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Eight Stories You Might've Missed This Week

By DNAinfo Staff | September 12, 2014 7:03pm
 Our staffers pick some of the best stories of the week you might have missed.
Our staffers pick some of the best stories of the week you might have missed.
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DNAinfo

One of the city's most famous photographers gets an exhibit, while some of the city's most ubiquitous birds could be on the way out. Check out these eight stories, which may have somehow passed you by this week.

• No pain, no gain: One of the city's worst intersections is about to get a makeover. But construction at Fullerton/Damen/Elston is likely to cause headaches for businesses and drivers alike.

• The work of legendary Chicago photographer John White is going on display at Roosevelt University. He worked at the Chicago Daily News and won a Pulitzer at the Sun-Times before being laid off last year.

Iconic photos featured in the series include shots of Walter Payton, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela, local and national figures and headline-grabbing events from Chicago's history.The White exhibition is the first in a three-part Chicago photojournalism series hosted at the Gage Gallery during the 2014-2015 academic year.

• Filmmaker and editor Justin Harenchar, 24, has been recording small portions of his daily life since the start of the year. He compiles each day's best 3-second clip into a monthly retrospective called "How We Got Here."

The shots — from snow-covered statues to Mardi Gras revelers grabbing fast food — are whatever Harenchar happens upon that day, reports Kyla Gardner.

"I tend to like the ones that are unique things that I know only will happen once," said the Wrigleyville resident. "I wanted to make something more cinematic or more theatrical ... and I think Chicago is one of the best cities [for] that."

His favorite clip, for example, was a laugh shared between a couple sitting across from him during his commute.

"It was a happy couple on Valentine's Day, sitting on the 'L'. They shared an innocent moment for 10 seconds. It was tailor-made for what I wanted to do," he said.

• If a neighborhood doesn't technically exist, can it go on a map? Of course, says artist Joe Mills, whose hand-drawn city maps now include Ravenswood.

"I tried to find the most approved boundary lines — what ... people really think it is," Mills told Patty Wetli.

Ultimately he settled on Foster and Montrose avenues on the north and south and Ravenswood and Clark streets on the west and east, which means that Ravenswood Elementary fell off the map, as did the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who's frequently referenced as living in Ravenswood.

• Make way for ducklings. Because mallards may soon be on the way out of Chicago - and the country.

A groundbreaking report, released this week, looked at 30 years of data to determine how habitat ranges of North American birds have shifted due to climate change, and predicts how they'll continue to shift over the next 65 years if climate change continues at its current pace.

Mallards, the ducks known for their green-necked males and often found in the rivers, lake and fountains and backyards around Chicago, are projected to disappear during the summer from the lower 48 states by 2080. Other birds, including seagulls and swans, could be gone, too.

"It was shocking to everybody that I've talked to, even in Audubon," said Rebeccah Sanders, executive director of Audubon Chicago Region. "It's a bird that we all know ... a bird that people really identify with. It would just be really shocking to lose a species like that."

• Police say a West Side man stole computers...to pay for court-ordered fees from an earlier case.

• Meanwhile, police broke up a Little Village burglary ring, which included an alleged high-ranking Latin Kings leader.

• DePaul is showing a rare collection of Depression-era art from artists commissioned by the Works Progress Administration.

The prints focus on the nation's economic inequality and the issues and hardships of ordinary people during the turbulent time.

Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the WPA to put citizens back to work in the mid 1930s and included artists on the plan.

“I think theres also a real sense in which it makes you think about the political consequences of this type of program," said Louise Lincoln, director of the DePaul Art Museum. "How did Roosevelt make it work? Why couldn’t it happen now and to what degree do we all still have the idea that artists can still be important."

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