Chicago, a bright spot on the tip of Lake Michigan, glowing through the clouds.
The Chicago Spire was a proposed supertall skyscraper to be built along Lake Michigan in Chicago, Illinois. Its construction was stunted due to the “Great Recession” that started in 2008. The project was officially declared dead in the water in 2010 after developers were unable to secure the funds. After nearly 5 years of planning, the Chicago Spire will remain a 30 meter (100 ft) wide hole in the ground, instead of the towering 610 meter (2,000 ft) structure it could have been.
Animated Lake Michigan ice floes by Dave Gorum. See more on Colossal!
Colossal did a lil feature on some of my slush gifs. Neato!
So awesome.
Well, this is fun to look at.
Moderately mesmerizing. We’ll give it a 6.
slush
(via Don’t Touch That Dial! Low-Power Radio Is About to Make FM Hot Again | Gadget Lab | Wired.com)
It isn’t just the activists eager to begin broadcasting. Shawn Campbell, founder and general manager of the Chicago Independent Radio Project, said fans of the listener-supported streaming station have long wondered when CHIRP would hit the airwaves.
“It’s the number one question we’re asked by listeners,” she said.
The station targets people interested in exploring new music, including local Chicago bands. Although streaming on the internet reaches people worldwide, Campbell says CHIRP’s audience will grow once it starts broadcasting. She says the station could reach 1 million listeners, many of them finding the station through serendipity.
“The broadcast dial is finite, as opposed to the internet, which is almost infinite,” she said. “People are more likely to stumble on you.” Besides, she said, “You can’t assume everyone who wants to listen to you online is able to.”
Great story on Wired.com about the expansion of low-power FM radio. (And how awesome do CHIRPers look with all those Screwball Press posters, eh?)
Love CHIRP. Listen to them here.
“Let me tell you something. I’m from Chicago. I don’t break.” - Barack Obama
Happy 176th birthday to Chicago, the greatest city in the world!
(via bensgrabbag)
Muhammed Ali kissing a young girl, 1983, Chicago, Illinois. Photograph by Richard Gordon.
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npr:
The Vaportini: A Cocktail Inhaled, Not Stirred
Here at The Salt, we’ve heard about some whacky cocktail trends swirling around the country recently — from bacon-infused mescals in Washington to liquid nitrogen martinis in San Francisco.
But why do you need to drink your cocktail when you could inhale it instead?
That’s right, folks, the “Vaportini” has arrived. And it’s making a big splash on the cocktail scene in Chicago.
In essence, the Vaportini is a simple device that evaporates flavor-infused spirits, so you can breathe in the aromas and alcohol through a glass straw.
Think of it as something between warming a brandy snifter over a candle and freebasing Knob Creek bourbon.
Restaurateur Julie Palmer came up with the idea after visiting a friend in Helsinki. “She would go into the sauna with a bottle of vodka and pour it over the coals,” Palmer tells The Salt. “You could really feel the effects of the alcohol without drinking it.”
When Palmer returned home, she wanted to re-create that experience at Red Kiva, a cocktail lounge she had opened up in Chicago’s hip West Loop neighborhood.
[…]
But ultimately she settled on a simple setup: a hand-blown glass globe with a candle underneath it. A shot of spirit sits in the globe, and as it heats up, the liquid evaporates and fills the sphere with flavorful — and intoxicating — vapors, which you can then suck up through a glass straw.
[…]
Jake Malooley, a reporter for Time Out Chicago, got to try the Vaportini firsthand recently, while writing an article on the device.
He gives the gaseous quaffs mixed reviews.
“I felt like it was unsatisfying,” he tells The Salt. “Part of why we drink beer and cocktails is for the taste — it’s cold and refreshing. The Vaportini eliminates a lot of the sensual elements of the cocktail experience.”
Nevertheless, Malooley says he was surprised by how much of the whiskey’s nuances came through in the vapors. “When you inhale it, you can taste the flavors of each alcohol on your tongue. You can tell it’s whiskey.”
Malooley doesn’t think vapor cocktails will replace the liquid versions anytime soon. “It’s a fun accessory to do as a dessert course or start off the night, but you wouldn’t want to spend the whole night with the Vaportini — it just wouldn’t be satisfying.”
This seems like an incredible waste of good alcohol to me.
Dream Chasers, a film produced by Chicago students Ezabella Duran, Miguel Garcia and Yalinne Graduño in collaboration with journalist Jesse Hardman, during a 2012 summer documentary filmmaking program hosted by Free Spirit Media and the Pulitzer Center. The film will be shown at the Youth Visions Showcase of the 2013 San Diego Latino Film Festival.
Dream Chasers explores the significance of the DREAM Act and features the personal account of an undocumented teen preparing to graduate from high school.
At the start of the summer, Pulitzer Center journalists shared their international reporting projects and encouraged students to explore how topics highlighted in their reporting connected to issues in Chicago. Hardman’s reporting on Burmese migrant workers in Thailand sparked the students’ interest in examining the experience of undocumented young people in their city. Hardman mentored the team throughout the six-week program.
The festival will take place March 7-17 at Digiplex Mission Valley Cinemas in San Diego. Dream Chasers will screen at the Youth Visions Showcase on March 9 at 3:00 pm and March 14 at 10:00 am.
chicagohistorymuseum:
Portraits of African American Civil War soldiers, c. 1863, Chicago, Illinois. Photographs by unknown.
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> Visit our Rights and Reproductions Department and give them these numbers: iChi-22169 (top), iChi-22217 (middle left), iChi-22172 (middle right), iChi-22168 (bottom).
(Source: chicagohistorymuseum)
Sidewalk living room card game
Four men play cards outside at 63rd and Greenwood in Chicago, Illinois, on August 14, 1987, 9:00 a.m. Photograph by Stephen Marc.
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A horse-drawn wagon passes by the bronze lion statues in front of the Art Institute of Chicago during a snowstorm, 1925, Chicago, Illinois. Photograph by Chicago Daily News, Inc.
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In Focus: Chicago’s Freezing Fire
On Tuesday night, a huge vacant warehouse on Chicago’s South Side went up in flames. Fire department officials said it was the biggest blaze the department has had to battle in years and one-third of all Chicago firefighters were on the scene at one point or another trying to put out the flames. Complicating the scene was the weather — temperatures were well below freezing and the spray from the fire hoses encased everything below in ice, including buildings, vehicles, and some firefighting gear. The warehouse was gutted, but the fire was contained. Fire crews remain on the scene as some smaller flare-ups continue to need attention.
See more. [Images: AP, Getty, Reuters]
npr:
(via 5-11 alarm fire — Chicago Tribune)
A wild image of an iced-over abandoned warehouse that caught fire in Chicago on Tuesday night. That white stuff is not weather related — the water that firefighters used to put out the blaze froze. — Heidi
Photo: John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune
"Everybody here is ‘Oh my gosh, you got a box of heads’ and everybody thinks that it’s unheard of. It is a potentially legitimate medical shipment. We’ve seen it at various ports in the nation."
—
Brian Bell, a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, responded to questions about 18 severed heads that were discovered at O’Hare International Airport en route to a suburban Chicago research facility the week prior to Christmas from Italy via Lufthansa flight. Foul play is not suspected.
“There’s no issue with the transportation of body parts for medical purposes,” Bell said. “There’s nothing against the law that says you cannot ship them, provided you have the right documentation. … We need to make sure that they are truly used for medical research purposes.”
