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Anti-Muslim sentiment reignited
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OCTOBER 1, 2012
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VOLUME 48, ISSUE 5
Wicker Park:
top-ranking hipster ’hood per capita, number of farmers markets, frequency of food trucks and the live music scene were CHICAGO’S USUAL SEA of beards, all considered. “We do a lot of cities and geoplaid, Buddy Holly glasses and skinny jeans are paired with apa- graphical lists here at Forbes, and thetic faces this week as the eclec- this is our first time doing a story tic neighborhood of Wicker Park, quite like this,” Brennan said. “Obviously, words home to many Columbia stulike ‘hip’ and ‘hipdents, was rester’ are very open cently crowned for debate, but fourth in Forbes that’s the methMagazine’s and odology that Nextdoor.com’s brought us to this inaugural list of particular list.” “America’s Hippest Scoring 91 out Hipster Neighborof 100 in walkhoods.” ability and havMorgan Brening a large numnan, real estate ediber of locally tor and reporter for CHRONICLE Carolina Sanchez THE owned bars, resForbes, said the list was compiled after qualitatively taurants and coffee shops were the crunching numbers on 250 neigh- main reasons Wicker Park placed borhoods in major cities through- No. 4, Brennan said. Silver Lake in out the country. Categories such as xx SEE HIPSTER, PG. 25 walkability, number of coffee shops
by Emily Ornberg
Assistant Arts & Culture Editor
Carolina Sanchez THE CHRONICLE
Wicker Park came in fourth on the “America’s Hippest Hipster Neighborhoods” list put out by Forbes magazine and Nextdoor.com. A neighborhood’s walkability and its number of coffee shops, music venues and farmers markets were all factored into the rankings.
Small town, big problem
Faculty, staff have little say on new president
Toxic pollution plagues Central Illinois village for 17 years
by Alexandra Kukulka
by Kaley Fowler
THE COMPOSITION OF the advi-
Campus Editor
Metro Editor
corporations—known as the DePue Group—are addressing the issue, environmental activists and community members are pushing to speed up the process.
sory panel set up to recommend candidates to the board of trustees to be Columbia’s next president is heavily weighted with board members, giving little voice to the college’s faculty and staff, a Chronicle analysis shows. According to bylaws approved by the board of trustees last spring that were not inserted in the faculty handbook, the panel will recommend two or three presidential candidates to the trustees for a final vote. The panel must approve each candidate by a two-thirds vote. A two-thirds majority of the 22 panel members requires 15 votes. Since there are 13 members of the
xx SEE POLLUTION, PG. 35
xx SEE PANEL, PG. 6
SEVENTEEN YEARS HAVE passed
since the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency ordered two major corporations to clean up 950 acres of toxic pollution in the Village of DePue, yet thousands of tons of hazardous waste remain in the small Illinois town. Since closing in 1989, the remains of a zinc smelting plant have been reduced to a 750,000-ton slag pile in the center of the town of 1,800 people—most of whom are of the low-income Latino demographic—contaminating the village’s water, soil and air, according to Jeff Spitz, associate professor in Columbia’s Film & Video De-
CAMPUS
Courtesy CLEANUPDEPUE.ORG
The water in Lake DePue is polluted as a result of contamination from the abandoned zinc smelter in the Village of DePue located in Central Illinois.
partment and executive director of Groundswell Educational Films, a nonprofit organization that has created a series of webisodes to raise awareness about the community’s struggle. Spitz said a 1995 consent order
SPORTS & HEALTH
issued by the IEPA and the state of Illinois holds ExxonMobil and Viacom International Inc./CBS, the most recent owners of the factory, responsible for conducting research and cleaning up the town. While the IEPA maintains that the
ARTS & CULTURE
METRO
Campus ..................................................3 Sports & Health ......................................11 Arts & Culture .........................................17 Commentary .........................................28 Metro .....................................................31
Conversations in the Arts is back • page 3
Refs take heat for NFL • page 11
Chicago’s violence interrupters • page 20
Cycling crashes on the rise • page 31