Meanwhile, in other news...What We're Reading:
The best places to take pictures downtown: Some of Chicago's best architecture photographers shared their favorite places to snap pics in the city, reporter David Matthews is reading in Curbed. Among the locales? A garage by the University of Illinois at Chicago, under the L tracks along Lake Street, and the bar at the Holiday Inn next to the Merchandise Mart. And that's just Downtown.
Best of the South Side: Where's the best bookstore outside Hyde Park? What about the best meadery? The South Side Weekly this week puts out its list of the South Side's gems in the categories that probably no one already had in mind. Bridgeport has the best closet. Hyde Park has the best ruins. Little Village has the best closed street. It may be a somewhat oddball list, but it may be the best way to find an excuse to explore new parts of the South Side.
Slim Jim's Jilted Lover: While Chicago rejoices over food giant Con-Agra (...hmmm, Slim Jims...) moving its headquarters from Omaha to the Merchandise Mart, back in Nebraska it's a dark day. People are angry for a number of reasons, including the fact that more than 20 turn-of-the-century red brick buildings were demolished in Omaha's downtown in the early 1980s — "the largest demolition ever of a historic district on the National Register of Historic places," says the Omaha World-Herald — to make way for Con-Agra's campus-like headquarters.
Meanwhile, Sean Connolly, chief executive of the company, tells the paper the move is "not an indictment of Omaha" but that "Chicago is an environment that offers us access to innovation and brand-building talent.” Connolly lives in Winnetka, BTW.
Omaha newspaper readers were not surprised by Con-Agra's announcement it was moving its headquarters to Chicago.
Stepping Out For Lunch: You might see a familiar face in the New Yorker's collection of decades-old protraits of Chicagoans, New Yorkers and other city dwellers. The portraits come from Charles Traub, a self-proclaimed "real-world witness," who would shoot the photos of people as they stepped out for lunch in the Loop when he worked at Columbia College.
"I knew that, if one asked, people were delighted to be noticed," Traub told the New Yorker.
Lil Bibby Get's His GED: In an interview with Sway Calloway last year, Chicago Rapper Lil Bibby detailed why he dropped out of his senior year of high school citing a lack of value in formal education in his community. "...When you start making a little money, a little drug money or whatever, you just look at school like I'm wasting my time here," Lil Bibby said, according to HipHopDX.com. The young rapper apparently had a change of heart and posted a photo of himself and his high school diploma on Instagram Tuesday.
Can You Hear Me Now: Sixty-five homeowners in Bensenville — directly west of O'Hare Airport — sued the city Thursday over jet noise, the Tribune reported. Planes using a new east-west runway that opened in 2013 have made their lives a noisy hell, the suit claims. The planes fly so low over their homes, trees on their property had to be trimmed to avoid interferring with the flight path. The next east-west runway, set to increase noise west of the airport, will open Oct. 15.
