UPTOWN — This weekend marks the beginning of "Uptown Saturday Nights," a new program that the city and community leaders created to showcase the neighborhood as an entertainment district.
Beginning this Saturday, there will be free concerts, performances and tours at various Uptown venues on the second Saturday of every month for the rest of the year. The program is a collaboration between the city's department of cultural affairs and Uptown United.
The first program will start at record shop Shake, Rattle & Read, 4812 N. Broadway Ave. It'll be the first stop on cultural and historic walking tours held throughout the afternoon at 2 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Bring the whole family to Baker & Nosh, 1303 W. Wilson Ave., at 4 p.m. There, kids can sing and clap along with musician Carol Weston to children's songs like "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" through an interactive program by Juicebox.
To cap off the evening, go see a Brazilian jazz performance by Maracujaz at FLATS Studio, 1050 W. Wilson Ave., beginning at 7 p.m.
The new program is an attempt to highlight the best Uptown has to offer, McCormick previously told DNAinfo Chicago.
"Typically, you go see a show, have dinner on Argyle, [people] do their thing and go home. And we're trying to create a whole night with a variety of things, live theater and live music, so you can walk from one thing to the next to the next," he said.
"Uptown Saturday Nights" is "absolutely" connected to the Uptown entertainment district plan, he added.
Also in a previous interview with DNAinfo Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said people who say the Uptown entertainment district plan is not moving forward are wrong.
Renovating the Lawrence and Wilson Red Line "L" stops will "change the kind of commercial life there," Emanuel said.
“The only thing that has not happened is the Uptown Theatre. We’ve modernized the Lawrence stop. I sought and got $240 million in streetscaping. It’s all happening,” he said. “It’s Lawrence first, Wilson second, and [then] open space and green space.”
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