. It had more than a dozen locations in the Chicago metropolitan area before expanding in 2010 to New York City, where it opened four locations that year and then expanded to St. Louis and Boston. As of October 2011[update] the chain had 26 locations and distribution in over 3,000 grocery stores. In its first decade, it has grown simultaneously with the tea market. Its expansion into grocery stores occurred in 2010 and 2011. Arsen Avakian is the current Chief Executive Officer. Argo Tea primarily sells a variety of hot and cold tea-based signature drinks. In addition, it offers about three dozen international varieties of loose-leaf tea (tea brewed from loose tea leaves, as opposed to tea leaves in bagged tea), coffee, baked goods, small entrées, and teaware. The tea menu includes a variety of black, green, white, and natural herbal teas, served hot or iced. Argo Tea has formed a special relationship with Whole Foods Market to distribute Argo products. According to the description in Bloomberg Businessweek, Argo's specialty foods include pastries, sandwiches, salads, and quiches. Argo markets from a lifestyle perspective with awareness of modern design and sustainable environment. It also sells audio CDs.
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Up! Live in Chicago is the third live video album by Canadian singer Shania Twain. Directed and produced by Beth McCarthy-Miller, the concert was held and filmed on July 27, 2003 at the Hutchinson Field in the south-side of Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois; there were over 50,000 attendants. The concert itself differed from that of the Up! Tour (2003–04), featuring divergent stages, setlits, and production. Behind-the-scenes footage was filmed during the same week, when Twain visited local landmarks and events. The concert film debuted on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) on August 19, 2003, and was watched by over 8.87 million viewers, becoming the second-most-viewed concert film on television, behind Celine Dion's A New Day... Live in Las Vegas (2003). Due to its high television ratings, Up! Live in Chicago was released as a video album on November 18, 2003 by Mercury Nashville Records. Released both in standard DVD packaging and in a jewel case, it featured additional performances not included on the television presentation, and was received positively by music critics, who complimented Twain's interaction with the audience; however, some questioned her singing. The video peaked at number two on Billboard's Top Music Video sales chart, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of 100,000 copies in the United States. It was also certified platinum in Australia and gold in Austria and Brazil. Excerpts from Up! Close and Personal were used as the music videos for Twain's singles "She's Not Just a Pretty Face" (2003) and "It Only Hurts when I'm Breathing" (2004).
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/133
The Michael Jordan statue, officially known as The Spirit (and sometimes referred to as Michael Jordan's Spirit), is a bronze sculpture by Omri and Julie Rotblatt-Amrany outside the United Center in the Near West Side community area of Chicago. The sculpture was originally commissioned after Jordan's initial retirement following three consecutive NBA championships and unveiled prior to the Bulls taking residence in their new home stadium the following year. Depicting Basketball Hall of Fame member Michael Jordan and unveiled on November 1, 1994, the 12-foot (3.7 m) sculpture stands atop a 5-foot (1.52 m) black granite base. Although not critically well received, the statue has established its own legacy as a meeting place for fans at subsequent Bulls championships and as a rallying point for Chicago Blackhawks fans during their prideful times.
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The Litigators is a 2011 legal thriller novel by John Grisham, his 25th fiction novel overall. The Litigators is about a two-partner Chicago law firm attempting to strike it rich in a class action lawsuit over a cholesterol reduction drug by a major pharmaceutical drug company. The protagonist is a Harvard Law School grad big law firm burnout who stumbles upon the boutique and joins it only to find himself litigating against his old law firm in this case. The book is regarded as more humorous than most of Grisham's prior novels. Critical reviews were mixed for the book, with several opinions noting a lack of suspense. Nonetheless, the book has achieved both hardcover and ebook #1 best seller status on various lists, including both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. However, since some services do not separate fiction and non-fiction books, it did not debut as a #1 bestseller on certain lists, such as the USA Today. Some reviewers noted that this story would lend itself to an adapted screenplay.
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The "Cross of Gold" speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former congressman from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or "free silver", which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold".[2] Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; it is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history. For twenty years, Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation's monetary standard. The gold standard, which the United States had effectively been on since 1873, limited the money supply but eased trade with other nations, such as the United Kingdom, whose currency was also based on gold. However, many Americans believed bimetallism (making both gold and silver legal tender) was necessary to the nation's economic health. The economic Panic of 1893 intensified the debates, and when Democratic President Grover Cleveland continued to support the gold standard against the will of much of his party, activists became determined to take over the Democratic Party organization and nominate a silver-supporting candidate in 1896. Bryan had been a dark horse candidate with little expressed support in the convention. His speech, delivered at the close of the debate on the party platform, electrified the convention and is generally credited with getting him the nomination for president. However, he lost the general election to William McKinley and the United States formally adopted the gold standard in 1900.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/136
The pilot episode of the American historical fiction television series The Playboy Club premiered on September 19, 2011 in the United States on NBC. It was directed by Alan Taylor and written by Chad Hodge and Becky Mode. In this episode, Maureen, a newly hired Playboy bunny, gets involved in the murder of mob boss Bruno Bianchi. Nick Dalton, one of Chicago's top attorneys and Club key-holder, comes to her aid; his girlfriend Carol-Lynne makes an ambitious move and becomes the first Bunny Mother. Meanwhile, Bunnies Janie, Alice and Brenda each deal with their own personal issues and secrets while the club's general manager Billy Rosen tries his best to keep the club running without interference from the mob. Development for a pilot episode began in 2010, when 20th Century Fox Television and Imagine TV attempted to produce the concept in time for the 2010–11 television season; however, it never materialized. Its scripts were picked up by NBC in January 2011 and two months afterwards, principal photography for the episode commenced in Chicago, Illinois, where it occurred over a period of nine days. The pilot episode was heavily advertised in the weeks leading up to its premiere, as the show's producers collaborated with several companies such as Bloomingdale's to initiate cross-promotional advertising deals. Television critics were polarized by the episode, with many expressing that it was dull and mediocre. Upon airing, the series premiere was viewed by 5.02 million viewers and was viewed by four percent of the audience in the 18-49 demographic, according to Nielsen ratings.
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The Spirit Fruit Society was a communitarian group in the United States organized after a period of repeated business depressions during the 1890s. Although it never numbered more than a handful of adherents, the Spirit Fruit Society existed longer and more successfully than any other American utopian group. Plagued by rumor, suspicion, and attacks in the press during its early years, the group remained active until 1930. The name derives from the group's belief that mankind's spiritual state is that of a bud or blossom on a plant and that man's soul has not yet developed into a fruit from a blossom. The goal of the society was to bring the soul to fruition. As the Society's founder, Jacob Beilhart, said in documents for incorporation of the society, "... as yet, man is an underdeveloped 'plant' which has not manifested the final fruit, which he is to produce." The essential philosophy of the group was based upon a belief in self-renunciation, hard work, tolerance, and peace. The society was started by Jacob Beilhart, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher from Columbiana County, Ohio. Beilhart studied and was exposed to a variety of beliefs during his life and finally settled back in Columbiana County, having decided to start an intentional community where he could practice his beliefs and model his lifestyle for others.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/138
Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game against the Seattle Mariners by retiring all 27 batters he faced on April 21, 2012, as the White Sox defeated the Mariners 4–0. It was the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball (MLB) history and the third by a member of the White Sox. It was Humber's first career complete game, although he had come close to achieving no-hitters on several occasions at several levels of organized baseball. The game was played in Seattle and broadcast regionally by Fox Sports in the two teams' metropolitan areas. Humber, a top pitching prospect from a Texas high school, attended Rice University, where he had a successful career. A high draft pick by the New York Mets, he debuted in MLB for the Mets before headlining a group of four prospects traded to the Minnesota Twins for Johan Santana. After two ineffective seasons with the Twins, Humber pitched a season for the Kansas City Royals. Acquired on waivers by the Chicago White Sox in 2011, Humber had his first successful season in an MLB starting rotation. The perfect game, Humber's 30th career start and his second of the 2012 season, totaled 96 pitches.
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The Columbian half dollar is a coin issued by the Bureau of the Mint in 1892 and 1893. The first United States commemorative coin, it was issued to raise funds for the World's Columbian Exposition, held in 1893, and to mark the quadricentennial of the first voyage to the Americas of Christopher Columbus, whose portrait it bears. The Columbian half dollar was the first American coin to depict a historical person. The coin stems from the desire of the Columbian Exposition's organizers to gain federal money to complete construction of the fair. Congress granted an appropriation, and allowed it to be in the form of commemorative half dollars, which legislators and organizers believed could be sold at a premium. Fair official James Ellsworth wanted the new coin to be based on a 16th century painting he owned by Lorenzo Lotto, reputedly of Columbus, and pushed for this through the design process. When initial sketches by Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber proved unsatisfactory, fair organizers turned to a design by artist Olin Levi Warner, which after modification by Barber and by his assistant, George T. Morgan, was struck by the Mint. Some 5,000,000 half dollars were struck, far beyond the actual demand, and half of them were melted. The appropriation did not cure the fair's financial woes, as fewer than 400,000 were sold at the premium price, and some 2,000,000 were released into circulation, where they remained as late as the 1950s. The pieces can be purchased in circulated condition for less than $20; coins in near-pristine state sell for about $1,000, far less than the $10,000 the makers of the Remington typewriter paid as a publicity stunt in 1892 for the first specimen struck.
Portal:Chicago/Selected article/140
Extreme Rules (2012) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE. It took place on April 29, 2012 at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. It was the fourth event under the Extreme Rules chronology. Eight professional wrestling matches were scheduled on the event's card and one pre-show match was streamed on YouTube. It featured Brock Lesnar's first WWE match since WrestleMania XX in 2004. The concept of Extreme Rules was that the event would feature various hardcore-based matches. There were three main events: John Cena defeated Brock Lesnar in an Extreme Rules match, CM Punk defeated Chris Jericho in a Chicago Street Fight to retain the WWE Championship, and Sheamus defeated Daniel Bryan in a 2-out-of-3 falls match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. The pay-per-view received universally positive reviews, and all three main events drew high praise from critics and fans. The event received 263,000 buys, up 25.8% from the 209,000 buys for the previous year's event.
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Disco Demolition Night was an ill-fated baseball promotion that took place on July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in 0Chicago. At the climax of the event, a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field between games of the twi-night doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Many had come to see the explosion rather than the games and rushed onto the field after the button was pressed. With the playing surface damaged both by the explosion and by the rowdy fans, the White Sox were required to forfeit Game 2 of the doubleheader to the Tigers. A disco craze had swept the United States in the late 1970s, with the dance-oriented music featured in hit films such as Saturday Night Fever (1977). Although disco was popular, it also sparked a rock and roll fan backlash prominent enough that the White Sox, during a lackluster season, engaged shock jock and anti-disco campaigner Steve Dahl for the promotion. Attendees paid 98 cents and brought a disco record; between games, Dahl destroyed the collected vinyl in an explosion. White Sox officials had hoped for a crowd of 20,000, about 5,000 more than usual. Instead, tens of thousands of Dahl's adherents (dubbed "The Insane Coho Lips") packed the stadium and continued to sneak in even after gates were closed. Many uncollected records were thrown like frisbees from the stands. After Dahl blew up the collected records, thousands of fans stormed the field until dispersed by riot police. The second game was initially postponed, but was later forfeited.
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Tintin in America is the third volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper as anti-capitalist propaganda for its children's supplement, it was serialised weekly from September 1931 to October 1932. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his fox terrier Snowy who travel to the United States, where Tintin reports on organized crime in Chicago. Pursuing a gangster across the country, he encounters a tribe of Blackfoot Natives. Following on from Tintin in the Congo and bolstered by publicity stunts, Tintin in America was a commercial success, appearing in book form shortly after its conclusion. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with Cigars of the Pharaoh, and the series became a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1945, it was re-drawn and coloured in Hergé's distinctive ligne-claire style for republication by Casterman, with further alterations made for a 1973 edition. The comic was adapted for a 1991 episode of the Ellipse/Nelvana animated series The Adventures of Tintin.
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The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell, Luise Rainer, and Myrna Loy. The film, shot at MGM Studios in Culver City, California, in the fall of 1935, is a fictionalized tribute to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and a cinematic adaption of Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies, with highly elaborate costumes, dances and sets. Many of the performers of the theatrical Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, and Billie Burke acted as a supervisor for the film. The "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" set alone was reported to have cost US$220,000 (US$4,830,504 in 2024 dollars[3]),[4]. The music to the film was provided by Walter Donaldson, Irving Berlin, and Harold Adamson. The extravagant costumes were designed by Adrian, taking some 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to prepare them. One of the biggest successes in film in the 1930s and the pride of MGM at the time, it was acclaimed as the greatest musical biography to be made in Hollywood and still remains a standard in musical film making. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress. Although the film is still praised for its lavish production and as a symbol of glamor and excess during the Golden Age of Hollywood, today Ziegfeld is generally seen less favorably and is considered to be excessively showy and long. MGM made two sequels: Ziegfeld Girl and Ziegfeld Follies.
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The Elgin, Illinois, Centennial half dollar was a fifty-cent commemorative coin issued by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936, part of the wave of commemoratives authorized by Congress and struck that year. Intended to commemorate the centennial of the founding of Elgin, the piece was designed by local sculptor Trygve Rovelstad. The obverse depicts an idealized head of a pioneer man. The reverse shows pioneers based upon a sculptural group that Rovelstad hoped to build as a memorial to those who settled Illinois, but which was not erected in his lifetime. Rovelstad had heard of other efforts to authorize commemorative coins, which were sold by the Mint to a designated group at face value and then retailed a premium. In 1935, he had legislation introduced into the House of Representatives for a commemorative coin in honor of Elgin's centennial that year. Rovelstad hoped that the proposed coin would both depict and be a source of funds for his memorial to the pioneers. Texas coin dealer L.W. Hoffecker contacted Rovelstad to offer assistance—Hoffecker had been behind the Old Spanish Trail half dollar, issued in 1935. The bill for the Elgin coin did not pass until 1936. Hoffecker was able to sell about 20,000 coins, four-fifths of the issue: the remaining 5,000 were returned to the Mint for melting. Unlike many commemorative coins of that era, the piece was sold directly to collectors at the issue price. Art historian Cornelius Vermeule considered the Elgin coin among the most outstanding American commemoratives.
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Torpedo...Los! (sometimes Torpedo...LOS!) is a 1963 pop art oil on canvas painting by Roy Lichtenstein. When it was last sold in 1989, The New York Times described the work as "a comic-strip image of sea warfare". It formerly held the record for the highest auction price for a Lichtenstein work. Its 1989 sale helped finance the construction of the current home of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 1991.
Like many of Lichtenstein's works its title comes from the speech balloon in the painting. The work was included in Lichtenstein's second solo exhibition. The source of the image is a comic book from DC Comics. Lichtenstein has made significant alterations to the original image to change the focus and perspective in addition to significant alteration of the narrative element of the work. The work plays on the background-foreground relationship and the theme of vision that appears in many of Lichtenstein's works. (Full article...)
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The Davis Theater, originally known as the Pershing Theater, is a first run movie theater located in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. Built in 1918, the theater has operated in different capacities in its history, showing silent films, German-language films, and various forms of stage performance. In 1999, the Davis was planned to be demolished to build residential condos, but the plans were cancelled in part due to a negative response from the community. It is one of the few operating neighborhood movie theaters in Chicago.
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The 2000 United States House of Representatives election for the 1st district in Illinois took place on November 7, 2000 to elect a representative from Illinois's 1st congressional district for the 107th United States Congress. Incumbent Democratic Representative Bobby Rush faced a primary challenge from Barack Obama. Rush defeated Obama 61 percent to 30 percent, with other candidates combining for the remaining nine percent. Rush then defeated his Republican opponent, Raymond Wardingley, 87 percent to 12 percent, ensuring his reelection. Subsequent to this election Obama was elected to the United States Senate in 2004. He was then elected President of the United States in 2008.
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Eliel Saarinen's Tribune Tower design or the Saarinen tower are terms used to describe the unnamed and unbuilt design for a modernist skyscraper, created by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and submitted in 1922 for the Chicago Tribune's architectural competition for a new headquarters. The winning entry, the neo-Gothic Tribune Tower, was built in 1925. Saarinen's entry came in second place yet became influential in the design of a number of future buildings.
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People v. Aguilar, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ill. 2013), was an Illinois Supreme Court case in which the Court held that on its face, the Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon (AUUF) statute violated the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The Court stated that this was because the statute amounted to a wholesale statutory ban on the exercise of a personal right that was specifically named in and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, as construed by the United States Supreme Court. A conviction for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm (UPF) was proper because the possession of handguns by minors was conduct that fell outside the scope of the Second Amendment's protection. In 2008, Alberto Aguilar, then 17, was arrested and charged with AUUF and UPF. After being convicted and sentenced to probation by the trial court, he appealed, arguing that both statutes were unconstitutional infringements of his Second Amendment rights. The Illinois Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, and he appealed that ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court. While Aguilar's appeal was pending, the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that the AUUF statute was unconstitutional.
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"Second Generation" is a 2006 television advertisement introducing Nike's Air Jordan XXI brand of basketball shoes. The ad depicts signature moves from Michael Jordan's NBA career, recreated in the present day by twelve young basketball players around the world. Included are moments from the 1989, 1991, 1992, and 1998 NBA playoffs and the iconic 1992 slam dunk. The ad was produced by Smuggler and directed by Brian Beletic for the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. Casting began in November 2005, filming took place in January 2006, and the ad debuted on television that February. Advertising publications gave favorable reviews to "Second Generation", although it did not win major awards. The ad is also listed as "2nd Generation"; its tagline is "Let your game speak".
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Money in the Bank (2011) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by WWE and presented by Skittles which took place on July 17, 2011 at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. It was the second annual Money in the Bank pay-per-view and seventh event in the 2011 WWE PPV schedule. Six professional wrestling matches were featured at the event, two of which were the eponymous ladder match. The main event featured John Cena defending the WWE Championship against CM Punk, which Punk won to become the new champion. The World Heavyweight Championship was also defended on the card, in which Christian defeated Randy Orton by disqualification; as per the match stipulation, Christian became the new champion. WWE held two Money in the Bank ladder matches for the Raw and SmackDown brands. Alberto Del Rio won the Raw match while Daniel Bryan won the SmackDown match respectively. Money in the Bank received numerous positive reviews. The Canadian Online Explorer rated the show a 6 out of 10, while The Sun rated the event 9.5 out of 10, which was a higher rating than the 8.0 rating the previous year's Money in the Bank received. The bout between Cena and Punk for the WWE Championship received a rare 5-star rating from wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer. This event drew 195,000 buys, which was up from 165,000 buys in the previous year.
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- ^ Brown, Marisa. "Biography". allmusic. Retrieved 2008-03-08.
- ^ Kazin, p. 61.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ Green 1999, p. 54.