The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.
Volume 12, Issue 18
Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato
Managing Editor Adam Przybyl
Investigations Editor Jim Daley
Immigration Project
Editor Alma Campos
Senior Editors Martha Bayne
Christopher Good
Olivia Stovicek
Jocelyn Martinez-Rosales
Community Builder Chima Ikoro
Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton
Interim Lead
Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino
Director of Fact Checking: Ellie Gilbert-Bair
Fact Checkers: Ella Beiser
Bridget Craig
Jim Daley
Patrick Edwards
Christopher Good
Alani Oyola
Kateleen Quiles
Rubi Valentin
Layout Editor Tony Zralka
Publisher Malik Jackson
Office Manager Mar y Leonard
Advertising Manager Susan Malone
The Weekly publishes online weekly and in print every other Thursday. We seek contributions from all over the city.
Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to:
South Side Weekly
6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637
For advertising inquiries, please contact: Susan Malone (773) 358-3129 or email: malone@southsideweekly.com
For general inquiries, please call: (773) 643-8533
AWelcome to Best of the South Side 2025
s a publication that covers the South Side, we have to be real. We cannot celebrate without acknowledging the struggles so many people are facing at this moment, both here and overseas. The current administration has named Chicago many times as a target for its mass deportation agenda, and we’ve seen and responded to a recent surge in ICE and federal agents arresting our people without warning or care for the lives they’ve built in this country. In response, community members are fighting to (literally) shield their loved ones and neighbors from ambush, and have done so without hesitation.
Beyond our city, multiple communities with ties to Chicago are facing unimaginable crises. Shortly after this issue is released, we’ll cross the two year milestone of the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Three and a half years have passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with no end in sight, while conflicts in Sudan and the Congo claim tens of thousands of civilian lives. Efforts to oppose genocide are criminalized or ignored, but our city has shown unending support for those causes.
We want to remind you (and ourselves, to be honest) that the grief and urgency we feel is a result of the love we have for one another. That is not something that anyone can separate us from. These moments exemplify our passion for our people and communities, and our resilience. We do not celebrate our strength as merit for undeserved suffering, but instead we celebrate the choice to continue to empower ourselves as a means to overcome.
Don’t let anyone fool you, the South Side is full of life, and it’s animated by our diversity. The folks who call this home have come from all over across generations; different states, the American south, and countless countries. Everyone deserves to feel at home somewhere, and the South Side has served as a refuge throughout this city’s history.
While the segregation of our city still plays an active role in our lives, Best of the South Side seeks to reclaim power by seeing our differences as passageways to connect, learn, and grow.
There is so much to do and see south of Roosevelt, and year after year contributors come up with new or reimagined things to fill this special issue with. It’s an honor to share that work with each other and the entire city.
We ask that you join these writers and contributors in supporting and valuing the South Side. Take the time to patronize the works of Black, Brown, immigrant and other disenfranchised communities, especially those most impacted by the current and continued climate.
Thank you for taking a moment to read this special issue. Celebration is one of our favorite acts of resistance.
- Chima Ikoro, Community Builder
Cover by Mike Centeno
“come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.”
- Lucille Clifton
Angie’s Pizza Bree Thai
Daley’s
Chatham Mid-Century Modern
Marshall Square
Beauty Turner Academy of Oral History
Lake Shore Model Railroad Association
Brave Space Alliance
Centro Botanico El Guadalupano
Yogi
Fitness
Toro Nagashi Lantern Ceremony
Pilsen Musician Murals
Definitive Selection
Marie | Wesley’s Englewood Fashion Show
Harold Matthews Jr.
Epiphany Center for the Arts
Haven Studios
Roseland People’s Market
Flowers Unlimited and Gifts
Miss Mel of Sunflower Soule Farm LLC
BEST NEIGHBORHOOD STAPLE
Angie’s Restaurant and Pizzeria
BY ERICA ACEVES
Aby
t Angie’s, regulars enter through the side door next to the parking lot—before the restaurant expanded their outdoor patio, only locals knew that it was an entrance. As soon as you step in, you can hear the bustling sounds of families chattering, laughing, and calling out food orders. The pizza ovens emit a nostalgic smell. Angie’s isn’t just a pizza shop; it’s a South Side hub where neighbors meet to watch a game, share a meal, and catch up over a drink at the bar.
Angelo Corso, the original owner, moved his family to Ashburn from Taylor Street during the 1960s, because he wanted to bring his family up on the South Side. Angie’s—which was Angelo’s nickname—first opened in 1967, at the location next door to its current location, where it moved in 1973. Fifty-two years later, it’s still family owned and operated by Angelo’s son, Robbie.
Their signature is pizza. The cheesy pizza topped with pepperoni and green peppers smells delicious. The thin crust has the perfect crunch when you bite into it, and it just melts in your mouth. Beyond pizza, the menu includes curly fries and fresh salads, making it a go-to for families who want more than just a slice.
Robbie Corso said families travel to visit the restaurant when they are in town, especially from Indiana, Michigan, and Florida. Families move away and when they visit, they add Angie’s Restaurant to their itinerary. There are generations that have been going to Angie’s that keep the South Side tradition alive.
“I’ve seen fathers bring their sons. Their sons bring their sons. Now, their sons are bringing their sons,” said Robbie.
Angie’s Pizza is also woven into the fabric of the South Side as a place that gives back. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant donated one hundred pizzas to first responders, nurses, firefighters, and police officers, as a way of saying thank you to those on the front lines. In quieter times, the dining room has hosted nurses who set up flu and COVID vaccine clinics, turning the pizzeria patio into a community health hub. One of the most memorable initiatives for Robbie was inviting students with special needs into the kitchen, teaching them how to make pizzas and even run the cash register, an experience he describes as one of the most rewarding of his career.
Angie’s once sponsored Little League baseball teams, and the carryout room still displays photos and memorabilia from those days, a reminder of how deeply the restaurant has been tied to neighborhood traditions. For Robbie, this bond comes down to the character of the South Side itself.
“The people here are the true people,” he said. There is pride that sets South Siders apart, staying true to themselves and standing strong through tough times. This is especially true with small businesses trying to survive after the pandemic.
Robbie hopes that the business stays within the family, and he hopes for his nephew or niece to run it in the future. For a time the business expanded to other locations in Burbank and downtown, but while those outposts have since shuttered, the original location in Ashburn endures. To this day, it continues to serve the South Side community. For generations of Ashburn families, the side door will always open to more than just pizza, it opens to tradition, connection, and a taste of the South Side that endures.
Angie’s Restaurant and Pizzeria, 8352 S. Pulaski, Chicago. 773-735-8527, angiespizza.com. ¬
Photo by Omar Ortiz
Photo
Erica Aceves
BEST CORNER OF THAI FLAVOR
Bree Thai Restaurant
BY GISELA OROZCO
For nearly fourteen years, at the corner of Central Ave. and Archer Rd., there’s been a small and delicious Thai restaurant that stands out among the area’s dining options, where Mexican as well as fast food options dominate.
Bree Thai Restaurant has a menu that captivates your palate, whether it’s miso soup, pad thai, or any dish served with rice—which can be served with beef, chicken, shrimp, or vegan—with its combination of savory, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors. It’s a true delight.
Behind this feat of establishing a Thai restaurant is the interracial couple made up of Frank Hernández, the son of Mexican immigrants from the state of San Luis Potosí, in central Mexico, and his wife Bree Hernández, from Surat Thani, a city located in southern Thailand known as “the city of good people.”
“We actually weren’t sure about the area,” Frank confessed when they began looking for a location to fulfill his wife’s dream of owning her own restaurant, as he had managed Thai restaurants in different neighborhoods for years.
“We looked downtown and on the North Side,” Frank said, keeping in mind that those areas have Thai restaurants. “We found this place, and since we opened in November 2011, we’ve been blessed.”
Since they decided to make Bree’s dream a reality, and although she also knows how to cook Mexican dishes such as mole and pozole, they wanted to maintain the authentic
“I love to cook,” Bree said. “I grew up with my grandfather and grandmother, and I helped them in the kitchen as a child. I like to see people happy when they eat my food.”
For Bree, maintaining the flavor she grew up with in Thailand is the most important thing, and to achieve that, the ingredients have to be fresh and authentic. “What we can find here (in Chicago and the surrounding area) and what we don’t, we order. That’s very important because spices are the flavor and the traditions,” she said.
When you come to this culinary corner of Thai flavor, you can enjoy the lunch special served Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. $9.99 can afford you a plate of noodles, fried rice, or curry served with an appetizer and soup of the day—you can choose between chicken, beef, or tofu, or substitute shrimp for an extra $3.75—or to enjoy larger portions and a full meal from their menu.
Their menu includes nineteen different appetizers, eight soups, seven salads, eight noodle dishes, eight fried rice dishes, eleven entrees, six curries, five seafood dishes, two desserts, and drinks. In addition to soft drinks, there are Thai iced coffee and tea, Thai mango, and strawberry, pineapple, or blackberry smoothies.
Bree’s favorite dishes are the ones that bear her name: Rice Bree’s Fried Rice, which is a stir-fried rice with egg, carrots, and peas, and Bree’s Thai Stir-Fried Rice, served with a choice of protein with assorted vegetables.
And while Bree takes charge of leading the kitchen in every way, from cooking to delegating responsibilities, Frank is the one in charge of taking most of the orders and being there for customers.
Together, they’ve made their dream place a place where many find a flavor unmatched in the neighborhood and surrounding areas.
“It’s a wonderful neighborhood,” said Frank. “It’s diverse. We’ve found a niche. We’ve been welcomed from day one.”
From the beginning, Bree wanted diners to experience the feeling she had as a child
Daley’s Restaurant
BY ROBERT SPEED JR.
Since 1892, Daley’s Restaurant has weathered every storm it has faced. Chicago’s oldest continuously operating restaurant has survived the Great Depression, neighborhood transformations, and countless changes while remaining exactly
Bree Thai Restaurant, 5306 S Central Ave. Tuesday–Friday, 11am–8pm; Saturdays and Sundays, 4pm–8pm; closed Mondays. (773) 767-3200. ¬
what the community needs.
Walk through these doors and you step into living history. The walls display vintage photos that tell the story of a neighborhood that has seen everything. Tables that once hosted celebrities like Muhammad Ali now fill with university students, construction workers, and neighbors who know they’ll be greeted by name.
This is where the South Side comes to remember itself.
I watch how this place holds memories like the booth cushions hold warmth. Steam rises from mac and cheese that makes shoulders drop after hard days. Biscuits crumble between fingers like promises kept across generations. The menu reads like comfort: breakfast served all day, soul food that tastes like somebody’s grandmother cooked with love, homestyle classics that have fed the South Side for over a century.
But underneath the cornbread and coffee, there’s something deeper flowing: safety, thick and real as gravy. Waitresses call people “honey” with genuine warmth, remembering how everyone likes their coffee. Staff often span generations, creating continuity that feels like family.
Here, being Black, queer, grieving, or joyful never puts you at risk. Students sit next to elders sharing stories. People eat alone but never feel lonely, surrounded by the quiet comfort of a place that has mastered the art of making everyone family.
I’ve watched people slide into their usual spots and breathe easy for the first time all week, finding what generations before them found here: proof that some things endure, that love gets served on every plate, that the South Side takes care of its own.
For 133 years, Daley’s has been the South Side’s living room, its memory keeper, its proof that community survives everything. Its place on the South Side is as steady as a heartbeat.
Daley’s Restaurant, 6257 S. Cottage Grove Ave., Chicago, IL. For more information and hours, see daleysrestaurant.com. ¬
Photo by Caeli Kean
BEST PLACE TO SATISFY YOUR CRAVING FOR PAN DULCE
Acapulco Bakery #2
BY GISELA OROZCO
Within Mexican gastronomy and culture, pan dulce has its own chapter, one that even forms part of old sayings in Mexican Spanish, such as “¿A qué hora sales por el pan?”, which is a flirtatious way to ask someone when can they can hang out, or more practical ones like “las penas con pan son buenas” (sorrows are better with bread) or “un bolillo pa’l susto” (a bolillo for a scare).
And in Clearing, the color, flavor, and variety of Mexican sweet bread are present at Acapulco Bakery #2, which arrived in the neighborhood seven years ago and is here to stay.
Those who visit the bakery, whether out of curiosity or to buy one or more panes, may run into Guadalupe Carranza, the bakery assistant who has been working there almost since it opened.
Carranza greets customers with a smile, and after they’ve browsed the variety of bread in the display cases and placed their selection on their tray, she takes the payment and bids them farewell with the same smile.
“I try to make customers feel comfortable,” Carranza said. “When they visit us for the first time, I tell them which bread sells the most. I try to get them to try them so they know which kind to choose.”
She has provided this service since she started working for the bakery’s owner, Raúl Moctezuma, who also owns Acapulco Bakery #1 located in the Village of Shorewood, and who has entrusted Carranza and two other employees with the business.
Moctezuma arrives very early, Carranza said, before the bakery opens to the public at 6:00 a.m. to make the bread. Then, as its closing time nears, he prepares whatever he needs to do for the next day.
Because if Mexican bakeries have one thing going for them, it’s that the bread is made fresh daily, in the morning, in the afternoon, or sometimes, both morning and afternoon.
“It’s a lot of effort and work, but Don Raúl prepares everything with his helpers, and we make everything here, the bolillos, the pan, the cakes, and the chocoflan,” Carranza said.
She also helps with the filling and decoration of the pastries and cakes. “It’s nice to open at 6 a.m. and already have coffee and hot chocolate ready for customers every day. From Monday through Saturday at 6 a.m. I have to have conchas—the best-selling bread—and coffee ready because I already have customers waiting for me,” she said.
Unlike other businesses like Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts, Mexican bakeries don’t serve customers through a drive-thru or at the window. Here, customers have to make their visit to the bakery an experience, whether to remember what they experienced in Mexico or their home countries—there’s bread in every country—before immigrating, or to explore if they were born and raised here.
The variety of bread in the display cases makes it impossible to resist: you’ll find delicious croissants filled with cajeta, chocolate, or cheese, crispy campechanas, or a succulent bolillo filled with cream cheese and jalapeño peppers, another of Acapulco Bakery’s favorites and bestsellers.
Carranza explains that the bread’s different doughs make them different.
“From there, they create different shapes. From one dough, you make the bolillo, the jalapeño bolillo with cheese, from another [dough], the concha, which is the bestseller, and then another [dough], the fine bread, which is my favorite, which is the cinnamon bread. Then there’s the kind used to make the rancho bread with anise, the crusty bread, and then the pastries... in short, there’s so much to do and so much to choose from,”
Carranza explained.
As a Mexican woman, Guadalupe only knew about bread when she went to buy it or to eat it. It wasn’t until she started working at Acapulco Bakery #2 that she realized how much work went into it and fell in love with Mexican bread even more, understanding the work, dedication, and commitment that goes into making it.
“It’s pretty laborious, and if there’s one thing that has defined my boss, it’s that he respects that each loaf has its own [baking] time, its own temperature, and that he likes to offer the best quality.”
Even more so these days, when bread can be bought in a package almost anywhere on the corner.
“But nothing compares to pan del día. It has no preservatives, it’s fresh, and it has a special flavor,” she said.
And this is known by the customers who, some of whom after their first taste, have stayed and arrive punctually every afternoon or every now and then to order their favorite bread. Like this writer, for whom the cheese croissant and the “puerquito”—which has cinnamon and brown sugar in the dough—are her favorite panes from Acapulco Bakery #2.
Acapulco Bakery #2, 6044 W 63rd St. Monday–Saturday, 6am–8pm; Sundays, 8am–8pm. (773) 424-0167. ¬
Photos by Samuel M. Colon
BEST PLACE TO FIND ANCIENT BEDROCK AND HEALING PEBBLES
Morgan Shoal
BY XUANDI WANG
Morgan Shoal unfolds across nearly a mile of Chicago’s South Side, from 45th to 51st Street—a quiet drama of stone and history. Beneath the waves lies a 425-million-year-old Silurian reef. Just offshore, the ghostly remains of the Silver Spray, a 1914 passenger steamship, lie preserved in the shallows. These elements— the reef, the wreck, the pebbles—have long made Pebble Beach on 49th St. a kind of everyday sanctuary, where generations come to wade, skip stones, and lean against the sediment of memory.
Since the 1940s, the city’s response to erosion has been both piecemeal and persistent. They bandaged the shoreline again and again, layer upon layer, until it was an extraordinary mosaic of limestone, concrete, and armor stone—beautiful, but vulnerable to erosion and inaccessible in places.
Now, Pebble Beach finds itself torn between those who want to preserve the existing shore, and plans to engineer a new one. The stretch of lakeshore facing Morgan Shoal is the final piece of the Chicago Shoreline Protection Project, which began in 1993. A constellation of agencies—CDOT, the Park District, the Public Building Commission, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—has proposed a new vision for the shoreline, featuring armorstone revetments, stepped terraces, accessible trails, a comfort station, and additional parkland. Lookout points are to be placed at 47th and 51st Streets. Officials insist that the reef and the shipwreck will be left untouched.
But by June 2025, tensions were mounting. At a packed Kenwood fieldhouse meeting, roughly fifty residents called the plan “fragmented” and disconnected from local memory. Critics argue that the proposal replaces intimate stone access with massive, generic structures.
Casey Breen, a lecturer in landscape architecture at the University of Chicago (and longtime observer of lakefront affairs), believes Morgan Shoal’s appeal lies precisely in its “quiet, fragile diversity”: this is a shoreline shaped over decades by ad hoc repairs, rather than one grand design. That sense of organic history, she argues, is exactly what should be protected, not flattened by standardization. Yet, without institutional weight in support of a conservancy (as at nearby Promontory Point— “Save the Point” bumper stickers are still omnipresent around Hyde Park), Breen argues that the Shoal’s modest advocates risk being overshadowed by a process driven more
by efficiency than by curiosity and care.
In Breen’s view, this imbalance shows itself in the fast-moving public review process. “The city is much farther along in its redesign process, with cursory, and ultimately pretty meaningless, community meetings, and much less inclined to budge on its overall terms and vision,” she said.
As the project enters environmental review, with construction slated to begin in early 2026, planners assure residents that the soul of the place can endure. Reclaimed limestone blocks may become seating or stepped features, existing stone will serve new revetments, and trails and overlooks will recall a community-led 2015 vision, born from intense public meetings.
But for many, this stretch of Morgan Shoal is more than shoreline infrastructure—it is a landscape of memory: reef, wreck, pebbles, the weave of quiet gatherings across seasons. These are not design elements but inheritable experiences. To erase them, some residents say, is to erase a kind of spiritual sanctuary, one accessible to families, weary walkers, students, the rhythm of seasons, and the small rituals they carry.
In the months ahead, amid comment periods and local advocacy, South Side stewards face a defining question. Can Morgan Shoal remain the living sanctuary generations have claimed—or will it become just another refined face of lakefront engineering, beautiful but not quite what it once was? ¬
Photos by Doug Shaeffer
BEST PLACE TO SMELL PRAIRIE GRASS
Steelworkers Park
BY DABNEY LYLES
Steelworkers Park lies down 87th Street, beyond the busy intersection of 87th and DuSable Lake Shore Drive. After a long walk from the bus (if you’re taking CTA) to the lakefront park, you are greeted by the sweet smell of prairie grass. The prairie is tall, full of flowers, and radiates in the sun. You might hear the voices of some day campers as you walk around the Chicago Park District park.
On a hot day at the end of June, I visited Steelworkers Park to see the rock climbing lessons offered up the side of massive concrete walls left behind by the namesake steel mill, which were once used to dock ships carrying iron ore. You can sign up for rock climbing on the Park District website. This summer, there were rock
climbing events scheduled for kids, youth, and adults, as well as an adaptive event for veterans.
In addition to rock climbing, Steelworkers Park has tons of the aforementioned prairie—about eleven acres, in fact— with some strategically placed benches for resting and looking at the fields and lake. (Warning: I did not see any water fountains. Water bottle and sunscreen recommended.)
The prairie and buffalo grass, in addition to smelling great and giving the park a lush, green look, are maintained by both Chicago Park District staff and a group of volunteers who scatter seeds, pick up trash, and remove invasive species.
About those volunteers: Steelworkers Park Natural Area is part of the Park District’s Community Stewardship program. According to Chicago Park District spokesperson Irene
by
the first half of the twentieth century, South Works was the largest employer on the South Side of Chicago, employing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people and covering almost 600 acres of land. South Works has had a lasting physical impact in the city beyond Steelworkers Park: the (former) Sears Tower and the John Hancock building were both built with South Works steel. For South Chicago, although the steel mill brought jobs to the area, and its closure in 1992 had a negative economic impact, it was dangerous, difficult work. Some of those dangers have left their own lasting impact including the environmental contamination from the steel mill operations that has defeated some efforts to develop the site.
The
prairie and buffalo grass, in addition to smelling great and giving the park a lush, green look, are maintained by both Chicago Park District staff and a group of volunteers.
Tostado, “The Community Stewardship Workdays offer volunteers an opportunity to get involved in learning and helping to maintain these natural spaces by partaking in invasive plant removal, native plantings, litter pickup, trail mulching, as well as nature-based activities like birding and plant identification walks.” For those interested in pitching in, more details and volunteer dates are available at the Park District’s Natural Areas Community Stewardship Days webpage.
South Works, the steel mill whose ruins form part of the park, was created in 1901 when U.S. Steel bought the South Chicago steel manufacturing plant. During
Today, the area around Steelworkers Park is being developed into the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a full-on technology hub with the quantum computing company PsiQuantum as the anchor tenant. PsiQuantum, a Palo Alto–based company, is promising 150 jobs in five years and $1 billion in investment. Governor J.B. Pritzker’s office has estimated the benefits brought in by the development project could total $20 billion. This move is not welcomed by all, however—you may even see some anti-quantum graffiti around Steelworkers Park.
Southside Together and other groups have raised concerns about the development, citing issues like few jobs for residents and the potential for environmental problems. Additionally, a key issue for Southside Together is that the quantum facility decision was made without community input: town halls were held only after the decision was made.
Jerry Whirley, a member of Southside Together and a South Shore resident, explained: “I think that the methods taken to... exclude the community were very intentional. The people of these communities need to be informed about decisions that directly affect us, and we deserve to have a say in what happens in our neighborhoods.”
The Park District says it has plans to engage with the community on the “future development” of Steelworkers Park in the “coming months” as part of the Steelworkers Park Master Plan process.
In the meantime, the prairie remains well cared for and verdant through the fall.
Steelworkers Park, 87th St. at S. DuSable Lake Shore Dr. Daily, 6am–11pm. chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/steelworkers-natural-area ¬
Photos
Dabney Lyles
Jacqueline Serrato
The annual Best of the South Side was my introduction to South Side Weekly. Seeing the paper intentionally platform the South Side against a media ecosystem that amplified Chicago’s downtown, North Side, and suburbs–while encouraging neighborhood writers to determine this coverage–was revolutionary.
I mean, there was a whole section in the issue dedicated to La Villita. That blew my mind.
In 2019, shortly after contributing a short blurb to BoSS that summer, I found myself writing for the Weekly about displacement in Pilsen, a brief history of the Little Village and South Chicago Mexican parades, the 50th anniversary of Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition, disinvestment in our communities, and more.
What BoSS taught me is that writing about home and your place in the world can become a jumping-off point—for writers, journalists, poets, artists, culture makers, and, really, anyone. It spoke to the larger ethos of the Weekly: that people and places are intrinsically connected, that our lived experiences shape our perspective, and that objectivity is often subjective.
Knowing yourself and speaking your truth is a show of resistance in a system that commodifies or erases your reality. And all of those truths packaged and printed into a single issue only speak a larger truth about the South Side and us as Southsiders. I think of it like a family photo album; it’s as powerful now as it will be in posterity.
I hope you enjoy this vistazo into my life. And hope to see you in a future BoSS.
BEST MEXICAN AMERICAN COMEDIAN
Jaime De León
De León says community organizing inadvertently prepared him to do standup comedy. He already had a sense of humor and a bright voice to go along with it, but he learned to speak to large groups of people comfortably by doing advocacy work, like giving citizenship classes, merging block parties and sports through a youth program called B-Ball on the Block, and helping to rally for a new high school in his neighborhood of Little Village.
Jaime was part of the effort that, almost twenty-five years ago, pressured the city to build an entire campus, Little Village Lawndale High School, after a nineteen-day parent-led hunger strike. He describes his role as canvassing and holding planning meetings for community members to participate in designing the four schools that would serve all of Lawndale.
As the Latinx comedy scene in the city continues to develop, Jaime has been instru-
mental in carving out a space for a brand of Mexican American humor that was relatable, accessible, collaborative, and Chicagoan. “I didn’t know anything about stand-up,” he said, but he had this urge to share funny stories that he had experienced or witnessed personally.
He and his friends had been frequenting Martin’s Corner bar in Heart of Chicago when he decided it was time to get up on stage. “One day I see they’re having an improv comedy sketch group,” he said, and he wasn’t amused. “It was a total of like ten people, like these friends performing and their friends watching… Had never seen them before, they were all white, though. I told myself, if they’re gonna let these guys perform, they gotta let me do some stand-up.”
I remember reluctantly going to Martin’s around 2012 for the first time after hearing there was a benefit event for DACA recipients. It was one of Jaime’s first stand-ups. What brought me back to his shows, aside from the themes of his comedy routine, was that he performed in local venues that were overlooked or, in some cases, stigmatized at the time. I particularly remember going to a performance at Casino Tropical, an aging salón de baile or Mexican nightclub on 26th Street, right before it was demolished.
Jaime would link up with Mike Oquendo, a Puerto Rican comedian based on the North Side who did shows at Joe’s. Jaime considers his “first real show”—with a host, a program, nice seating, and promotion—to have been at Watra Night Club via the Mikey O Show. There, he talked about growing up in Little Village and “living with my mom and being a single dad of a daughter at the time.”
Because it was the right audience, he also poked fun at the Mexican experience, and that has come to characterize his style. One of his jokes is about taking his kid to a company party and being mindblown when they start to hit a piñata with a pool noodle so that everyone gets a turn. He also pushes boundaries with jokes about immigrants having sex that he calls “immigrant porn.”
The fifty-two-year-old comedian has faced challenges in his personal life with the same candor that he does stand-up. He’s a two-time cancer survivor. In January of 2024, he completed chemo and has been in recovery since. His health, on top of COVID, affected his ability to do standup as frequently. He’s also a married father of two boys that keep him busy.
Social media has helped diversify the people and opportunities in the Latinx comedy scene in Chicago, with venues such as Zanies, the Laugh Factory, and the Comedy Bar in River North having more regular Latinx performers and even Spanish-language shows.
He sees promise in the growth of the comedy scene, but also talked about the set-
Photo by Jacqueline Serrato
Illustration by Mike Centeno
backs of the internet: “So many comics getting booked at comedy clubs… have done very, very little stage time, but they have a massive social media presence and that’s why they get booked. Writing material, performing it, testing it out, and open mics, calling bookers, going on the road, you don’t have to do it anymore.”
Jaime continues to produce shows by having a line-up of guest comedians from all over the city at Simone’s Bar, where he also performs. Called Pilsen Stand Up, he hosts
BEST TASTE OF CULTURA Plaza Garibaldi
BY JACQUELINE SERRATO
Iwas too young to get into the clubs. But with my best friend at the time, we would walk about a mile from our house, going east, passing corner stores, eloteras, and el Arco de La Villita, following the faint sound of the tambora.
We’d try to balance on the tracks in front of Cook County Jail, on that little stretch between Sacramento and California, with the sun beaming down on us. I re member squinting under the sleek sombrero I just bought on 26th Street, my ostrich boots slipping on the rails. Finally, we’d arrive at a dirt field hidden behind the jail parking lot.
We were in Plaza Garibaldi. It was the only Garibaldi I’d heard of at the time, completely unaware of the famous plaza in Mexico City known for its mariachis. I’d visit that one much later.
Everything about Garibaldi felt welcoming. It was like I was in the rancho. The horses, the bullpen, the banda playing, the jaripeo emcee. It was a feeling I struggled to make sense of because I wasn’t born in Mexico. I was born here, in Cook County Hospital. But the rest of my family had grown up in Guanajuato and I felt like I had missed out on something big.
My dad was a bull rider in the eighties and he has the scar to prove it: of the time he survived the horn of a toro piercing his chin and knocking out his front teeth. To ride bulls (without dying) was such a status symbol back in his day, that when I had the privilege to visit Mexico as a child, everyone in town knew who my father was.
the show every third Wednesday of the month. In June, they celebrated Pilsen Stand Up’s 10th anniversary with co-host Abi Sanchez, followed by a karaoke set with DJ Pablo Serrano.
Pilsen Stand Up, Simone’s Bar, 960 West 18th Street. Every third Wednesday of the month, 8-11pm. $5 cover. ¬
Plaza Garibaldi gets filled to the brim with dancing couples and entire families on certain Sunday afternoons—before returning to the grind the next day—who want an unabashed taste of their culture. The day starts with a lineup of bull riders that hype up the crowd forming around the corral. This is followed by grupos and bandas, sometimes on two stages, who play until sundown.
I’ve been told by people who spent the weekend in jail that they could hear ev erything. Even the gritos mexicanos.
A Chicago Tribune paper from 1990, back when the Garibaldi had weekly events, mentions a charreada. It’s a better-known competition and different than a jaripeo in that it showcases charros in nice suits and wide-brimmed hats demonstrating their livestock-handling skills on their horses rather than mounting bulls.
“And what a fiesta it was,” the paper said about the event that drew 800 attend ees. “The crowd drank huge glass jugs of aguas—refreshing drinks made from wa termelon or lemons—as well as Coca-Cola and Budweiser. There were mangos on a stick and packs of peanuts, cowboy hats and bolo ties, and little girls in cotton-candy fluffy dresses.”
It continued: “A team of four kept appetites sated, cooking up tacos, carne asada and plump rounds of corn masa called gorditas—’I’ve done, oh, about 300 so far,’ said Teresa Sanchez, rhythmically patting gorditas while a brass band, El Recuerdo de Celaya, kept the sound level high.”
When I heard recently that in early September ICE vehicles were seen driving into the lot, I didn’t freak out because it was a weekday morning. But I’m like, “Shit, what’s next?” and I started to imagine them arriving on a Sunday when it was full of
Maybe it’s the editor in me or the Mexican-American in me that makes me pic ture the worst case scenarios. It’s not a healthy way to live, but it’s what these times call for. The reality is that our cultural spaces in Chicago are few and sacred—and they’re endangered.
We can’t lose our plazas to authoritarianism, to state-sanctioned racism, to la migra, Trump or gentrification. Let’s attend, support, donate to, and promote the decades-long traditions we’ve built in the city. ¬
Lake Shore Drive
BY JACQUELINE SERRATO
It’s no secret that Chicago boasts the best skyline and one of the most beautiful coasts in the country. So cruising on Lake Shore Drive—renamed in 2021 as Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable Lake Shore Drive—has got to be one of the best things
about living in Chicago.
If you decide to drive or even ride your bike between the East Side to the south and Evanston to the north, you will have passed by nearly thirty beaches and about twenty neighborhoods.
As someone who grew up in Little Village, nowhere near the lake, going to the beach was a treat. But it became a less common occurrence over the years as parking meters were installed, carne asadas policed, and curfews enforced. So driving through is the safest and quickest bet.
Not to mention growing up in the 90s, when brown teens were wary of crossing gang boundaries, young people found Lake Shore Drive via the I-55 to be a respite from that drama. What a way to circumvent any and all territorial divisions, including segregation.
Residents on the Southeast Side are the only Latinos I know who know what it’s like to live by the lake. Them and the old Puerto Ricans from the North Side. The rest of us only know the West Side, more specifically the Southwest Side.
For these and other reasons, “taking a cruise” on Lake Shore is a popular recreational activity for many South Siders. It’s very much a weekend or even a date night activity. People who smoke weed absolutely love to take a cruise (with their sober designated drivers).
Now I live in the South Shore neighborhood and have been here for five years. It’s not a permanent move, but when I started working at South Side Weekly, it felt important to get a different vantage point of the South Side—literally.
Not only am I grateful to live in a welcoming community with a deep Black history, it’s been a calming experience to breathe in fresh air, look at the horizon, watch the waves crash against the limestone, and drive south-north the fastest way possible.
While I’m going to miss living near the water, Lake Shore Drive will always be there for us when we need to clear our mind, have a good conversation, and find somewhat of an escape from the stress of city life. ¬
EXPLORE YOUR POSSIBILITIES
ARTS & WELLNESS PROGRAMS FOR ADULTS 55+
MUSEUM TALK & ART MAKING
The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center 740 E. 56th Place | April 17 | 1:00–3:00 p.m.
FEED YOUR MIND, BODY & SOUL
AKARAMA Foundation | 6220 S. Ingleside Avenue April 24 | 9:30–11:30 a.m
WELLNESS AT THE COV
New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church 754 E. 77th Street | Mondays–Thursdays | 9:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Register today! Anyone 55+ is welcome to join for our free programs.
Photo by Rudi Balasko
BEST FORMER HOUSE OF ROYALTY
Mid-Century Modern Home of ‘Soul Queen’ Helen C. Maybell Anglin
BY CRISTEN BROWN
Chicago history is often hidden in plain sight in the structures that surround us. From the extraordinary terra cotta-clad buildings standing sentinel over Cottage Grove to the bungalows marching along its side streets, Chatham is full of remarkable stories. And perhaps none are so compelling as those told by the instantly recognizable mid-century modern architecture commissioned by the Black professionals that made Chatham their home in the 1950s and ’60s.
Most Chicagoans are well aware of how the Great Migration and reactions to it shaped our city, yet the numbers are still shocking. In 1910, 40,000 Black people lived in Chicago, with 78 percent of them forcibly concentrated within the geographically tiny “Black Belt.” Racially restrictive covenants kept them there until 1948, when these were ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court (they were not ruled illegal, however, until passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968). Slowly, Black folks began to move further south, relocating from neighborhoods being decimated by dubious “urban renewal” projects and redlining, and staking their claims in new ones.
In 1950, Chatham was less than 1 percent Black. When internationally renowned gospel legend Mahalia Jackson purchased her home in 1956, she was only the second Black homeowner on her block. The Chicago Defender documented the race-based violence she endured. Jackson persevered, and soon more Black homeowners joined her, moving into Chatham’s bungalows and those gorgeous, terra cotta-clad buildings as white tenants flew out toward the suburbs. Other new arrivals made their mark in brick and mortar, building architecturally distinctive mid-century modern homes and cementing Chatham as the center of a vibrant and creative Black middle class.
Some of them were architects themselves, like the brilliant John Moutoussamy, the first Black architect to design a high-rise building in Chicago. Moutoussamy built a startlingly modern home for himself in Chatham in 1954, then designed a couple more for others. In 1963, Joan and George Johnson, of the eponymous Johnson Products Company, constructed their own striking home steps away from where Mahalia Jackson had experienced such strife less than a decade earlier. A few blocks north, Civil Rights activist and attorney Lawrence Smith hired the talented Black architect K. Roderick O’Neal to design his deceptively simple home. The next year, roy-
by
alty came to Chatham, when restaurateur Helen C. Maybell Anglin—better known as the Soul Queen—established a remarkable presence right next door to Smith.
Designed by Milton A. Schwartz, an architect behind several distinctive Chatham residences, Anglin’s former home sprawls across its large corner lot organically, integrated into the landscape as if it grew there. The facade is a jumble of stones in tones that complement the colors of the house’s wooden elements.The central, recessed entry is reached by climbing stone steps, and is positioned under a green canopy constructed of exposed wooden beams that open up to the sky above, leaving the entrance bathed in sun-dappled beauty.
Like her home, Anglin was extraordinary. Photos of her in front of the house in 1974 show a tall, proud woman with a perfectly coiffed Afro, facing the camera with an easy confidence. Born in Alabama in 1929, her obituary explains that she moved to Chicago as a teen, opening her first restaurant in the heart of the “Black Belt” in the 1940s. Another successful restaurant in Bronzeville followed, with the final and most famous one—the Soul Queen—opening on Stony Island in 1975. Newspaper articles detail her passion for Civil Rights and her political connections. She fed everyone from Harold Washington to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., supported Black businesses, and was associated with the NAACP and the League of Black Women Voters. When she died, her services were held at Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. She was a woman both in tune with her community and attuned to its needs.
Mid-century architecture is associated with an expansive national mood following World War II. Magazines published lavish photo spreads of families entertaining in suburban midcentury splendor, establishing the look and the lifestyle as aspirational. But the suburbs were not welcoming to all, nor did all people share these same aspirations. Homes such as Anglin’s, while part of this architectural movement, also transcend it. When mention is made of Anglin entertaining in what Jet magazine referred to as her “‘Rock Castle’ mansion”, we also read how guests at this same party “dug into their pockets” to give to the Fund for Equal Justice.
The lives of Chatham residents were different from those of their suburban counterparts, and they used their space to achieve different goals. They took elements of mid-century design, but adapted the form to suit their own experiences and lifestyles as Black professionals in Chicago. In doing so, they constructed something entirely their own, making the built environment an expression of their unique identities and aspirations.
Former house of ‘Soul Queen’ Helen C. Maybell Anglin, 84th and Calumet. ¬
Photo
Cristen Brown
BEST NEIGHBORHOOD WITHIN A
Marshall Square
BY JAIME ARTEAGA
Ask most Chicagoans about Little Village and they might know it as the “Mexican capital of the Midwest” or for the welcoming arch on 26th street and Albany. They will definitely know about the amazing food and perhaps know that 26th Street is a major economic engine not just for the community but for the city. But few will know about Marshall Square, the neighborhood that lies within Little Village’s eastern edge.
Marshall Square is a culture-rich area named for the historic green boulevards that frame it. It is bounded by rail lines and grand parkways—Marshall Boulevard and 24th Boulevard—with Cermak Road and California Avenue anchoring the “square” that gave the area its name. It’s Little Village’s quieter front porch: tree-lined, deeply local, and hiding some of the city’s most compelling food and arts spaces.
Marshall Square’s layers show up in its
BEST LEGACY EDUCATION
Beauty Turner Academy
BY DULCE MARIA DIAZ
The Greatest History Ever Told To Our People” is how Beauty Turner described her G.H.E.T.T.O. Bus Tours. The tours were part of a project meant to educate and give voice to people who have lived in Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) buildings. The tour took a yellow school bus to various public housing sites, including the Robert Taylor Homes, where Ms. Turner lived for sixteen years and raised three children.
“Their stories need to be told,” Turner said in a 2007 NPR interview about her bus tours and the impending demolition of the Robert Taylor Homes and other CHA apartments. “Everyone else in the world is telling their stories, but the best voices that you can ever hear will be the ones that you will see and hear on the trip.” She went on to explain that affordable housing was being replaced by high-end condominiums and townhouses. ““But the people that’s receiving the Section 8 vouchers end up living with other relatives because there is no low, affordable housing. The housing market is extremely tight.”
As an editor for Resident’s Journal, a newspaper by and for public housing residents, Turner and other journalists touched on topics of CHA plans and programming as well as stories about residents and youth activities. When CHA funding for the Journal dried up in 1999, Turner continued to cover public housing at the
cultural institutions as well. On Cermak Rd., the sleek neon of Apollo’s 2000 sign hints at its past life as the Marshall Square Theater (opened in 1917). Latinos Progresando’s community center, which provides space for residents to receive mental health and legal services, and where small business owners can also receive support, was once the Marshall Square library, shuttered in 2009 but brought back to life in 2022.
A few blocks away, creativity spills out of a modest brick building at OPEN Center for the Arts, where I am also an advisory board member. Founded in 2014, OPEN is the only art gallery in the community, which provides space, guidance, and a platform for emerging and established artists—knitting the neighborhood’s cultural energy into exhibitions, workshops, and community projects.
Marshall Blvd. and Cermak are the arteries of the neighborhood. The boulevard is part of Chicago’s famed park and boulevard system, and Cermak Ave is the lesser known commercial corridor that sits in the shadow of 26th street. Between the two, they create a balance of commerce and community.
What sets Marshall Square apart isn’t just heritage; it’s how public life still happens at street level. The boulevards function as recreational public space while the sidewalks offer serendipity. A paletero bell can always be heard during the summer while neighbors sell goods from their front porch and vendors sell elotes, tamales or champurrado. Institutions are intensely local—small businesses remain more family-run than franchise owned. The result is an organic ecosystem where art shows double as resource fairs, and restaurant owners contribute to community events . It’s a neighborhood built for residents first, and that’s exactly what makes it magnetic to visitors who value culture, food and art.
Marshall Square isn’t trying to be a “destination” and perhaps that is why you may have never heard of this neighborhood. There is nothing flashy about it. The residents are humble and hard working but know what they need and want to enjoy their neighborhood. Its vibrancy comes from care—families running restaurants for decades, artists opening their doors to the block, neighbors tending the shared “front yard” of the boulevard. In a city that always chases the next big thing, Marshall Square keeps its cool by keeping true to the roots of its residents. If you visit Marshall Square, respect the pace. Support local. And remember that the boulevard belongs to everyone—so linger, listen, and let Marshall Square teach you how a neighborhood can be both hidden and completely alive. ¬
nonprofit We the People Media.
Turner died on December 18, 2008. She was fifty-one years old.
Now, Turner’s legacy lives on at the National Public Housing Museum’s Beauty Turner Academy of Oral History, which is located in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, or ABLA Homes, in Little Italy. The museum opened earlier this year. As a student in the Academy’s summer 2025 apprenticeship program, we meet guests speakers, oral historians, authors and on a weekly basis; learn about oral history, its principles and their importance; and are given the equipment, mentors and tools we need to really listen and capture oral history effectively.
“It’s important for educational equity,” said Liú Chen, senior program manager of oral and narrative history. We met for an interview in the museum, which features an oral history archive, public programming, and an entrepreneurship hub. Chen said the work is empowering, healing and authentic.
Nedra Deadwyler, who lives in Georgia, is my apprenticeship mentor. She said the Beauty Turner Academy provides a community for marginalized people.
“It’s direct empowerment to the people,” Deadwyler said. Through the Beauty Turner Academy of Oral History, we continue her work and we’re now an extension of her voice. We have created unique bonds through this program, and it’s through Turner’s work and efforts that we do this. It’s an amazing feeling.
Beauty Turner Academy of Oral History at the National Public Housing Museum, 919 S Ada St. Wednesdays–Sundays, 10am–5pm; closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Free admission. nphm.org . ¬
Photo by Miranda Ploss
BEST SOFT LANDING: In the Clouds Tattoo
BY MARITZA PADILLA
Iwalked into In the Clouds Tattoo shop on Friday the 13th, expecting the usual buzz of a flash sale—a tattoo tradition where people line up for quick, affordable designs straight from an artist’s flash sheet. What I didn’t expect was how immediately the space would feel like home. The Hunger Games books lining the shop’s library, the crystals on display at an artist’s station, and the bright print of the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring greeted me like an old friend. I sat in Luna’s chair, excitedly waiting to finally get my Mac Miller–inspired tattoo. At the end of my visit, I walked out with both a new addition and what felt like a new friend.
Run by Latine sisters Mila and Luna Alvarado, In the Clouds Tattoo has become a South Side sanctuary where first-timers and regulars can leave with more than a tattoo; they leave with a story, a memory, and a piece of themselves displayed through ink. The studio is untraditional in the way that it reminds you it’s more than a business to them: it’s a community built on care, inclusion, and creative energy. When Mila opened the shop in 2020, her vision was focused: she wanted a space where she could teach women how to tattoo, a field she had always found closed off, unwelcoming, and male-dominated. Over time, that vision transformed, and In the Clouds grew into a space for everyone,
The shop’s name, In the Clouds, reflects Mila’s habit of daydreaming. The phrase serves as a reminder that creativity and imagination are the heart of everything she does.
welcoming artists and clients from all backgrounds—a space where anyone who walks in can feel safe, respected, and not judged. The shop’s name, In the Clouds, reflects Mila’s habit of daydreaming. Her family would always tell her to “get your head out of the clouds.” The phrase serves as a reminder that creativity and imagination are the heart of everything she does.
Since moving from Pilsen to Ashburn in 2022, In the Clouds has grown into a space where identity, storytelling, and healing collide. Mila, Luna, and their resident artists make it a point to meet each client where they are, creating tattoos that reflect anything the client wants them to. Recalling one particularly moving session where she covered someone’s scars, Mila said, “I don’t know how to express that feeling—helping someone so deeply and seeing their self-confidence restored. It definitely brought me to tears.” The same commitment to healing runs through Lennox, a resident artist at In the Clouds who centers his work around cultural reclamation through tattooing. “I started tattooing out of wanting to honor my ancestors and try to practice in a way that brings healing to people,” he said. As an Indigenous artist, he’s committed to reclaiming tattoo traditions that have been colonized, ensuring that their origins and cultural significance are respected in every piece.
The shop’s philosophy of care doesn’t just stop at the tattoo chair. Everyone at In the
Clouds sees the shop as a living part of the neighborhood—which is why this year they hosted their first annual Friday the 13th block party, transforming 83rd Street outside their shop into a family- and kid-friendly space. There were snow cones, a bounce house, a DJ, and pizza; others waited in a line that wrapped around the block for $31 flash tattoos. Luna is already imagining the next one: “Maybe adding vendors for pop-ups— every year is going to get bigger.” Events like these are part of what set In the Clouds apart from other shops. The shop’s team also regularly hosts fundraisers for causes they are passionate about, the most recent being for Hibr: Tattoos for Palestine, where all proceeds went to an international tattooing mutual aid project supporting needs on the ground in Gaza.
Whether you come in for your first tattoo or your tenth, In the Clouds offers more than ink to skin. By the time you leave, your stomach might hurt from laughing with your tattoo artist, you might walk out with a new pair of earrings from the shop’s mini market, and you’ll definitely carry a lasting impression, leaving you feeling like your head is in the clouds, too.
In the Clouds Tattoo, 8356 S. Pulaski Rd. Tuesday–Saturday, 1pm–8pm. (312) 914-9085. inthecloudstattoo.space. @intheclouds_chicago, @sangre.mia.tattoos, @lunarr.inkk, @v.inks_, @healingheartstattoos, @eoin_mcgraw, @asplund.ink ¬
Photos by Caeli Kean
ChiTown Drive In
BY LAYLA BROWN-CLARK
Drive-ins are far and few between in Chicago, having been on the decline since the rise of home entertainment in the 1980s. The last remaining drive-in in the city, Cascade Drive-In, closed in 2019, after the landowner decided not to permit the theater to reopen for the season.
Just one year later, however, the COVID pandemic called for innovations that would change life as we knew it and sparked new experiences. This included the rebirth of Chicago drive-in culture with the opening of Pilsen’s ChiTown Drive-In.
“We carved ourselves out in a space [that needed an] alternative movie experience that promoted not an old culture but a new culture, a new need for social distancing and safety,” said Jonathan Williams, ChiTown Drive-In’s director of marketing and development.
In the heart of the pandemic, ChiTown Drive-In allowed for community. All, families and singles alike, were able to safely watch movies on the big screen as they’d previously done in AMC without worrying about social distancing rules. They could pop open their trunks, get cozy under blankets, and watch the movie—having a semi-intimate
ing, and the experience…We’re trying to combine that old nostalgia that some people felt with this new alternative experience,” Williams said. “What we did get from the pandemic was newness and a new appreciation.”
It wasn’t until their fifth year, as pandemic restrictions all but fell away, that they began to wonder why the Drive-In continued to thrive. What was keeping people coming back across their gravel lot and tuning their radios to watch what was on the big screen?
The answer? It had become what the people needed most: a new hub for the community.
Since its 2020 opening, the Drive-In has become a space where people have been able to come together to break bread. Williams has watched people come and fall in love with the experience and bring others. The Drive-In has plans to host nights in collaboration with cultural organizations in the city, such as their recent collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Art for their Selena screening in honor of the museum’s Selena Week.
There are also accommodations they are able to adjust for everyone to watch and enjoy their movie-watching experience in a way that bigger theaters can not. George recalls how the theater was able to include text captions to allow a deaf couple to enjoy a drive-in movie. At ChiTown Drive-In, everyone deserves an opportunity to experience the space.
ChiTown Drive-In, 2343 S. Throop St. chitowndrivein.com ¬
Photos by Jonathan Williams
BEST DOUBLE ACT
Café Consume & Consume Vintage
BY MARITZA PADILLA
Across Western Avenue from McKinley Park, two doors open into something more than just coffee and clothes: they open into a ritual. Café Consume welcomes early risers with the warmth of a familiar pour, while Consume Vintage invites browsers to rediscover themselves through secondhand style. Run by brothers Andrés and Guillermo Merlos and their mother, Olga, these two shops are more than a family business. They are a rhythm, a reset, a reclamation—one sip, one find, one South Side weekend at a time.
Andrés opened Consume Vintage almost five years ago with a vision to give preloved collectibles a second life and create a space where history could be seen and felt. Over the years, the vintage shop has become a destination for those who love the thrill of discovery. Greeting visitors with a Michael Jordan cardboard cutout, bright posters, and racks of old Chicago apparel, it’s a maximalist’s wildest dream. Every rack and corner invites you to slow down, dig in, and discover something that feels meant just for you. Behind the counter, Olga keeps the space grounded with her warmth and wit, offering newcomers a welcome that makes them want to linger a little longer.
The same love for the hunt carries over into the café. Like the vintage seekers who browse the shop, Andrés lives for the rush of stumbling across something rare and giving it new life. For example, the stools in the café were found in a barn out in Muskegon,
His initial vision for Café Consume was to build the space himself, creating something that felt more like a kitchen at home—familiar, inviting, and alive with “the mess and the beauty” of a café
Michigan. Years of apprenticing at his father’s antique restoration business gave Andrés a resourceful approach that now defines Café Consume’s character.
Opening a café wasn’t part of any detailed life plan; it grew from a gut feeling—a desire to create the coffee shop experience that Andrés craved. “I made something that made me say, this is it. This is what I’ve been looking for. Now I get to share it with a crowd that’s hungry for the same thing,” he said.
Andrés wanted Café Consume to feel more like a kitchen at home—familiar, inviting, and alive with “the mess and the beauty” of a café. There is no wall separating the kitchen from the dining area; customers watch as espresso is poured, drinks are spilled, and bacon sizzles. “That kind of openness,” Andrés said, “creates a connection,” turning a simple cup of coffee into a shared experience.
The café’s menu may be small, but it packs a punch—especially the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches served on your choice of a bagel or croissant. The sausage, egg, and cheese is another favorite, prepped smashburger-style for a unique twist. Andrés and Guillermo take pride in crafting many of their ingredients in-house, from cooking up their lovely bourbon vanilla bean syrup to breaking down kilo bricks of dark chocolate to produce a rich mocha sauce. Local bakers supply fresh bread and a trusted butcher delivers the perfect cut of bacon, all part of ensuring every element of the café reflects the care and craftsmanship that make each visit special.
As Consume continues to evolve, Andrés has big plans for what he wants to incorporate into the space: “The outdoor patio has me dreaming . . . live shows, marketplaces,
by Tonal
workshops. A space for people with good ideas to bring them to life.” With each new venture, his family’s devotion to craft, care, and the community shines through. Consume is a unique spot that naturally fits into early morning and midday routines, a place that encourages rituals you’ll want to return to again and again. And for me, the ritual is simple: an iced Café Miel with an almendra (almond) croissant in hand, taking in the sounds of Western Ave from their patio.
Consume Vintage, 3452 S. Western Ave. Friday–Monday, 10am–5pm. linktr.ee/consumechicago, or @consumechicago via Instagram
Café Consume, 3452 S. Western Ave. Friday–Monday, 7am–3pm. linktr.ee/consumechicago, or @cafeconsume via Instagram ¬
Photo
Simmons
BEST FASHION FINDS AT BARGAIN PRICES
Thrift LLC
BY YESENIA ROMAN
From graphic tees to silk and fleece, the South Side paves the way for a lot of Chicago’s looks. In the border of Chicago Lawn and Gage Park, fashion shows up in a big way at Thrift LLC, a Black-owned thrift store and boutique.
An oasis in an area that’s not known for its fashion, Thrift is carving a space in the concrete jungles of Chicago. It’s the kind of store that all ‘hoods need, a place filled with affordable treasures and good vibes galore. It gives you that small shop feeling, with no snobby attitude.
As a fashionista on a budget, I fell in love with Thrift the moment I stepped inside. I grew up going to Village Discount and Unique: secondhand stores that were not pretty to shop at but that were filled to the brim with treasures. Just a couple of weeks ago when I was at Thrift I was eyeing a pair of beautiful Coach rain boots, and it instantly took me back to buying my first designer bag at a Unique thrift store in that same area.
Finding a fashion treasure at Village Discount prices makes you feel good. You feel good about a purchase that didn’t break the bank. You feel good for supporting a family-run business. You feel good about the pieces you bought because you know they were handled with care.
Fashion changes and Thrift keeps up. But the most fashionable thing about Thrift is not its clothes, it is its fierce support for Black-owned businesses and entrepreneurs. Throughout the space you will experience Black excellence in many forms. From the artwork on the walls, to the small businesses who are able to sell their products at Thrift, to owner Jeremy Wright himself. A powerhouse of talent and an angel of a human being, he runs Thrift and all of its events, such as sip and shops.
Thrift welcomes customers with open arms. It’s a place that appeals to the fashion-forward side of me, at an accessible price point. Thrift is a fashion girlie’s dream, and a great place for men looking to upgrade their style. There’s no need to leave the South Side to find fashionable pieces—a trip to Thrift can result in a Sunday outfit for everyone! Thrift LLC, 2517 W. 59th St., (312) 788-7250, @thrift_llc on Instagram. thriftllc.net ¬
Photos by Caeli Kean
Natalie Moore
The South Side is a state of mind and a place of love. My roots go back to both sets of grandparents who joined thousands of other Black folk during the Great Migration. They helped build a Black middle class in Woodlawn and Burnside.
From childhood to adulthood, I’ve dwelled in several neighborhoods. Eating Baldwin Ice Cream and riding the swings at Cole Park in Chatham. Eating Italian chicken salad at Calabria Imports in Beverly. Taking phone-less meditative walks in historic Pullman (where an Uber driver remarked how much the area looked like his Polish town). Buying sweet potato squares at Abundance Bakery in Bronzeville. Bike riding the lakefront from Hyde Park.
These days I drive or walk Stony Island daily, now that my family lives in Avalon Park, a bedroom community where neighbors have cookouts all summer and lovingly tend to their lawns. We are one of those cookout families, too, but we order takeout at least once a month from the nearby Medley Grill & BBQ. We’re trying to up our lawn game.
BEST PLACE TO BUY OR EXPERIENCE
BLACK ART Gallery Guichard
In 2008, I bought my first piece of fine art in Chicago at Gallery Guichard when they were located near 35th and King Drive. I was a baby collector with only one original piece in my Bronzeville condo. The piece is a colorful abstract by Calvin Coleman. I don’t remember how much I paid for the painting but it didn’t break the bank for a young professional art lover.
Andre and Frances Guichard and Stephen Mitchell own the gallery, which has since moved from the too-small modern row house to a sprawling 7,000 sq.ft. space on East 47th Street on the first floor of Bronzeville Artists Lofts. Gallery Guichard focuses on underrepresented and mid-career artists.
Art is not intimidating at Gallery Guichard, which opened in 2005 and features work from the African Diaspora. The price points are varied and walls aren’t the only thing curated. Events and art happy hours are held inside and outside in the garden. Last summer I spent my birthday at its monthly “artini” enjoying drinks, music and art. Bronzeville is an art district, building off a renaissance from decades earlier. Nearby Blanc Gallery and the South Side Community Art Center also nurture and feature cutting-edge Black art.
When I bought my piece, my late friend Chana was visiting me from New York. She bought a painting, too, from Andre Guichard, also an artist. (Frances is as well.
The couple is dubbed the Mayor and First Lady of Bronzeville.) I recall Chana mar veling that a Black-owned gallery of this caliber existed in a Black neighborhood, not like New York. I welcome it when outsiders remind us how dope our city is.
Gallery Guichard, 436 E 47th St. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 11am–8pm; closed otherwise. (773) 791-7003. galleryguichard.com ¬
Illustration by Mike Centeno
BEST PLACE TO SEE YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature
Chicago maps illustrate racial inequities among neighborhoods. Life expectancies for residents in Black neighborhoods are lower. The presence of preventable diseases in white neighborhoods is lower. But all seventy-seven communities in the city have a public library branch, which are welcoming third spaces for everyone who walks through the doors. One in particular holds a special place for me.
All of my books—and a number of journalism projects—start with research (and a thank you in the acknowledgements) at the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature. Housed at Woodson Regional Library off of West 95th Street, Harsh is the largest of its kind in the Midwest, holding treasures
BEST
PLACE TO EXPERIENCE
IN A SEGREGATED CITY
61st St Farmers Market
Chicago is unique because it’s diverse and segregated. Finding organic diversity isn’t hard but it’s not typically the default. Almost every Saturday in the summer (and some fall dates) I try to visit the outdoor 61st Street Farmers Market put on by Experimental Station. Launched in 2008, the market is intentionally on the
from Chicago Defender archives to historian and activist Timuel Black’s papers.
Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes have items in the collection. But archives are not just big names in Black America. This year I have been researching feminist aspects of the Black Radical Congress held in Chicago in 1998 and the author Era Bell Thompson, a former editor at Ebony Magazine. Last year while reporting on hair relaxers, I learned about Annie Malone—a pioneering entrepreneur in beauty during the same era as Madam C.J. Walker—who had a hair school in Chicago. Toni Bond served as executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund in the 1990s and her papers reveal the reproductive justice movement in the city.
Vivian Harsh was the first Black library director for Chicago Public Library. In 1932, she managed the George Cleveland Hall branch in Bronzeville. This was the city’s first full-service library for African Americans. She turned the library into a salon for Black culture by hosting readings with writers Richard Wright, Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks. She started the “Special Negro Collection” during the Chicago Black Renaissance. Naming the collection after her is a tribute to her care and preservation of Black folk.
Archives aren’t only for scholars; they are for the curious. Do you know who Addie Wyatt is? Leroy Bryant? Milton O. Davis? Dr. T.R.M. Howard? Take a visit to Harsh and learn about these influential Chicagoans. It is free and open to the public and you can peruse documents in the reading room. You can’t check out any of the materials or photos and the staff is extremely helpful. Churches, cooks, unions, public housing and the blues are among the myriad topics.
Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature, Woodson Regional Library. 9525 S Halsted St. Visit by appointment only, from 1–5pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; 1-4pm every third Saturday of the month. harshcollection@ chipublib.org, (312) 745-2080. chipublib.org/vivian-g-harsh-research-collection ¬
border of Hyde Park and Woodlawn as a bridge to the neighborhoods.
Produce harvested at South Side urban agriculture projects, June strawberries from Michigan, and flavorful cheeses draw a huge intergenerational and racially diverse crowd. You’ll find yoga in the lawn, a children’s coloring station, live music and cooking demonstrations. More than a decade ago, I got a recipe for garam masala lentil soup from executive director Connie Spreen. I still use it. Vendors have seen our children grow up. New artisans bring delights and treats yearly. The market has introduced me to Kenyan lavender coffee, spicy salad mixes and French chicken pate. Knowing I’m supporting regional farmers when I fry bacon, bake blackberry cobbler and grill asparagus makes my meals even tastier.
Experimental Station is also the leader matching LINK, known as food stamp dollars, at Illinois farmers markets. As a mission driven organization, this program gets food to low-income families, which is doubly important when their neighborhoods lack full-service grocers.
Healthy accessible food and community meet up on the street here. No matter where I live, 61st Street is my home farmers market. My nine-year-old has made real life friends on the playground and the ice cream sellers know her favorite flavor. Recently, DJ and cultural worker Ayana Contreras spent a late morning sipping coffee under a tent, catching up and running into friends and colleagues.
Experimental Station is also a shape-shifting indoor space. During the winter, the market moves inside. Community dinners have been held in the rustic kitchen, a youth bicycle program operates in the building and public events have used the South Side space. Build Coffee is a business site with long lines, books and fresh bread.
See neighbors. Meet new friends. Support farmers for two blocks.
61st St Farmers Market, Experimental Station, 6100 S Blackstone Ave. Saturdays, 9am–2pm. Outdoor season runs through October 25; indoor market will run every Saturday through the end of the year, and every second Saturday January through April. 773-2416044. experimentalstation.org/market ¬
Photo courtesy of 61st St Farmers Market
BEST MINIATURE CIVILIZATION
Lake Shore Model Railroad Association
BY MORLEY MUSICK
Since 1946, model railroad enthusiasts have gathered in the basement of the Calumet Park Fieldhouse to work together on the construction of what amounts to a small civilization. The Lake Shore Model Railroad Association’s (LSMRA) huge network of interlinked, miniature tracks stretch back and forth across the seventy foot basement, a glorious and ever-changing homage to different eras of American infrastructure, methods of manufacturing, and architecture.
The LSMRA’s miniature engines trundle past the city of Calumet—with its fiction al radio station, daily newspaper, and re-creation of Skyway Dog House, the popular hotdog stand less than a mile away from the fieldhouse—and then on to Herod, a recreated pioneer settlement with hard-up miniatures gathered around a campfire. Other, smaller towns lay at the foot of vast bridges and at the end of roads. Along the interlinked lines one finds a coal-washing plant, a cement plant, a power plant, a cold storage plant, and a motorcycle bar. Stands of seafoam trees cluster at the base of cliffs made from rubber molds, trees which one imagines chopped up and bundled in the lumber yard.
and a Godzilla replica, both of which were later removed. Some LSMRA members also prefer to lay the tracks by hand, gluing each tie to the layout and nailing the rails to the ties. Others buy the tracks pre-made, bending them to fit with each other. The buildings also tend to be bought in prefabricated sets, which members later customize and com-
Since 1990, Kelley has been one of the chief modernizers of the layout, installing a jungle of wires beneath the train tables to service a centralized dispatch system near the entrance of the room. The dispatchers’ map represents various junctions on the lines, which light up as trains transfer from one point to another. The system enables a single person to control the entire layout, including removing troublesome trains, if necessary.
The astonishing level of detail speaks to the nearly eighty years of construction, expansion, and revisions carried out by LMSRA members. Founded by thirteen World War II GI’s from Chicago’s South Side, the model railroad has been in continuous operation.
Joe Flens, the club’s longest continuously serving member, has worked on trains large and small for most of his life. Flens followed in the footsteps of his father, a conductor on the Illinois Central Line, becoming a track-layer and later conductor for Metra, where he has worked since 1987. He recalled the sounds and smells of diesel trains wafting up through the windows of his high school, Mt. Carmel on 63rd.
“Our section of Mt. Carmel faced the train tracks, and our windows would be open to get the air in. So the trains would be right there, and all the diesel fuel would become smoke, and come in. I fell in love with the diesels. You could hear the engines rev up, the old engines. You could just feel the shake,” he said.
Flens explained that different members of the LMSRA preferred different models of trains and different eras. Older members generally favored older trains, such as steam engines, Flens said, while young members tended to prefer containerized freight trains, complete with miniature recreations of graffiti sprayed on their sides. Flens likened the appearance of container freight to a solid moving wall, and added that he much preferred that the “piggyback” freight arrangement, where truck trailers with their wheels still on are parked on top of flatcars.
LMSRA treasurer Greg Kelley explained that group members generally opted for realism in their work on the train layout. A previous member had installed a space ship
As in the real world, Kelley explained, modernization initiatives and capital expenditures can attract controversy. When he suggested that the group abandon its former analog system and switch over to Direct Command Control (DCC), he had to allow for members to operate on analog half the time, and on DCC for the rest.
“I’m not bragging, but I wrote a letter before we had DCC saying what it could do, and to make trains more realistic,” Kelley said. “They still wanted to maintain analog. But they wanted a 50-50 arrangement. It ran 50 percent digital, 50 percent analog at first. Then it became 75 digital digital, and 25 analog. And a few years later, the analog was ripped out.”
The layout has tended to reflect and even be affected by broader historical trends. Advances in the semiconductor industry greatly enhanced model train efficiency, Kelley explained. In another reflection of the larger world, the LSMRA has seen a model steel mill come and go (twice) and recently been hit hard by tariffs, which have caused the price of model train components from China to skyrocket.
In the future, Kelley wants to continue modernizing the signal system, while Flens wants to construct a vision of a more prosperous past. Where the intermodal yard now stands, he envisions a gleaming city, complete with skyscrapers from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
“I’ve been running on [the model railroad] since I was a kid. It’s in my head. I’d rather have this old town go and build a new city here with a major passenger station,” Flens said.
Lake Shore Model Railroad Association, basement of the Calumet Park District Fieldhouse at 9801 S. Ave. G. Wednesdays and Fridays, 5pm-8pm, (except holidays). lakeshoremodelrr.org ¬
Photos by Marc C.Monaghan
BEST YOUTH CENTER ON JEFFERY
Urban Comuniversity Center
BY DABNEY LYLES
From Zumba, to stepping, to after-school programs, the Urban Comuniversity Center on 91st and Jeffery has offered an array of programs over the last nine years, since the community center’s inception. The family-owned organization is well established in the Calumet Heights/Pill Hill neighborhood, draws children from nearby schools to its programs and operates year-round. What makes it unique? The family-run business has longevity. Children who attended after-school programs nine years ago are still stopping by, now leading classes.
The Comuniversity was founded in 2016 with “a mission to bring neighbors together in a supportive and engaging environment.” Taylor and Sheridan, two Urban Comuniversity employees, are also grandchildren of the Comuniversity’s founder. I spoke with them about their grandfather’s mission and their passion for the Urban Comuniversity’s work.
Before our interview, I stood in the doorway for a moment. I could see happy kids dancing in an indoor basketball court.
The Urban Comuniversity has a youth employment program, which is in operation thanks to a grant from the state. When I visited, one of the youth workers was leading the dance class, with others supporting classes such as art, technology, creative workshop, and physical education.
Sheridan loves working with youth and designing in the space. As Taylor put it, the Urban Comuniversity’s holiday designs are “something like you would see in Marshall Fields,” only within the hallways of the former school and staffed by
by Miranda Ploss
munity partnerships. Activities like the Comuniversity drill team brought students in, but also tested the nerves of some people in the community.
“We do have a drill team, so throughout the day we do get some noise complaints,” Sheridan said. “To overcome that challenge, we’ve spoken with the neighbors and we’ve come up with a schedule that works for all of us.”
I can attest to the volume and skill of the drill team, personally. I often hear them when I get off the bus and head home from work.
Sheridan said the kids keep her at the Comuniversity. “There are a bunch of children who were like eight, nine [when we opened], and now they’re like nineteen, twenty. Since they’re getting older I’ve been getting invited to a lot of graduations in the last three years.”
“They call themselves OGs, the ones that have been here for so long. Because I noticed that they consider this their spot, I’ve decided to start calling them members,” she said.
According to Taylor, the younger children look up to the “OGs” and feel a sense of well-being knowing that “when I turn fifteen, sixteen, I’m going to be one of them.”
The invitations to graduations are an indication of the level of trust and commitment Sheridan and Taylor have with the kids at the Comuniversity. “I love that they’re able to come to me with all of their different problems,” Sheridan said. They don’t want to tell their parents everything, she said, but “I’m grateful that they trust us.”
The invitations to graduations are an indication of the level of trust and commitment Sheridan and Taylor have with the kids at the Comuniversity.
team members who pass out candy. The school, Benjamin O. Davis Developmental Center, served students with disabilities until it was closed and Langston Hughes Elementary was opened in 2009. The building lay empty until the Comuniversity opened.
Sheridan and Taylor work with kids on their homework and take special pride in lending an ear and helping with science fair projects. Sheridan recently helped one girl win at her school with a circuitry project.
“I’m grateful that they are comfortable coming to me,” Sheridan said. The initial challenge, said Taylor, was bringing in students and establishing com-
Sheridan would like to effect change in the neighborhood by building more community, including by hosting more community events. “In other neighborhoods, I noticed that they’re bigger on hosting events, and you know your neighbors,” she said. “I feel like we have more fights and violence and things like that around here. I really want to stop the violence and reach out to the community and pull them in.”
For the youth who continue to come to the Urban Comuniversity Center, though, Taylor has already noticed an impact. “Some of the changes we’ve seen are that some of the students aren’t as angry as they used to be. I think it was just because they had nowhere to go, nothing to do, or their parents are working all the time; they just want a place to hang out, do their homework, and have someone to talk to,” said Taylor.
Urban Comuniversity Center, 9101 S. Jeffery Blvd. urbancomuniversity.com ¬
Photos
BEST BOOK CLUB TO FIND COMMUNITY Amoxtli Book Club
BY RUBI VALENTIN
Stephanie Herrera, also known as Soli, began the Amoxtli book club when starting her sobriety journey almost three years ago. Now twenty-eight, she said that in her early 20s she was accomplished and smart but her partying and drinking were a distraction from her goals. Once Soli got sober, she felt isolated from friends who continued to party. Asking herself, “How can I find nerdy friends? How can I find people that love school and education?” she posted to Instagram asking if anybody was interested in starting a book club. She thought maybe a couple people would respond. Instead, about fifteen people reached out, and she knew meeting at a coffee shop wasn’t going to cut it.
A week prior, she had met Teresa Magaña, co-founder and executive director of Pilsen Arts and Community House. Soli asked Teresa if she could use the space to host her first meeting and one fateful night in late November 2022, Soli was entrusted with the keys for PACH. “I remember feeling so grateful because I didn’t know this woman. She didn’t know me, but she just trusted the community activation,” Soli said.
Many of the early book club attendees were also college-educated Latinos, a dramatic shift from being one of few Latinas in her engineering classes as an undergrad. There were also many creatives: photographers, artists, poets, and musicians. In March 2o23, she and her friend Pancho Garcia asked during a book club meeting if anyone was interested in starting an artists’ organization. Not long after, Ruidosa Art Collective was born.
“People have pulled me aside personally and really expressed how the book club has changed their lives and their outlook on friendship and that community aspect that they were missing,” Soli said. I joined the book club last year after I fact-checked an article for South Side Weekly about Ruidosa. In between moving to Pilsen and going through a break-up, I needed connection and I found it with the people at Amoxtli.
In addition to spinning off Ruidosa, which now hosts the annual El Barrio Arts Festival, and creating strong friendships, the book club continues to foster community engagement with a range of events. Amoxtli has hosted open mic nights fundraising for PACH, held poetry workshops, and invited authors from the books being discussed to come speak with the group. For this year’s Sor Juana Festival at the National Museum for Mexican Art, Soli interviewed Paola Ramos, author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What it Means for America, a book the group read shortly after inauguration day.
On August 4, book club member Antonio “Tony” Aguilar interviewed Dr. Lilia Fernández, author of Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago, at the National Museum for Mexican Art. Aguilar is a Psychology PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago (where Fernández is on the faculty), and joined Amoxtli in January after his first semester in grad school. After struggling to find friendships attending commuter schools, he found connections at Amoxtli and said he has helped him grow as a researcher.
“I think it’s fun [to] create questions and lead a discussion,” he said. “The topics I read about, it’s also pretty fun seeing everyone be super engaged because of [the] facilitation too. I feel like that’s pretty rewarding just creating those moments to share amongst each other is. I think that’s pretty cool.”
Amoxtli book club has been a source of community activation for the Latinx community in Chicago, and Soli’s words ring true to me.
“Lean into the power of community,” she said. “It could be scary… because it’s not something maybe that we’re used to, but that there is true healing. The revolution really starts with us, and it starts at a one-on-one level, with yourself, but once you
by
Photos
Jessica Herrera
BEST PLACE TO BE MADE WHOLE
Brave Space Alliance
BY ROBERT SPEED JR.
Brave Space Alliance doesn’t just provide services—it provides sanctuary. From its founding in 2016 to address a gap in South Side LGBTQ+ services, through COVID-19 disruptions, leadership transitions, and growing pains, Brave Space Alliance has learned that survival means more than endurance—it means adaptation.
In summer, a cooling sanctuary; in winter, a place to gather warmth. Year-round, the Black-led LGBTQ+ center welcomes any and everybody from different walks of life—trans women and seniors, youth aging out of systems, people who need a place to simply breathe.
This sanctuary knows something about survival—not just for the people it serves, but for itself. When rapid growth led to overcrowding and internal challenges in 2022,
including the departure of founding executive director LaSaia Wade, Brave Space Alliance rebuilt itself under CEO Channyn Lynne Parker’s steady hand. The organization that was founded in 2016 to serve an underserved population had grown beyond its original capacity. Now, as Parker prepares to join Equality Illinois this November 2025, the organization stands on foundations designed to last. The transition itself signals how far they’ve traveled: their leader is being recruited to head the state’s largest LGBTQ+
Jahiem Jones, twenty-two, embodies the kind of survival this place teaches—not just enduring, but thriving. As Outreach Coordinator, he moves through spaces that have weathered their own challenges, guiding visitors through rooms that breathe with hard-earned wisdom.
“We treat these people as human beings, because that’s what they are,” Jones said. “Most of them have been thrown out of homes, kicked out when they were younger, struggling just to survive. So for them, it feels good that we hear them. That we see them.”
Behind a discreet entrance on 52nd Place, a bright red elevator carries people up to the third floor, where they find everything they need to survive and thrive. The free food pantry fills bags every two weeks, while the “dignity suite” offers more than clothes—it provides gender-affirming items including shoes, makeup, hair products, hygiene products, and everyday essentials that help people see themselves reflected with integrity. Computer stations hum with the quiet work of building futures: job applications, school enrollment, staying connected.
“When we take them in our dignity suite, that’s kind of a one on one time for us to bond and connect with them,” Jones said. “Sometimes it is crying going on because we’re sharing stories back and forth.”
Over in the Nest Room, healing happens on yoga mats instead of in clinical chairs— therapy that meets you where you are, literally. Trans folks can access essential items twice a week, understanding that basic needs don’t follow traditional schedules. Barbershop days every second and fourth Wednesday offer more than haircuts; they’re community gatherings. Transformation Tuesday makeovers celebrate identity and self-expression.
The drop-in space might be the most radical service of all—a place where people can simply exist without having to earn their presence through participation or proof of need. Some days bring more than eighty people seeking services, far beyond what the space was designed to hold. It’s evidence of trust rebuilt after years of uncertainty—during the pandemic, Brave Space Alliance had to reduce hours and shift services online, creating crisis pantries for vulnerable community members. The crowds now represent recovery: proof that when people know they’ll be treated with dignity, word spreads faster than any marketing campaign. Rather than turning people away, staff have learned to manage the flow—staggering service times, creating waiting areas, and ensuring everyone who walks through that red elevator gets what they need.
Bus cards wait at the front desk for anyone heading to doctor appointments or job interviews, small rectangles of possibility that remove transportation as a barrier to dreams. A resource vending machine from the Kenneth Young Center provides Narcan and drug testing strips, acknowledging that harm reduction is healthcare too, available without questions or judgment.
“I think what makes our participants come back to Brave Space is they know that this space here, this is a safe space,” Jones says. “This is a space that welcomes me. This is a space that is here to help me.”
The programming extends beyond these walls. Every Thursday at 2747 W. 79th St., Vogue University offers workshops in voguing and runway to youth from across the city. More than dance lessons, it’s a space where ballroom culture meets healing—where movement becomes medicine and community forms through shared rhythm.
At Brave Space Alliance, they see the whole you. Every person who rides that bright red elevator up discovers what it feels like to be witnessed completely, held entirely, and loved without condition.
Brave Space Alliance, 1515 E. 52nd Place, 3rd Floor, Chicago, IL 60615, 872-333-5199. Office hours: Monday-Thursday, 9am-5pm. Drop-in hours: Monday-Thursday, 10am4pm; Friday, 10am-2pm. For more information, visit bravespacealliance.org. ¬
Photo courtesy of Brave Space Alliance
BEST BOTÁNICA TO GET YOUR HERB ON
Centro Botánico Guadalupano
BY LAURA DE LOS SANTOS
There are many reasons to find oneself in the vicinity of 18th and Ashland in Pilsen—from checking out the public art on exterior walls and doors, to having a delicious meal or tasty treat at one of the many restaurants, or shopping for Mexican-themed decor for your home.
Another good reason to visit the area is to check out the amazing collection of medicinal herbs at Centro Botánico Guadalupano. At this store, there are over 150 kinds of loose-leaf herbs available for purchase by the bag, and even more herbs sold pre-mixed and pre-packaged. It might be one of, if not the largest, collection of carefully curated and beautifully displayed medicinal herbs to be found on the South Side.
Centro Botánico Guadalupano has two locations; one on 18th Street and another on 26th Street, with a third, associated location on 53rd and Kedzie. Co-founder and co-owner Juan Santoyo shared that he once had five locations; he and his late wife, Avelina Santoyo, opened the 18th street store in 1992, making it one of Chicago’s oldest continuously operating botánicas.
The couple opened a second store a year later, around 26th and Kostner, which was eventually moved to its current location when the Santoyos purchased the building.
Manager of the Pilsen store, Esai Sarco, has been working for this family-owned business for twenty-two years. His maternal grandmother practiced herbal medicine in Mexico, so he was familiar with many of the products and methods. “Mexican communities seek alternative and natural medicines for everything from managing stress to cancer,” he explained.
The store sees about 150-200 people per week on average, he said, but that increases around the holidays as people come to visit Chicago relatives. Store customers come from various religions and practices. “We respect and welcome everyone,” said Mr. Santoyo.
One will not only find herbs and herbal products used for holistic wellness, but also a huge selection of candles, soaps, and items associated with Catholicism, Santeria, and other religious practices. “We didn’t begin with selling esoteric items, but customers were looking for these items, so we began to carry them,” said Santoyo.
The larger-than-life statue of La Santa Muerte seated on a throne in the middle of the store is interestingly not immediately noticeable due to the strategic placement of a display case. While the presence of a giant skeleton statue outside of October and November may be off-putting to those unfamiliar, Sarco explained that the statue is dressed in white because that color symbolizes “paz, puresa y tranquilidad” (peace, purity, and tranquility).
Noemi Sarco is a certified health service worker and certified medical assistant. She is co-manager of the 26th Street store with her father, Juan Sarco, and co-owner of both stores. Her husband manages the Pilsen store. She often introduces customers to herbal remedies.
“Most of the people who come here are people who don’t have access to insurance, we also have people who do have medical insurance but are seeking something alternative,” said Noemi. “They don’t want any secondary effects that may happen with medicine that’s from the pharmacy or the doctor.”. She warned that, “herbs could also have [a] secondary effect to the body… so we do need to ask the customer some questions.”
Noemi spent her youth around her parent’s stores since they opened, particularly at the Little Village store her mother managed until her passing in 2020. Many of her mother’s customers continued to make their purchases at that store. In fact, there are many customers whose families have been shopping there for generations.
During my visit, several customers entered, and with permission from Noemi, I chatted briefly with a customer named Sylvia. “This is something that was introduced to me by my mother. I grew up here on 26th Street, my mom used to bring me here when I was younger, and now I bring my husband,” Sylvia said.
Sylvia visits the shops for herbs to treat headaches and the flu, and for incense to cleanse the air (and vibes) in her home.
Chamomile is very popular but “because of the current political situation we’re having issues with importing chamomile,” said Noemi.
Also because of the political climate, many customers are afraid to leave home for fear of being stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “I’ve had customers who come in who say, ‘I’m here for a friend or relative because they’re afraid to come out[side].”
“Before Biden left, we had a lot of Venezuelans come in, more here on 26th street… we [also] have more of the African-American community. I’ve noticed a lot of young people coming in now… instead of, ya know, just people who are thirty and up… before when my mom was here, I would only see people who were like in their mid forties up to like people who were eighty or older.”
COVID did not make them shut down. “We were very blessed,” said Noemi, though she has seen a rise in customers with mental health issues since the pandemic. Noemi can recommend herbal teas but she also suggests her clients seek the help of a medical professional like a doctor, therapist, or psychiatrist, sometimes offering them the name of an organization where they can obtain services.
Centro Botánico Guadalupano
1538 W 18th St. Monday–Saturday, 9am–7pm; Sundays, 10am–5pm. (312) 226-0106
4224 W 26th St. Monday–Saturday, 10am–7pm; Sundays, 10am–7pm. (773) 542-8121 ¬
Photos by Gerri Fernandez
Studio Yogi
BY KELSEY STONE
At one point in my life, I was stressed out and needed to find an outlet. I had some hurdles when it came to finding a yoga studio, but I’d seen ads and heard several people talk about a yoga studio in South Shore called Studio Yogi—and I was intrigued. When I learned that Studio Yogi offered free classes to Black men, I was highly interested. I’ve come across other African American-based yoga classes before, but they either met once a month or required a monthly membership. I love yoga, but I felt I shouldn’t have to take a 30-minute Uber to a neighborhood where few people look like me.
Studio Yogi, located on 71st Street, offers a space and classes for those seeking to connect with their mind, body, and soul. From 6am to the evening, Studio Yogi offers classes to all experience levels. The affordable and accessible yoga studio (the studio is easy to maneuver and easy to get to on CTA, with drop-in rates starting at $14) was started by necessity, both for the community and for the owner, Julia Perkins. Perkins founded Studio Yogi after she was diagnosed with osteoarthritis, a condition where the tissue at the end of bones wears down. She wanted to find a yoga class that was easy on her body and located in her own neighborhood.
The same neighborhoods that people are afraid to go to and explore are, ironically, the same neighborhoods that offer peace and tranquility. Despite what people may read or believe, beyond Cermak Road and 51st Street on the South Side are places where people gather to relax and share a common goal: to elevate the mind.
I entered the studio for the first time in the fall of 2023. I was immediately hit with a sense of calmness. No shoes are allowed beyond a certain point, so walking around felt like home. Entering a room with other Black men interested in yoga was welcoming, yet quiet at the same time. Everyone was focused on their own mental state and yoga practice. The class itself is challenging and motivating at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, you will sweat and work on muscles you probably didn’t know you had. But you come out of it more relaxed, more in tune with your body, and most importantly, with a better sense of community.
The participants in the class, as well as the instructor, don’t just pack up and leave after the class. We share stories, ideas, commentary, personal struggles, and books—yes, you can even get free books or donate books in the waiting area. Coming here has been good for my soul and has rejuvenated my interest in the beauty and history of South Shore. It’s easy to relax when you’re surrounded by culture and inspired by endless possibilities.
Studio Yogi, 1840 E 71st St. @studioyogichicago on Instagram. View class hours at www. studioyogi.com ¬
Photos by K’Von Jackson
BEST GYM FAMILY
Connected Fitness
BY KARINA MIREYA
When I first walked into Connected Fitness in February 2024, I never realized the impact a gym could have on a community—or myself for that matter.
Connected Fitness, which opened in 2021, offers small group fitness classes that incorporate weight lifting, high intensity training, and boxing. Each day focuses on a different movement, from front squat to deadlifts to bench presses. These classes are typically between six to ten people a session, making it the perfect place to ask questions if you don’t know what to do or how to do it.
I came to Connected Fitness as someone who had previously been a part of a couple commercial gyms, your typical Planet Fitnesses and Charter Fitnesses that you can find around the neighborhoods. Many of these gyms are chains, leaving you to figure out exercise machines and your fitness journey alone, which for a then-newbie like me, can be pretty daunting.
Walking into Connected Fitness feels like walking into a family party with cumbias, zapateado and banda playing. You’ll find tajin (three bottles in fact) on top of the microwave. Flags of Peru, Mexico, Argentina, and Palestine—representing nationalities of members—line the walls. A community board displays Know Your Rights pamphlets, lost cat posters, and events from the neighborhood. The Committed Club sign reads off member’s names who’ve made it to twelves sessions a month. You’ll even find some special guests like a rooster and a neighborhood cat lovingly named Tita Gymmie who roam inside the gym from time to time.
Owner Ricardo Valle’s journey to opening the gym began with his own fitness journey. After nine years of teaching, he was burned out. When he discussed switching careers with other members of a group fitness gym he was attending at the time, someone encouraged him to become a coach. He moved from intern to coach to manager, and then decided to open his own gym.
For Valle the best part about opening his doors is “all the people. You hear the word community a lot, especially nowadays with events. Community takes time to build, it takes vulnerability. My biggest thing is I want to give people the opportunity to create community.”
And he’s doing just that. The gym hosts a free monthly yoga class and free workshops on everything from bike safety 101 to meal prepping to twerking. This year, members trained for their first ever weightlifting competition and competed in the Pride Classic hosted by local gym GND Society, where many hit new personal records, in June.
Beyond workouts, Connected Fitness is a genuine gathering space. While Valle may have started out as the only coach, the team quickly grew to include three others: Fernando, Xail, and Kenji. In July, coaches moved equipment outdoors for the day and transformed the area into a birthday party for one of the members. Watching workout benches become seats, tables take over the gym floor, and balloons all over the place while people shared food and memories was beautiful to witness and a testament to the very community Valle is committed to building.
Connected Fitness is a gym for every body at every level. Little Village resident Yadira Montoya joined in 2022 after noticing the gym while walking her dog. “I didn’t feel judged. I told them during my consultation I don’t like to do exercise. I’m probably going to quit but I’m going to give it a try. I felt very welcomed in that it was something different from the other gyms I had experienced that was like “you must be 1000% in and know what you’re doing.” Three years on, Montoya still attends the gym consistently. Montoya credited the community oriented aspect of the gym to amplifying her work about La BROCHA. La BROCHA is a welcoming space for elder Latinos to engage in activities and socialize. Through a partnership with the Little Village Library, they host a memory cafe for individuals experiencing memory issues, like dementia, and their caregivers.
Montoya encouraged Valle and his mom, who has dementia, to attend the cafe and see the impact of providing a space to come together. This small connection made through the gym has now blossomed into a yearly fundraiser hosted by Connected Fitness around Day of the Dead.
Called Vida, Fuerza y Peso Muerto (Life, Strength, and Deadlifts), the fundraiser brings together the Little Village community to challenge themselves to a new deadlift goal, support local businesses, and ultimately celebrate together. Proceeds made from the event go directly to La BROCHA.
For Valle, Connected Fitness is a space “for all us misfits. [For] people who haven’t necessarily fit in in normal gym spaces or normal gym cultures whether that be women or people who are queer or people who haven’t worked out in a while. People who got injured and stopped working out or are scared to start.”
Coming up for Connected Fitness is Vida, Fuerza, and Peso Muerto on Sunday, November 2. Yoga 4 All is open to all community members every third Thursday of the month.
Connected Fitness, 2215 S. St Louis Ave. Monday-Friday, 5-9am, 10-11am, 3:307:30pm; Saturdays & Sundays, 7am-12pm. Consultations and trials can be set up through Instagram at @connectedfitnesslv or online at connectedcommunity.fitness. ¬
Photos by Karina Mireya
Ricardo Gamboa
When I was asked to write for South Side Weekly’s Best of the South Side, my mind immediately started racing. I was told to “walk” the reader through four to six places on the South Side that have been special or instrumental to me.
I’m from the South Side. It’s my identity, as much as being Mexican or queer. I have significant memories all across the South Side, from Mt. Greenwood to Pilsen and everywhere in-between. But once I began flipping through the mental catalogue of meaningful moments and the places that anchored them, I realized so many of those places no longer exist.
The South Side is not like downtown or so much of the North Side, which are destinations for tourists and upwardly mobile transplants and where the landscape changes all the time to cater to shifting consumerist desires and trends. Instead, for so long, one of the things I loved about the South Side is that it was reliable—I could count on it to stay the way I remember it. But I came to realize how much of that increasingly was just my fantasy of home.
Sure, it’s not Lincoln Park or Lakeview where a crop of poké bowl spots obnoxiously appeared overnight to cash in on the cultural commodification of Hawaiian cuisine. Change doesn’t happen like that on the South Side. But it does happen. So many places I remember—bars, bowling alleys, churches, corner stores, family-run restaurants, malls, music shops—have become quiet casualties of time.
I started to ask myself, “What has endured?” I began looking at the places that remain today and speculating, “What will endure?” I’d take a long hot shower and list in my head what I hope endures on the South Side.
It’s hard to imagine anything “enduring” in a world that is literally melting and where the eradication of a whole population—Palestinians—has been livestreamed for two years. Moreover, ethnic cleansing is no longer something happening 6,000 miles away but has taken hold of our streets as ICE stalks Brown people and the predominantly Mexican American neighborhoods that make up so much of the South Side.
This is what was swirling in my head as I curated my Best of the South Side. The locations I have selected are personal and I share the stories from my life associated with them. But to me, these places aren’t just personal, they are also totemic. For me, these spots are symbolic of my family, emblematic of the South Side’s Mexican American community, or incarnations of the spirit of activism, art and queerness. I go to them as a form of observance and worship.
BEST RUN CLUB(S)
Las Sandias and All South Side Mexican Ones
My mom grew up on California Boulevard across the street from Cook County Jail. She was one of the first Latinas to run marathons in Chicago. Some of my first memories are of my dad driving us to my mom’s early-morning races, posting up at finish lines, and cheering her across them. Growing up, our living room was filled with her plants and trophies.
Running is my mom’s love language. The winter I was struggling to come out and depressed, she woke me up every morning while it was still dark to run from Pilsen to the frozen lakefront. Those silent runs and sunrises saved my life.
When I did come out, she registered our family for the PRIDE 5K and got us matching rainbow socks. I’ve translated her coaching like “no matter what, don’t stop” or “you just try and be a little better each day” into life values.
For me, running isn’t just personal, it’s political. Running is resistance: running off plantations, running across militarized borders, running from ICE or CPD.
One of my favorite thinkers is the Black radical, George Jackson. If you dig, you’ll find several references to running in Jackson’s writing. My favorite is: “There just wasn’t any possibility of a policeman beating me in a footrace… the pig is mainly working for money, bear in mind. I am running for my life.” In this passage, running is a figurative refusal of the system, and means to affirm life, dignity and worth.
Since October 2023, the world has witnessed Israel’s live-streamed settler-colonial genocide eradicating Palestinian lives and disregarding their dignity and worth. Chicago is one-third Latino and the Chicago area is home to the largest Palestinian American population in the country. We share more than a city; we share histories of resisting colonialism and surviving genocide.
In January 2024, I co-founded Latinxs for Palestine with my friend Haneen Shriam to foster cross-cultural solidarity between the city’s Latinos and Palestinians, advocate for Palestinian resistance, educate about Israel’s settler colonialism, and fundraise for Palestinian-led organizations in Chicago and Palestine.
That spring, I pitched the idea to Haneen for a Latinxs for Palestine run club that would run through a different Latino neighborhood every week, wearing our keffiyehs and pro-Palestine gear, making support visible and embodying our political will for a Free Palestine.
Photo by Jordan Esparza
Illustration by Mike Centeno
For four months, our run club Las Sandias met every Tuesday. We’d run our Brown butts off and sell t-shirts and homemade paletas to raise funds benefiting Gaza Sunbirds and the Palestine Children Relief Fund’s (PCRF) Team Palestine.
For our first run alone, over 100 people came out to Harrison Park on Tuesday, July 2. That day, I couldn’t help but think how this was the same park where my mom would meet with her run club decades ago as one of the first women to run with Los Venados Running Club.
Los Venados are still running, led by co-owner of Monochrome Brewery, Enrique Rivera, who’s also keeping running generationally: his father Pablo founded Los Vena dos and ran with my mom. But now Venados aren’t the only Mexican American-led run club, there’s many more: Pilsen’s Las Tortugas Run Club, Viento Little Village Runners Club, McKinley Park Mustangs, Midway Mile Chasers, Chingonas Run Chicago, Los Guapos, etc.
Through Las Sandias, I had the pleasure of running with these run clubs and the Chicago Muslim Runners Club, all of which are full of people with fast feet and big hearts. I don’t know if there’s something in our cultural DNA responsible for so many South Side Latino run clubs in the city but it gives new meaning to social movement to me.
I can’t recommend enough that people link up with Las Sandias and these other run clubs. At a time when our racist repressive government has ICE’s Nazis raiding our communities, running is a way to make our Brownness visible and reclaim our streets.
BEST PLACE TO GET CURRY CHICKEN FOR A LAST-MINUTE GAY WEDDING
Jamaican Jerk King
As a radical queer, I spent my life disinterested in the heteronormative institution of marriage. But after five years with my partner, Sean James William Parris, I knew I wanted us to ride-or-die together, forever. I’d play out the image of us old and dancing with shrunken, shriveled bodies like California Raisins in my head like a favorite song.
On Sean’s 40th birthday, I threw him a surprise party and then I made it about me too by proposing. He said, “Yes.” That was October 2021 (yes, Sean’s a Libra). We were planning a big wedding for August 5, 2023, especially since the numerology of that date, a “2,” represents balance, cooperation, and harmonious relationships.
At that time, I was writing for Showtime’s The Chi and penning scripts for HBO Max and Amazon. For once, I wasn’t a broke-ass artist and could plan an extravagant wedding. Also, for the first time in my adult life, I had the insurance benefits that are all too elusive for artists in a U.S. capitalist, neoliberal economy.
I wanted Sean on my insurance, especially since COVID was still raging. But in the heterosupremacist, puritanic U.S. where survival’s a privilege, we had to be married before the new year for Sean to get on my plan. I told Sean we’d get married at City Hall, a wedding that “wouldn’t really count” and we wouldn’t even tell anyone.
The next few weeks we were in and out of City Hall, going through hellish long lines to procure a marriage license. Every time we were there, I told the clerks we’d be back to get married on New Year’s Eve. They thought that was romantic; for us, it was perfunctory. The night before, we realized we hadn’t even thought about what we’d wear and had no rings.
On New Year’s Eve, my sister met me and Sean at City Hall at 9am: it was closed. In 2021, New Year’s Eve fell on a Friday, which meant New Year’s Day landed on a Saturday and since that’s a federal holiday, City Hall was closed that Friday. I didn’t know what to do.
My sister is a stubborn, solution-oriented Taurus, so she called her high school
friend, an attorney who often worked at City Hall. Her friend had just begun dating a judge who agreed to marry Sean and me at my sister’s place at noon before they went about their New Year’s Eve plans. Suddenly, this marriage went from bureaucratic mandate to spontaneous miracle.
My sister called my parents and we spent the next three hours hustling to prepare for an impromptu home wedding. My parents picked up champagne from Mariano’s, and my sister went to Casa de Pueblo for candles and whatever other decorations they might have.
Meanwhile, I scrambled, searching for anywhere open that might have curry chicken.
Sean is first-generation Barbadian and was raised in Miami’s West Indian community by a single mother who died of cancer in 2012. Every time Sean shares memories of his mother, I just want to squeeze him. I can’t count the times he’s been nostalgic for her curry chicken.
Photo by Tonal Simmons
Photo by Jordan Esparza
Sometimes food isn’t just a meal, it’s a portal. I thought curry chicken could bring Sean’s mom to our wedding. I took a car to Jamaican Jerk King on 35th, one of the only places open that morning and close enough to hit up. They made a special order tray for us.
We got married at my sister’s, in matching black Adidas track suits, with my nephew’s toy Ryan’s World rings—and curry chicken as our wedding meal.
Jamaican Jerk King’s curry chicken fills the void for good curry chicken since Maxine’s on 87th closed. I’ll still go there for a plate of it. That plate becomes a portal to my and Sean’s wedding day and a thank-you to his mom for making a perfect human. ¬
ALWAYS GONNA
BE
THE
BEST TAQUERIA
(ESPECIALLY AFTER THE CLUB)
Atotonilco’s
Ivaguely remember being fed in a high chair in my mom’s avocado-green kitchen when I was a baby. Aside from that, some of my earliest food memories are of eating at La Posada on 26th and Ridgeway, Papa Charlie’s on Taylor and Morgan, and Atotonilco’s original location on 26th and Springfield. Of those places, only Atotonilco’s remains.
One of the city’s oldest taquerias, Atotonilco’s was founded in 1972 by Don Jesús from Arandas, Jalisco. My dad remembers eating there then, but 1972 is memorable to him for other reasons. It was the year he graduated high school and the first time he ever lived in a house, when his family moved to 2352 S. Millard Ave. in La Villita.
Like Don Jesús, my grandparents migrated from Jalisco, and my father was born on a migrant farm in Weslaco, Texas. My grandparents picked their way up to Chicago where my grandfather sought work in the steel mills but ended up with a job at a taffy apple factory.
My dad grew up moving from apartment to apartment. The first was on Madison, the second on Garibaldi, and then one on Cullerton and Allport. From there, my grandfather moved them to Taylor St. and Laflin Ave., then 19th St. and Blue Island Ave.,
back to Mexico for a few months, and then back to the spot on Allport. They lived in an apartment on 19th St. and Carpenter Ave. before my grandfather finally bought a house.
My grandfather moved my grandmother, my dad, and his eight siblings into the corner house on 23rd St. and Millard Ave, just a few blocks from Atotonilco’s. It’s where he grabbed tacos after baseball games at Douglass or Piotrowski or after class at Amundsen Mayfair Junior College (now Truman College).
But mostly, Atotonilco’s would punctuate my dad’s late nights. He’d walk over with friends after a night of drinking, smoking, and shooting pool in the basement. He headed there after nights out with my mom or with friends going off to the military.
After all, Atotonilco’s opened during the Vietnam War, which ultimately claimed more than 58,000 U.S. lives, including 3,000 from Illinois, with nearly a third of those being from Chicago.
Five years after Don Jesús opened Atotonilco’s, it was bought by brothers Oscar and Raul Muñoz who’ve kept the taqueria in the family and expanded to Back of the Yards, Gage Park, and Pilsen.
Like my dad, Atotonilco’s on 26th St. was my late-night spot. It’s where I’d go after dancing to a new wave DJ Mode set at the Orbit, after bobbing to hip-hop at Funky Buddha or after getting high as hell in someone’s backyard.
It’s where I took someone when I really started to like them. I wanted them to see the place where I’ve been going since I was small enough to stand on a chair or needed both hands to grip the soda fountain glass to drink my licuado de Chocomilk.
Through the years, I may have changed, but my order never has: I always get a “torta de milanesa, no más frijoles, crema y aguacate,” and, of course, a licuado de Chocomilk like when I was a kid. Atot’s has the city’s best licuados.
Photos by Marc Monaghan
Photo by Tonal Simmons
Every year, there’s some list in Time Out or on TikTok claiming to know where to get the “best tacos” in Chicago. If they don’t have Atotonilco’s among them, I assume they’re transplants, try-hards or genuinely tasteless. When you bite a taco at Atotonilco’s, it ain’t just carne you taste, it’s history.
BEST REVOLUTIONARY WEEKNIGHT UTOPIA
Pueblo Night Market in Pilsen
In April 2019, I was hired to write for Showtime’s The Chi. Some writers dream of getting staffed in Hollywood but I didn’t. In fact, I was adamantly against working in Hollywood, whose entire history is bound up in promoting capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy and U.S. hegemony from Birth of a Nation to Westerns.
By 2019, I was an exhausted radical artist perpetually broke after self-funding projects and constantly begging for money from foundations or through Kickstarter. That year, a post-Get Out Hollywood was capitalizing on artists of color it had previously marginalized, as racial justice movements shifted from the margins to the mainstream.
I figured if Hollywood was going to co-opt the fruits of radical activists’ labor, I’d let them co-opt me and use the money I made to support my radical endeavors and community in Chicago. That plan was going well until October 2023.
I wasn’t just a Hollywood screenwriter, but also a cultural studies scholar focused on colonialism, and a radical activist who had followed the Palestinian struggle since 2001. I knew Israel would use Palestinians’ al-Aqsa Flood to license a genocide many would argue has been ongoing for decades. I knew speaking out in an industry entangled with the Israeli project since the movie Exodus could have devastating effects on my career.
You never regret being brave. Speaking out against Israel on October 8 indeed incited retaliation like violent messages from agents and executives, producers walking away from projects, and the loss of most relationships I had built in Hollywood. I’m an Aquarius, so I hold estrangement over principle like a trophy. When you do the right thing, people punish, but I believe the universe rewards, and often through the people it puts in your path at such moments.
I met Manny Mendoza at a Las Sandias run. Mendoza is famous as the chef who won Netflix’s Cooking with Cannabis. But a public profile hasn’t kept him from his unabashed commitment to a Free Palestine and radical activism confronting gentrification, immigration, and cannabis inequity. He lends his culinary talents to cooking demos that raise funds for Palestinian organizations and to “abolish i.c.e. cream socials.”
As the founder of Herbal Notes, which creates pop-up, weed-infused culinary and multi-sensorial experiences, Mendoza knows how to build spontaneous immersive worlds—and that’s exactly what he does every Wednesday with his Pueblo Market initiative.
Pueblo Market is a weekly night market with an eclectic array of socially conscious vendors. At Pueblo, you can nab craft candles and farm eggs, vintage tees and a flash tattoo, a smash burger and sound healing, all while listening to hot deejay sets or hopping into a match with the chess club that convenes there.
The first Pueblo Market I attended last year was one of the best nights of my summer. Then Pueblo was at Vault Gallerie, a gallery run by Delilah Martinez, a frequent collaborator of Mendoza and founder of the Mural Movement during the pandemic. Martinez and Mendoza are behind the Palestine solidarity murals in Pilsen.
Last year, Mendoza moved Pueblo Market a couple of blocks north from Vault to Gracias Maria, a juice bar and cafe where Mendoza’s a partner and runs the food program (Mendoza has a sandwich there that remixes a French Dip and an Italian beef—
Walking into Atotonilco’s feels like going back in time in the best way. No computerized menus, just the big, brightly colored hand-painted signs. We don’t talk enough about how the invisible items on the menu at some Chicago spots like Atotonilco’s are our memories. ¬
putting barbacoa and giardiniera between homemade ciabatta to dip into birria consomé. It’s the best sandwich in the city.).
To accommodate Pueblo Market’s growing popularity, Mendoza has moved Pueblo Market again to Hoste Cocktails, a new bottled cocktail business with an event space in Pilsen.
Pueblo Market isn’t just vibes: its weekly installments include organizing efforts like Know Your Rights trainings to fend off ICE. Rightfully so, Pueblo Market bills itself as a space for “solidarity, community, sanctuary and mutual aid.”
But for me, it’s been a utopia that’s gotten me through these horrific times and reminds me that sometimes revolution is a place. ¬
Photos by Marc Monaghan
ACTUAL BEST BURGER IN THE CITY
THAT SPEAKS TO THE ESSENCE OF
BEING MEXICAN
Cerdito Muerto
Yida is a “play,” a course of action to get by, get around, get through or get over. A movida can be a shortcut through the city, the place where something is cheapest, or a way to outsmart the system.
coping strategies” Chicanos “use to gain time, make options or retain hope.” Ybar ra-Frausto discussed movidas as part of rasquachismo, an underdog perspective that characterizes how Mexican Americans respond to our reality with inventiveness and resourcefulness.
mists. We transmute limitations into possibilities and innovate under pressure. Like my maternal grandmother Maria Velásquez’s movida of taking empty, rusty Folgers cans and, rather than throw them out, turn them into flower planters.
she left behind in Jalisco, her movida was to simply recreate it in her kitchen by putting cows everywhere: cow-print wallpaper and cow figurines everywhere, a cow cookie jar, cow plates, glasses, salt-and-pepper shakers…
practice that reminds me of my paternal grandfather, José Gamboa. I recall him say ing, “No me rajo.” “I don’t back down.” Once I overheard him tell a friend, “Jalisco no se raja.” In English: “Jalisco doesn’t give up.”
cently opened speakeasy-style cocktail bar and restaurant Cerdito Muerto. But, to me, Cerdito Muerto’s more than that. It’s the sum of and monument to the kind of movidas that typify the Mexican American experience in Chicago.
where he rented a cot in the basement of a family friend’s building. After ten years of grinding, he bought that building off the family friend. He opened a pool hall there and later made room for Emidio’s mother Consuelo to open a taquería there, which became Tacos Palacio.
it into the future. That was Emidio Oceguera’s movida. He received a city grant to help communities impacted by COVID and closed Tacos Palacio to renovate it into Cerdito Muerto.
Cerdito Muerto is not your taquería down the block. It’s slick, but without the pretension usually haunting trendy spots. What distinguishes Cerdito Muerto’s cool is the comfort and intimacy you feel just entering. The food and drinks are great and you’ll want to come back. But whatever the ef you do: Don’t leave without trying their Hamburguesa Aplastada (smash burger).
On our first date, I realized my husband has the tastebuds of a seven-year-old when I asked what his favorite foods were and he answered, “Pizza, cheeseburgers and french fries!” He orders a burger wherever we go. Since I’m curious, codependent and a hoodchick willing to support and share her man’s passions, I frequently get one too.
I’ve learned it’s hard to f*ck up a burger. But it’s nearly impossible to make one that stands out. But that’s what Cerdito Muerto has done.
You know how Mexicans do movidas to make American things their own, like
paint a brick bungalow bright pink or call K-Mart “K-Marque”? Cerdito Muerto does the culinary version of that with their burger.
They innovate and elevate the burger patty by mixing chorizo with dry aged prime beef. The paprika and chiles that flavor the chorizo lend a nice picante. The result is a burger that bites back with flavor when you sink your teeth into it. The rush of saliva triggered from horny glands is blanketed by Chihuahua cheese that’s smoother and more velvety than a San Marcos cobija. The curtido gives a sour, acidic kiss for a clever finish.
As an Aquarius, I’m naturally a hater, not a hypeman. But I swear it’s the best burger I’ve had. I’m ordering it every time I go there until the day I die. I will, trust me: “No me rajo. Jalisco no se raja.” Treat yourself to Cerdito Muerto, order the burger, support a spot with history and heart. That’s the movida. ¬
Photo by Konrad Wazny
BEST UNSUNG PARK IN THE CITY THAT
DESERVES RESPECT
Piotrowski Park
There’s a color line to the politics of parks in Chicago. Last year, an analysis in Borderless magazine found residents of Latino neighborhoods have 41% less access to parks than the average Chicagoan.
Such inequities are part of the longstanding environmental racism plaguing Little Village that necessitated the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO). LVEJO led a 15-year fight to clean up the toxic Celotex superfund site and turn it into La Villita Park in 2014.
But before La Villita, Piotrowski and North Lawndale’s Douglass were the only parks around.
Recent protests against Riot Fest’s annual appropriation of Douglass Park, which makes it inaccessible to residents during our fleeting summer, illustrate access to green space and parks is an ongoing struggle.
That lack of green space in Little Village motivated graffiti artist Gloria “Gloe” Talamontes’ “Brown Wall Project.” In working-class communities like La Villita, the city doesn’t remove graffiti by powerwashing walls back to their original appearance. Instead, they slather fecal-colored paint across them, creating brown walls that literally look like sh*t.
So Gloe began painting lush floral murals on them, composting these sites of racialized disregard into the virtual green space lacking in our communities.
Rather than artists creating a simulacra, I’d argue the hundreds of millions of dollars Chicago gives to already-wealthy corporations to revitalize vacant office space downtown could create green space and resource parks in our neighborhoods. (In fact, turn empty offices into vertical farms to sustainably feed communities, like people are doing with dead malls.)
Parks matter and green space should be a public good, not a luxury one.
My dad remembers when Piotrowski was “Lawndale Park.” It’s where he and my mom could go with a Chickie’s beef when they started dating in high school. Piotrowski’s where my mom, a marathon runner, first tried running and couldn’t do a lap around the park. Growing up, my dad played baseball there. After games, we’d go across the street to Home Run Inn pizza.
The first time I saw my husband perform was at Piotrowski in a play for Chicago Shakes offered by Chicago’s “Night Out in the Parks” initiative. After, we went to Home Run Inn, my husband’s favorite pizza (that he thought was only a frozen pizza company until we started dating.)
Piotrowski isn’t just a place in my husband’s theatrical career. It’s the main setting for my first play and its film adaptation, The Real Life Adventures of Jimmy de las Rosas
Real Life Adventures is about a queer telekinetic Mexican American boy who lives with his undocumented mother and grandmother who’s an elotera at Piotrowski. Inspired by 2006 immigration raids, it takes place during a summer when neighborhood residents are disappearing.
When his mother disappears, Jimmy must find her and discovers tech billionaires are behind the abductions and forcing the desaparecidos to build an island city in Lake Michigan. These billionaire villains’ plan is to survive the climate collapse that men like them created by occupying this island in the Great Lakes—the largest source of freshwater after the melting polar ice caps in a world already riddled with water scarcity.
It’s supposed to be science fiction, but with current ICE abductions and ultra-rich “preppers” investing in such refuges to insulate themselves from climate crisis, I guess it’s a documentary.
An early version of the play Real Life Adventures of Jimmy de las Rosas was pro-
On Friday, July 31, 2015, it was performed at Piotrowski.
I remember watching a play I wrote with my family in this park that’s a part of our history. At one point, I saw a small Brown boy wearing a cape from home, punching his arms into the air, acting along with the action happening onstage. I had to fight from crying. That moment remains the most fulfilling of my artistic career. Piotrowski gave me that.
Go there. Get a mango from the cart on the northeast corner. Watch Brown supermen hit home runs or kids fly in the skate park. Listen to the soundtrack of children on the playground, families in the pool, and bells of passing paleta carts. If heaven doesn’t look like this, I don’t want it. ¬
Photos by Marc Monaghan
BEST GOODBYE
Toro Nagashi Lantern Ceremony
BY DIERDRE ROBINSON
Some evenings really just stay with you.
On a warm August night, I found myself among strangers, paper lanterns, and something sacred that I didn’t even know I needed: the Toro Nagashi Lantern Ceremony in Jackson Park.
The ceremony of Toro Nagashi (literally, “floating lanterns”) is a Buddhist tradition that is held each summer to mark the end of Obon season—a time when the spirits of ancestors are believed to visit the living. A Toro Nagashi ceremony can be a small, family-centered gathering or a larger communal act of mourning to honor lives lost to natural disasters, war, and other tragedies.
While not commonplace in America, this spiritual and connective ceremony took place on August 6, on the South Side of Chicago.
I discovered the Toro Nagashi event on Eventbrite, where I often look for unique and meaningful experiences to partake in. As soon as I saw the announcement for this year’s ceremony in Jackson Park, I wasted no time registering.
This year’s fourth annual Toro Nagashi Lantern Ceremony took place in the tranquil Osaka Garden—also known as the Garden of the Phoenix, located at 6300 S. Cornell Avenue.
It was hosted by the Japanese Arts Foundation in partnership with the Chicago Park District, Asian Improv Arts Midwest, the Japan America Society of Chicago (JSC), and the Japanese Culture Center. Attendance was limited to 300 people, which seemed like a lot, but ended up feeling very intentional and intimate.
Getting to the Osaka Garden was a challenge. Even with directions in hand, my companion and I frequently got lost.
Once we found the right path, monarch butterflies seemed to suddenly appear and fly alongside us. I took this as a sign. Their bright orange and yellow forms seemed to
direct our way. Butterflies are believed to represent the spirit world in many cultures, and at that moment, I felt that there was meaning in their presence.
After walking for what seemed like miles, we finally arrived at the Osaka Garden. People were gathered everywhere: families lounged on blankets, friends huddled and chatted in close-knit circles, and others stood alone.
Volunteers were extremely friendly, welcoming guests as they handed out the lantern kits, markers, and stickers to decorate our lanterns.
The program began with remarks from guest speakers and event organizers, only steps away from Yoko Ono’s “Sky Landing” installation. We were treated to live shamisen music by Toyoaki Sanjuro of Asian Improv Arts Midwest—a meditative sound that matched the tone of the evening perfectly
This year marked the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. And in an unexpected twist, one of the evening’s guest speakers was Clifton Truman Daniel—the eldest grandson of Harry S. Truman, the U.S. president who authorized the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Truman-Daniel spoke with sincerity and humility about the atrocity and emphasized a commitment to continue the fight for peace—sharing that he visited Hiroshima in 2012 and would be returning this year. His presence at the ceremony felt like part of the healing process, and his words were well received.
As the final speakers concluded and daylight began to fade, the crowd seemed to shift from listening to preparing for the next phase of the evening.
I started to notice many people carefully placing the finishing touches on their lanterns as the moment approached to carry our grief and our hope to the water.
My lantern was simple but painstakingly decorated on all four sides with bright, orange hearts and the words “I will always miss you.” My lantern was for my mother. We lost her in 2018 to ovarian cancer, and the pain of her loss has never dulled.
As dusk fell, it was time to pass through the torii gates of the garden. With our lanterns in hand, we followed the candlelit path to the koi pond, where the first group of lanterns would be set adrift.
The silence along the way was tremendously loud. Not even our footsteps could be heard and no one spoke above a whisper.
Once we reached the water’s edge, it was time to set the lanterns afloat. I watched the lantern bearing my mother’s name float away slowly, as if not wanting to leave, and felt a deep sadness settle over me. I wanted to follow it. I needed to see where it would go. But just as I couldn’t accompany my mother on her final journey, I couldn’t stay to see where my lantern would end up. I, like everyone else, had to trust that it would find its way.
Volunteer staff directed everyone to follow the lighted path back out through the torii gates. As we all filed out together, I stopped and spoke with Marz Timms, who was attending the ceremony for the first time with his family. His wife, who is Japanese, had introduced him to the tradition.
“She’s been a member of the JSC since she was a child,” Timms said. “We’ve been to Japan and Hiroshima. So, it was just an amazing opportunity to come out and be part of this—to light the lanterns and set them adrift for people you lost.”
Timms shared that the ceremony “brought a tear to [his] heart,” as he dedicated his lantern to both his mother and mother-in-law, who had both passed away.
Our conversation, like the ceremony, resonated with me and lingered. His words were heartfelt, tender, and genuine.
It was an evening of quiet goodbyes, shared remembrance, and hope—all carried out under a calm sky and reflected in still water.
In every sense, Toro Nagashi was the most beautiful goodbye, a rare event that made space for grief, memory, peace, and community all at once.
If you’d like to experience Toro Nagashi for yourself, or mark your calendar for next year’s ceremony, visit japaneseartsfoundation.org or follow @japaneseartsfoundation on Instagram for updates.
You can also visit chicagoparkdistrict.com, gardenofthephoenix.org, or search “Sky Landing Yoko Ono” for background on the artwork and its message of peace. ¬
Photo by Dierdre Robinson
BEST MUSICAL HALL OF FAME
Pilsen musician murals
BY DULCE MARIA DIAZ
Iwas only five when we arrived in Chicago from Mexico through California in October, 1988. My father was a lifelong mariachi and had been traveling to the United States for work. Some of my earliest memories of commuting to school include my father driving my siblings and me from La Villita to Pilsen. I knew that we were near Jungman Elementary when I saw the row of indigenous men painted on concrete walls. They fascinated me. I wanted to know who they were.
The murals of Pilsen marked the start of my everyday commute as a young girl. When I moved back to Pilsen as an adult, these murals called to me, partly due to the nostalgia of my father driving us to school.
At 18th & Wood St., there is a mural of Mexican icons that includes two depictions of singer Joan Sebastian, who holds a microphone while riding a horse. Once a Chicago local, Sebastian later became a famous Grammy-winning artist, composer and actor.
I recently sat down with my father Nicolas Diaz, now seventy-two, who described Joan Sebastian as a timeless composer and as a Pilsen local: a waiter and car salesman with a dream, talent, and charisma. I think of my uncle, who asked to listen to his music during his last moments on his deathbed.
On Cermak & Wood St. is a mural of the 1990s Tejano superstar Selena. Painted in 2019 by the artist ASEND as part of a project initiated by Inner City Culture, the mural is transformed from the traditional style through the use of spray paint. Across a bright magenta background is a carousel of portraits of the twenty-three-year-old Mexican American singer, whose young career tragically ended when she was murdered by her own fan club manager in 1995. I remember when the news hit, the whole block was in shock; we mourned her as an entire country.
On the wall of a Xurro store at Cermak & Wolcott is a spray-painted mural of the icon Vicente Fernandez, also known as Chente. If you are Mexican, you are probably thinking of your favorite Chente song right now, or will likely listen to it after you read this article! He was best known for his music, but he was also an actor. Before we migrated, my dad visited Chicago in 1986, and had the opportunity to meet him. He said that Chente always had his own mariachi, but invited them to play with him at Teatro Mexico in Milwaukee.
DRAINE ONE, a Mexican graffiti artist, uniquely captured a close-up of Chente in a rich and modern way: vibrant colors singing and with a line from the unofficial
Mexican national anthem, Chente’s Song “El Rey”: “..sigo siendo el rey”, or “I continue to be king.” The message speaks to every Mexican who financially struggles and remains optimistic. It’s our culture, our nature, our way of being.
I asked my father how he feels about the murals honoring the late Mexican singers and if he likes them. “Yes, of course, they are important,” he said. “To us, they are very important.” ¬
BEST HIP-HOP STREET CULTURE APPAREL
Definitive Selection
BY DULCE MARIA DIAZ
It was 1992, and I was about nine years old when we left La Villita and moved to the Gage Park neighborhood. Heavily influenced by my older siblings, I was inevitably introduced to partying at a very early age.
Underground parties had codes: in the pre-cell-phone days of the 90s, there were real-life checkpoints where you could get a map showing the way to the party location, where everyone knew everyone and gave hugs, enjoyed youth, music, and the underground culture. One store on Archer Ave., The Yard, was a checkpoint for many 90s parties.
In 2025, with high respect, I sat with Larry Mondragon, also known as Big Larry. He is owner of Definitive Selection, a Pilsen streetwear boutique geared towards “tastemakers, artists and aficionados,” according to its website. There is a bodega-style sign behind him that reads “The Most Dangerous Immigrants Came in 1492”. More bodega-style signs encircle his shop with excerpts from lyrics that shaped the Chicago-street scene of music and fashion, such as “JACK JACK JACK,” a phrase attributed to Chicago house DJ Steve “Silk” Hurley’s legendary 1986 track, “Jack Your Body.”
In 1986, Mondragon was a big music head himself, DJing and writing graffiti. He was standing at a bus stop one day when he saw another young man whose fashion sense identified him as a fellow traveler to Larry.
That young man was Jesse De La Pena. United by graffiti, music, fashion and culture, the two became lifelong friends. In the early 1990s, De La Pena and Mondragon opened a store on Archer and Kedzie with two other friends. There were not many stores selling freshwear and serving as a checkpoint for the party kids. But something very different about The Yard was that it sold supplies for writing graffiti, which supported the artists who gathered there and helped shape the culture.
Larry went on to work as a promoter with True Marketing, where he had the opportunity to work with big labels like Sony. With the evolution of music streaming, Mondragon oriented towards street-fashion marketing with mentors Fred and Sheryl McGowan.
In 2011, he cofounded Definitive Selection, initially a showroom, on 19th & Mor-
gan with Luis Castro, Sean Alvarado and DJ Kim. Mondragon said that at first, people did not really know how to respond to a showroom, which promoted the brand but did not have retail. Eventually they responded to customer demand and began selling gear.
More recently, Definitive Selection moved to its current location at 1745 W. 18th St., where the gear includes anti-Trump politics in bodega-style lettering, Sade fandom, and Chicago culture in the 1990s. Remembering how he was mentored, Mondragon said he gives opportunities to young, local designers.
It’s more than fashion. It’s about cultivating culture and reminding by example what street culture was all about. Definitive Selection also has pop-ups, community events, and DJ sets—including from DJ De La Pena. When you visit, make sure you take your dog; Mondragon has treats behind the counter.
Definitive Selection, 1745 W. 18th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60608 ¬
Photos by Dulce Maria Diaz
BEST OUTDOOR RUNWAY SHOW
Marie | Wesley’s Englewood Fashion Show
BY MILO BOSH
On July 13, the 6200 block of South May Street was closed to traffic, but not to possibility.
Beneath a wide canopy set up right down the middle of the street, neighbors gather for Dare to Be Bold, the annual free fashion show organized by Nanette Tucker, owner of Englewood’s Marie | Wesley boutique. Teen servers weave through the crowd with trays of food and bottled water, making sure everyone is fed and hydrated. Then the music kicks in—pulsing sounds from a live DJ’s turntables—and fourteen models take to the pavement, wearing designs from three creators (among them, Tucker’s brother, JWes Streeter).
It’s not just a fashion show. It’s a summer afternoon where style, community, and fellowship all meet under one roof—even if that roof is made of canvas stretched over the street.
Fashion is usually a noun. We think of it as something on a hanger or a mannequin in a clothing store display window, a thing you can hold, try on, or buy. But as a verb, it’s more interesting—it means to shape, to invent, to make something where there was nothing before. For the past four years, Tucker has been doing exactly that on the South Side of Chicago.
The tent becomes the runway. Not the polished, high-gloss kind you see in Milan or Paris, but one with cracks in the pavement beneath it and the smell of barbecue drifting in from a neighbor’s yard. The audience isn’t a collection of fashion editors with notepads, but everyday people in folding chairs, kids chasing each other up and down the runway, elders nodding their approval when a model passes in something sharp. It felt less like an industry event than a block party with a runway at its center.
Tucker understands something more profound than the fact that style is personal. She sees it as communal. Clothes can make you feel good, but seeing someone you know—a neighbor, a friend, a relative, someone who looks like you, or even someone you’d like to know—walking a runway in your neighborhood changes how you see both fashion and yourself.
Her show also brings together people who might never cross paths. Tucker was part of Tonika Johnson’s ongoing Folded Map Project, which connects Chicagoans from opposite ends of the city who share the same street address. Every year, her “map twin,” Wade Wilson, travels from Edgewater to attend. In the very first year, 16th Ward Alderwoman Stephanie Coleman and 48th Ward Alderman Harry Osterman even walked the runway together. How’s that for togetherness?
Marie | Wesley grew from Tucker’s two loves: resale and sewing. “The store was open three years ago and it was about my love for resale and my love for making clothes because I’m a seamstress,” she said. “We reimagine clothing here. We don’t want stuff to end up in landfills. We upcycle.”
Sometimes that means turning a torn sleeve into a statement cuff, or giving a denim jacket a patchwork back. This year’s runway even featured garments made from street blankets. “When I see something that’s individual and I’m the only person that got it— that’s what I like,” she said.
The idea for a fashion show came during a regular meeting with her small, dedicated team. “I said, ‘Man, I should do a fashion show in Englewood.’ Folks here don’t get a
chance to go to a fashion show and sit down and enjoy this type of thing—it’s just not heard of. I wanted to give to my community. I wanted them to see what they look like in a real fashion show.”
Her motto for Marie | Wesley is to ‘dare to be bold.’ “Wear whatever you want to wear. Jazz it up, jazz it down—that’s your look. You don’t have to go with the norms. Be yourself. Sometimes we’re afraid to do that.” She invites all body types, genders, and identities to participate. “I don’t care what your body style is—if you’re straight, gay, trans, whatever you are. Bring it. We’re going to work with it. We’re going to show people this is who you are. Dare to be bold, be who you are.”
In a city where the narrative about neighborhoods like Englewood is too often written by people who don’t live there, Tucker is fashioning her own story. One outfit, one walk, and one cheer at a time. ¬
Photos by milo bosh
In Memoriam: Harold Matthews Jr.
BY CHIMA IKORO
On August 4th, 2025, the South Side gained an angel like none other. Harold “Big Ed” Matthews Jr. was a talent unique in every way who built community across genres, generations, and even countries. With poetry and songwriting as the foundation of his craft, Big Ed found his fire his sophomore year of high school at the Music Box (jacking to Ron Hardy, of course). The local music scene became fertilizer for his future career; from working as a doorman and helping promote parties to dancing in the ‘It’s Time for the Percolator’ music video and working at Imports record store. Big Ed later found himself in the studio with peers Ron Trent and Azza K. Fingers where he forged his first records as the esteemed Blak Beat Niks.
The 90’s set the tone for music across the globe, and the collaborative works created continue to make waves decades later. During this time, Big Ed continued to make his mark. He released an arsenal of songs with artists such as Terry Hunter, Maurice Joshua, and Ron Carroll. Note: Just as this Best was finalized, we received the news of Ron Carroll’s passing on September 21. Carroll was an inspiration to many, and a close friend of Big Ed. The Weekly extends its condolences to his loved ones and the House music community as a whole. Of the most notable, Big Ed helped write Barbara Tucker’s “I Get Lifted,” which was later sampled in the song “Fade” on Kanye West’s album The Life of Pablo. He contributed to the writing of other hits, including Kim English’s “Higher Things.”
As the 2000’s marched in, Big Ed continued to carve his own lane with ‘Melodious Fonk’ featuring songs such as ‘The Sun Will Shine’ and ‘Be Free.’ His craft became mastery through projects with the likes of Slip N Slide, Z Records, Peppermint Jam, Glenn
ers and vocalists. The project brings life to the convictions, beliefs and experiences that shaped a man whose sound is still with us even after his departure.
While Harold Matthews Jr. was an essential part of impactful work, he gave the
Photos courtesy of family of Harold Matthews Jr.
BEST ARTS CENTER WITH A REVOLUTIONARY PAST Epiphany Center for the Arts
BY DULCE MARIA DIAZ
Frederick Allen Hampton Sr. was born in Cook County on August 30, 1948 and raised in suburban Maywood. Oppression and the color of his skin forced him into a role of activism, and ultimately he became the Chicago leader of a revolutionary movement. Hampton co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and organized a multiracial alliance of revolutionary organizations called the Rainbow Coalition in the 1960s.
He served the movement from 1966 until December of 1969, when he and another Black Panther, Mark Clark, were assassinated as they slept by Chicago police.
\Kimberly Rachal and David Chase were married at The Church of the Epiphany, located just a short drive from where Hampton and Clark were assassinated twenty-seven years earlier. The church was built in 1885, but a century later, the congregation was dwindling. Afraid of losing the church to condominiums, Kimberly and David acquired the property.
After three years of planning and two years of construction, they opened Epiphany Center for the Arts in 2020. Before construction began, Nike used the church sanctuary to host more than 1,000 kids for an eight-week basketball camp. Around the same time, I met David through Chicago Action Sports. I had proposed an exhibition on the history of Chicago graffiti, with the intent to capture its rich history and pay homage to the oppressed who created the movement for our city.
In 2021, I interviewed Kimberly and David on public access television where I host-
BEST YOUTH-LED STUDIO
Haven Studios / Guitars Over Guns
BY E’MON LAUREN
Open the doors, and there is the interior of Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church. But downstairs, its renovated basement holds Haven Studios, a recording studio that offers a myriad of artistic services to all ages.
Andre “Add-2” Daniels shared the inspiration that led him to open the space in the summer of 2016.
“My goal has always been to meet them where they are,” Daniels says. “When you first enter the studio, we have a conversation about where you are in your life. What are the albums that changed your life? And how can I be of service?”
Offering year round support to youth through programming and activations, youth are offered an accessible entry point, with no experience required and with
ed a non-profit love hotline talk show. We talked about the church, its history and mis sion, and our exhibition, “Family Resemblance: The Evolution of Chicago-Style Gra ti.” For two years, we held storytelling and panel discussions, and on Chicago’s 185th birthday, we held an art exhibition featuring the ten recognized pioneers.
thers to have weekly meetings and rallies at the Church of the Epiphany. It was then that the nickname “the people’s church” was coined by the members and followers. She noted how it was a reflection of how the church has always been there for the community, no matter the community.
While the Epiphany Center for the Arts is now a space for live performances and shows, its history is ever-present. The cafe and bar area was originally a men’s shelter. In 1953, the church established a nursery for children from underprivileged families.
At the time of our 2021 interview, Epiphany had just received the Richard Driehaus Award for Adaptive Reuse. The center, which is now protected as an architectural landmark, aims to bring social equity to the table with community-based programs as well as taking the care to restore and preserve the building.
“That our growth and the awareness of Epiphany is organic, and in many ways we feel the presence of a spirit,” David said. ”In your life, when you feel that wind start pushing on your back a little bit, you know, most of us are running into the wind, facing the wind, and fighting in life—but try to sense the wind when it’s at your back, and when you feel it, just go with it. And it will be amazing where that can take you. So, feel the wind!”
mentorship from teaching artists, thanks to a partnership with the nonprofit Guitars Over Guns. At entry, you are greeted with a conversation, and then a consultation and assessment of goals, visions, and dreams for yourself. You’re helped with devising a plan, your commitment permitting.
And from there, the resources are provided. “Recording, engineering, mixing, mastering, photography, producing, podcasting” are just a few of the services Add-2 lists—all for free. In consideration of budget cuts to the school system, he noted, it all comes “at no cost to parents and also at a fraction of the costs to the school.”
Michael “Myskie” Hightower, twenty, a musician and mentee of the space, reflects on the many creative opportunities at Haven Studios. As abundance pours
over, he speaks in astonishment at the true value and importance of such a resource. “Haven is a free studio … I come from a background … where you just don’t have the money or the motion, to be able to pay for studio time… or you may have the money, but there are so many activities going on outside of school or home that can put you in the streets or a bad position in life.”
We are humbled to be invited to this vulnerability, when navigating the hardened reality of who the space truly benefits, and reasons therein. In mentioning the South Side community, and the necessary cultivation of Black boys and youth, Haven acts as some form of sanctuary. Not only through artistic cultivation, but community building, housing, learning, and sharing. “It could be, to some people, divine intervention,” Myskie shared.
When Add-2 is asked who the space is welcome to or intended for, he sings: “Whoever God placed in my pathway.” The space is open to all ages, demographics and identities.
tems, Myskie recounts the guidance he received, and paid forward, at Haven: “The people there will try to help you see your vision … helping make sure your message isn’t damaging … These are people who mentor you and make you a better person.”
“Sometimes … I’m doing music for thirty minutes and talking for two hours. These conversations help mold men to be better men, as they grow. But really just anybody.”
Youth are encouraged to join this crew and try multiple paths of creativity, hopefully reaching a new level of artistic success. Through zealous commitment and exuding leadership qualities in their priority interests, youth are then offered the opportunities and on-site training, where they can shadow and later facilitate workshops—a full-circle moment that comes as this space continues to thrive off community building and artistic expression.
“Be consistent and be helpful. It’s all about a community,” Myskie reminds us.
As for the hard conversions regarding music/hip-hop spaces and harmful sys-
Haven Studios, Powered by Guitars Over Guns, 4622 S. King Drive. havenstudios.org ¬
tation to those outside of the community to experience the beauty that Roseland has to offer. “Roseland is my home, and Roseland and the 100s are the far South Side, and a lot of people typically don’t come that far south,” Dinkins said. He added that the far South Side has a slightly different energy because of its distance from the Loop, and said he hopes the market is a reason people take the trip and experience Roseland for themselves.
he Roseland People’s Market is a farmer’s and vendor’s market that is for the people and by the people. The market is held every fourth Sunday at a vacant lot on 110th Street and Michigan Ave. The space was once the home of Beacon
To check out the market, you’ll need to head to the far South Side and come down unteer hype team waving you down. If you happen to miss them, look for the beautiful mural of a young Black girl reading a book (designed by Chicago artist Kayla Mahaffey)
Kalief Dinkins, who grew up in Roseland and graduated from Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep, saw that there was a need for family-friendly weekend events and decided to partner with other organizations in the area who felt the same. Along with Burst into Books, a literacy based nonprofit organization, and S.O.U.L (South-siders Organized for Unity and Liberation), a far-South Side community and food justice organization,and other partners, Dinkins launched the market to offer the community a much-needed fresh food shopping option and ways to come together and mingle with other residents.
“The People’s Market is a space where you can come together and get essentially that experience and essence of the South Side that we all take pride in,” Dinkins said. “You have community, you have food, you have music, and you have the people. People need fresh produce because [Roseland] is a food desert, but we didn’t want there to be just food and that’s it, because we are also in desperate need of community.”
The inaugural market on June 29 proved to be the start of something good. Dutchess the DJ and DJ Willtothe split time on the ones and twos, keeping the crowd of shoppers entertained with classic soul and modern hits. Despite the heat, attendees danced and kids ran around the open portion of the lot playing ball. Roseland residents mingled with one another and there was a multigenerational exchange of joy. Some cooled off in the shade of a tent as they sat for a free portrait from Chicago-based artist Ewrks.
The market’s last scheduled date this season is Sunday, September 28, weather permitting.
Roseland People’s Market, 11026 S. Michigan Ave. Every fourth Sunday during the summer, 12-4pm. ¬
Photos by Dimitri Hepburn
BEST AT PLANTING SEEDS OF
Flowers Unlimited and Gifts
BY ROVETTA MCKINNEY
When you think about a florist, what typically comes to mind? A colorful assortment of flowers you wouldn’t think to put together, but when expertly arranged make so much sense? Roses, hydrangeas, maybe some baby’s breath with greenery to pull it all together? Perhaps a corsage for prom night, or even a calla lily plant for a funeral?
How often do we think of community and civic engagement and apprenticeship when thinking of a florist, or a history of supporting their local schools and churches? I have rarely, if ever, made that connection. However, my interview with Tony Nelson of Flowers Unlimited and Gifts has made me reevaluate my expectation of what a company should and could be in the community they serve. In a world dominated by multinational conglomerates, this is incredibly refreshing to see.
Established in 1984 by Theodore Nelson, Tony Nelson’s father, Flowers Unlimited & Gifts has been a mainstay in the Avalon Park community for over forty years.
Interestingly, the Avalon Park location was not the original storefront nor was Flowers Unlimited and Gifts the original name, according to Tony. The original iteration of the company was located on 79th near Cottage Grove and was named Flair Florist before moving further east to its current home.
Located off of the busy Stony Island avenue and occupying three storefronts, Flowers Unlimited and Gifts is nestled between Chicagoland Baked Ham and what was once a Currency Exchange. Apart from the three black awnings with the flower motifs, one could easily miss the store if whizzing by via car. However, if passing by on foot, the window dressings showcasing colorful silk floral vignettes might peak your interest and draw you in.
Upon entering the establishment you are greeted with the scent of fresh flowers, beautiful floral arrangements (both real and silk) and soft squawking of the resident parrot. Once in, your eyes will automatically gravitate to the gallery wall, which hosts framed images of family, friends, clients, politicians, local celebrities and cultural legends like Jesse Jackson and soul singer Frankie Beverly of the band Maze. Further into the store you are granted a peek into the soul of the company, Tony Nelson and his team of collaborators gracefully and masterfully arranging bouquets while enjoying convivial banter.
I asked Tony how and why he joined the business and it seemed to be an offer he couldn’t refuse. He has worked for Flowers Unlimited in some capacity since he was eighteen. Although initially he wasn’t particularly excited to be in the floral business, it was a craft he excelled in and it didn’t hurt that he was loved by clients. After working in the business for many decades alongside his father, Tony inherited the business after his father passed away.
Tony finds joy in the work, he enjoys designing floral arrangements and making his customers happy. He values his customers, maintains fair prices, and focuses on high-quality flowers to ensure repeat business.
When asked how the company maintains steady business, Tony stated that they are reliant on the company’s reputation and word-of-mouth from satisfied customers. He explained that the business/customer relationship is generational; not only do original customers purchase from Flowers Unlimited, so do their children. Perhaps this is because Flowers Unlimited has a history of donating and advertising in local Black-owned newspapers and churches. Most recently, they’ve participated in a Chicago city program called “One Summer Chicago” to employ and mentor local youth, teaching them about
the business and offering them a way to earn money. for the community’s commitment to them.
Flowers Unlimited & Gifts, 8621 S Stony Island Ave. Monday–Fridays, 9am–5pm; Sat urdays 9am–3pm, closed Sundays. (773) 978-1333, flowersunlimited1.com
Photos by Rovetta McKinney
BEST SUNFLOWER
Miss Mel of Sunflower Soule Farm, LLC
BY E’MON LAUREN
Miss Mel stands five feet even in an ensemble very reminiscent of Ms. Frizzle: curly ginger tresses tucked in a low bun, stewarded by a headwrap decorated with planets or fruits and vegetables. As one makes their way through her adorable features, their eye is met, pleasurably, by matching earrings, pins on the lapels of overalls, or retro Jordans in matching colors. Her right arm is adorned with a tattoo celebrating her love for vegetation: two butcher knives crossing paths over produce.
Needless to say Miss Mel is cool—too cool for school, yet an agricultural educator to the people of the Back of the Yards community and beyond.
With her farm and CSA business, Sunflower Soule Farm, Miss Mel works, in her words, “... to provide organically grown produce that is accessible to all members of the community regardless of income. We strive to bridge the gap between food “apartheid” stricken areas and food oases. We are dedicated to continuing our efforts to advocate for food justice in BIPOC communities. We strongly believe that food is a right, not a privilege.”
Melanie Carter (who goes by her middle name) was born on the South Side. She grew up in Woodlawn, where she attended Emmett Till Grade School, with her grandparents and family. As an impressionable young farmer, Miss Mel was cared for by both of her gardening grandmothers, maternal and paternal.
Miss Mel gorgeously reflects on that time: the roses and tulips that surrounded the garden, her grandfather trimming some plants. Her other grandmother, sweetly caring for strawberry patches, the mammoth sunflowers standing eight feet tall, ivy wrapping around the premises and vegetable patches around the garden. With fishing trips to Kankakee, these grandparents cultivated both life and sustenance for Miss Mel.
Now with two adult children, Mariam and Anthony, Miss Mel currently lives where the Robert Taylor Homes used to be. We are invited further into her history, which still reflects the work of her family: On her maternal side, all of her uncles have been in the military, serving in the Korean War or other notable wars, which would later lead to PTSD. Saddened by this reality, Miss Mel shared her own experiences and qualms with many Black men being put on the frontlines of these wars, almost as a sacrifice.
Between 1988 and 1992, Miss Mel would serve as a medic and combat medic train-
er in Washington D.C. Aside from the torment of circumstance and tangible reality, Miss Mel also dealt with her fair share of misogyny during her active duty. After her reserve, she was honorably discharged while in standby reserves.
“A conflict was just starting up, Desert Storm. But at that time, I decided not to extend my service any longer simply because I wasn’t going to be involved in anything that was committing genocide with Brown folks. So I made the decision just to let it go and move on … The commander of the unit honorably discharged me,” she recollected. “I don’t have a baby sitter.”
And so Miss Mel made her way back home with her skills of cultivation. In conversation, Miss Mel reflects on the history of when Black folks weren’t allowed to shop for groceries or produce, and compares that to the systemic effects of food deserts. “There will be a point where we rely on each other for staple food sources”, she said—an impassioned statement. Bartering and trading is also mentioned, as we face EBT cuts and the current climate of the world.
When questioned about how fresh food and produce heals, Miss Mel responds with the intention behind her farmstand, made by Eco Friendly Mobile Carts. Through partnerships with neighborhood urban farms, such as #LiberationLanding Gardens & Farms and OTIS Fresh Farm, she goes around the neighborhood with fresh produce and asking neighbors if they need food.
As Miss Mel says: “I don’t want folks to feel shamed for being hungry.”
Miss Mel has plans and goals for herself, including canning produce and continuing to promote her produce/farm cart, Sunflower Soule Farm, LLC. But while she continues to work to be approachable in her community, Miss Mel said she would never expect anyone to do the same. The Back of the Yard community houses many veterans with PTSD, Miss Mel said, which led her to reflect on her personal experiences of war and the common treatment of our soldiers thereafter. Miss Mel is familiar with the mental health state of veterans, and is something that drives her compassion and empathy.
Acknowledging that veterans want to be treated like human beings, Miss Mel makes sure gardens/farms are equitable spaces. She shared her method of being in community: “Mental capacity for trauma has no limits. Take a gentle approach and deescalate.”
“Keep Glowing and Growing” is the tagline of Miss Mel’s upcoming podcast, which she’s working on through a media fellowship program. But Miss Mel continues to connect with people through urban farming in Back of the Yards.
“The people and the community is the inspiration,” we are encouraged to keep in mind, as Miss Mel and Sunflower Soule Farm grow.
Sunflower Soule Farm, LLC, Temporarily closed due to Miss Mel’s recovering eye surgery, more details at @sunflowersoule ¬
Photos by E’mon Lauren
RE VO LU TION (S )
BY ZA YD AY ERS DOHR N
When soldier and aspiring musician Hampton Weems comes home from Afghanistan, he finds the South Side of Chicago is also occupied territory—and he’s accidentally joined the resistance. This all new radical musical event from Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and Th e Nightwatchman) and Chicago’s own Zayd Ayers Dohrn pulses with punk, hip hop and metal, and celebrates the courage that inspires us—across generations—to demand a better world.
Directed by ensemble member K. TODD FREEMAN
Written by ensemble member RAJIV JOSEPH
About Our Contributors:
WRITERS
Erica Aceves is a Chicago-based writer with a background in business and community reporting. A proud South Sider, she highlights local restaurants and neighborhood institutions that give shape and flavor to the city’s culture.
Jaime Arteaga was born and raised in Chicago, has worked in the non-profit, philanthropy and community development sectors for over 15 years. Jaime is also an aspiring writer, exploring his journey of cultural identity through the duality of his reality, one steeped in his family’s traditions and motherland, and the other molded by the influences of his lived experience.
milo bosh is an artist, writer, and photographer based in Kenwood. He focuses on portraiture and writes about Black art and culture on Basquiat Loves Company (Substack).
Born and raised on the far South Side, Cristen Brown is a local history and architecture enthusiast with a passion for discovering the many ways the built environment informs our understanding of Chicago’s past, present, and future.
Layla Brown-Clark is a Morgan Park journalist passionate about telling arts and culture and news stories about the city’s South Side.
Dr. Ricardo Gamboa is an artist, activist and scholar from Chicago. For nearly two decades, Gamboa has been behind some of the city’s most revolutionary art and cultural produce like the viral web series BRUJOS, radical news and talk show The Hoodoisie, and dozens of plays across the South and West Side. Currently, Gamboa works as a Hollywood screenwriter while also focusing their energies on making theater with Concrete Content.
E’mon Lauren was named Chicago’s first Youth Poet Laureate. Her work unpacks her coined philosophy of “hood-womanism”. Her first chapbook of poems, “COMMANDO”, was published by Haymarket Books, 2016.
Dabney Lyles is a longtime South Side resident.
Dulce Maria Diaz was born in Tumbiscatío de Ruiz in Michoacán, Mexico and raised in Chicago. She is a multidisciplinary self-taught artist. Following her study of Business for Artists at the University of Chicago, Dulce founded an arts and education nonprofit organization, S.H.E. Gallery (Sharing Her Energy Gallery) in 2015. She is an adjunct lecturer for the Art Institute and works with other educational organizations such as Art Muse Chicago and Childhood Victories, as well as leading mural art clubs with Chicago Public Schools.
Rovetta McKinney is a buyer with over thirteen years of purchasing experience in the jewelry, interior
design and education industry. She is also the owner of a Christian lifestyle website, www.COTHlife.com. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, researching future travel and learning a new creative skill.
Natalie Y. Moore is an award-winning journalist and published author based in Chicago, whose reporting tackles race, housing, economic development, food injustice and violence.
Morley Musick is editor of Mouse Magazine and writes the City Mouse column at n+1 magazine.
Jermaine Nolen is a contemporary American writer and painter, born on the South Side of Chicago and currently based in West Pullman.
Gisela Orozco is a journalist, editor, and translator with more than two decades of experience in local Spanish-language media. She has translated for the Weekly and written for BoSS. Gisela also contributes to La Voz, the Spanish-language section of the Chicago Sun-Times. Originally from Yuriria, Guanajuato, she has lived in Chicago since 2002.
Maritza Padilla is a proud South Side Chicago native, loyal White Sox fan, and first-generation University of Michigan alum. She loves to read, get lost in romcoms, and experiment with creative projects—whether that’s styling outfits, writing, or designing on her iPad. A believer in both astrology and the magic of finding cute trinkets, she brings a curious, creative spark into everything she does.
Dierdre Robinson is a Chicago-based writer and accounting manager with a B.A. in journalism from Michigan State University. Her work explores the vibrant arts, culture, and community of the South Side. She previously reported on the fiftieth anniversary of the Woodlawn Library for the Weekly
Yesenia Roman is a writer, poet, and community organizer based in Little Village who’s passionate about the written word. She cares about how South Side neighborhoods are disproportionately underserved and openly supports Brown and Black businesses.
Laura De Los Santos is an independent researcher, whose graduate-level research and field work revolve around the practices of Maya women in Yucatan, Mexico. Laura is the owner of Midwest Mestiza, LLC, providing classes, presentations, and services based on traditional Mexican wellness practices. She is also a volunteer in the Anthropology Collections department at the Field Museum.
Robert Speed Jr. is a contributor to the Weekly.
Kelsey Stone is a South Side creative who has worked in theater, film, journalism, and music. When he’s not working, you can catch him at a music festival, at an art gallery, or at a day party. Instagram/X/Threads: ItsKStone
Rubi Valentin (they/she) graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and studied
gender and women’s studies and professional writing. They are currently an educator in the South West side, and a fact-checker for South Side Weekly.
Xuandi Wang is a writer and policy researcher passionate about inclusive development and energy transition. His other writing has appeared in Next City, The Baffler, In These Times, and more.
VISUALS CONTRIBUTORS
Erica Aceves is a Chicago-based writer with a background in business and community reporting. A proud South Sider, she highlights local restaurants and neighborhood institutions that give shape and flavor to the city’s culture.
Mike Centeno is an illustrator and cartoonist, originally from Caracas, Venezuela. His comics journalism has appeared in the Nib, el espectador and of course South Side Weekly, among others. His work deals with issues of immigration, identity and general existential malaise. Find more of his work on Mikecenteno.com or follow him @mike_centeno on IG
Jessica Herrera is a photographer from Chicago who’s been capturing moments through photography for 8 years now. She primarily works on freelance projects, and two and a half years ago she began photographing events organized by Ruidosa Art Collective. Ig: Jessicaherrera__777
K’Von Jackson is a freelance photographer for South Side Weekly. In his free time, K’Von enjoys watching anime, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and collecting photo books. You can find more of his work on his Instagram @True_Chicago.
Caeli Kean (she/they) is a Nairobi-raised, South Shore-based freelance photographer and community organiser. Find more of their work at caelikean.com or on Instagram @caelikeanphotography.
Omar Ortiz is an SVP of Growth at a private equity firm. Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, he enjoys local restaurants, working out, and walking his pomsky Bimbo along the Riverwalk.
Miranda Ploss is an interdisciplinary creator from Chicago’s Southside. She helps people tell their stories and be seen, capturing the world as she experiences it. Find more of her work at mploss.com or on Instagram @m.orethan_p.hotography.
Jonathan Williams has been with Chi-Town DriveIn since its opening, beginning as a 17-year-old server when audiences were first welcomed with masks and car-side service. Today, as Director of Marketing and Development, Jonathan has helped transform a gravel lot on the river into one of Chicago’s most unique cultural venues.
Kaelah Serrano, Samuel M. Colon, Gerri Fernandez, Tonal Simmons, Marc Monaghan, and Doug Shaeffer also contributed.
