Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

It's Chicago vs. New York as Neil Steinberg Squares Off Against Thomas Dyja

By Mark Konkol | September 30, 2014 5:14am
  Sun-Times  columnist Neil Steinberg (l.) plans to wear Lucha Libra mask at Tuesday night's debate with New York City author and former Chicagoan Tom Dyja at the Newberry Library. It's a Chicago vs. New York debate that took more than two years to schedule.
Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg (l.) plans to wear Lucha Libra mask at Tuesday night's debate with New York City author and former Chicagoan Tom Dyja at the Newberry Library. It's a Chicago vs. New York debate that took more than two years to schedule.
View Full Caption
Facebook

GOLD COAST — I never thought I’d be the guy suggesting “debate night” at the Newberry Library as a hot night on the town.

But Tuesday’s showdown between authors Neil Steinberg and Thomas Dyja — who both wrote books about Chicago — could turn an otherwise academic discussion about Chicago's place as the "Second City" in American History into a thrilling war of words.  

In one corner, hailing from the leafy suburban paradise of Northbrook, is Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg, a longtime hate mail-generating lightning rod and author of a beautifully written memoir, “You Were Never In Chicago,” that melds his personal Chicago adventures and defining moments in our city’s history.

“I respect Tom a lot, but you know the Newberry is across from Bughouse Square, home of the great Chicago tradition of arguing, so, I hope we don’t agree too much," Steinberg said. "And, yes, I am going to wear a Lucha Libra mask.”

He’ll square off against Dyja, a North Side refugee and Manhattan intellectual, whose book “The Third Coast: When Chicago Built The American Dream,” made the New York Times’ “Notable 100” book list in 2013.

It's a Chicago vs. New York debate that took more than two years to schedule.

And the writers are ready for, well, anything.

“I know Neil has tried to pin me as the ascot and tweed-wearing Manhattan sophisticant. But after spending the morning back in Belmont Cragin with my mother dealing with her tenants, I’m not feeling very Manhattan," Dyja said Monday. "I’m not saying anything bad about Neil because he will use it against me. But I am looking forward to seeing Neil in that Mexican wrestling mask he promised to wear.”

While Steinberg and Dyja both tried to downplay the “debate showdown” feel before Tuesday’s event, there’s no denying that the topic of New York vs. Chicago could lead to harsh arguments over which big city is best pound for pound, even if they tackle the issue in an abstract intellectual way, as writers are wont to do.

“I see Neil as a transplanted Easterner, and I’m a transplanted Midwesterner. There’s a beautiful symmetry to that,” Dyja said.

“I think that adds perspective to the discussion of Chicago and New York from the perspective of someone who grew up there and someone who moved there. … Really [what] we’re talking about is Chicago vs. Chicago and asking questions about the city that can be uncomfortable, but ultimately are about what the city needs to do to move forward.”

Steinberg playfully says he’ll dominate Dyja by not trying to “beat New York,” because the “greatness of a city cannot be discovered with adding machines.”

“To say which city is better is to lose, in my opinion,” Steinberg says.

“Usually these kind of arguments tend to be stupid people vs. smart people. So, I’m hoping a discussion between a couple halfway intelligent journalists and writers will be at least worth the price of admission.”

The Tuesday night talk at the Newberry is free.

For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: