Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni. ✶ Thank you for your readership and contributions. ✶
Gapers Block went live on April 25, 2003, with a Merge post about the Berghoff adding seats in the bar. The firstcouple Fuel questions were kind of silly, but got down to business soon enough.
The oldest Slowdown calendar entry was on May 1, 2003. We went fully public on May 5, and on that day Shylo Bisnett's "A Dialogue Between KISS & ABBA" was our first Detour feature.
A couple things from the earliest days of the site are missing -- including the first incarnation of Transmission, a weekly mp3 from a local artist, shared in a box on the front page. It was hand-coded and uploaded by FTP, so there was no archive. And the first 14 months of Rearview were lost in a server transfer, so the earliest we have in the archives is from July 9, 2004.
It's good to look back at where we started, so we have perspective on where we are today, and where we're going from here. This may be the end of Gapers Block for now, but it's not the end of the incredible work being done by the writers who made the site such an invaluable resource for Chicagoans -- nor is it the end of independent journalism in Chicago. It will just be (temporarily, I'm positive) harder to find. The mission for you is still the same: Slow down and check out the city. Thank you for coming along on this particular ride.
Early on, we ran fiction in Detour, our features section. One running series was The Critic, which was an Onionesque collection of "real reviews of fake things," such as restaurants, movies, musicals, fireworks shows and music festivals. They never failed to fool a few people.
Presidential candidate Jeb Bush commented on the decision not to indict the police officers who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice yesterday, saying, "I think that Chicago's got a lot of work to do to rebuild trust. The level of violence is abhorrent." When reminded that the Rice case was in Cleveland, he said, "I'm sorry, my bad."
I'm stealing the headline from FoGB Veronica Arreola, because it is perfect. There are so many Best of lists at this time of year, but if you want to know 15 (thankfully there are far more) women who did awesome stuff in Chicago this year, then go read about them. They're all awesome.
Parents may not be thrilled by the 2016-17 school schedule, which thanks to a quirk of the calendar has winter break starting on Christmas Eve and spring break ending on Easter.
A person with mental health issues is at 16 times greater risk of being shot by police in an encounter, a new study [PDF] reports, and few of the city's 12,000 officers have received crisis intervention training. The result is a very dangerous situation for those already having trouble.
He's laid low since his Indiana farm dinner restaurant was shut down, but chef Brandon Baltzley is back in Chicago for the moment, with a pop-up dinner series.
Quite a few taxes are taking effect in Chicago on Friday. If you're a litigious, gun-toting, vaping, Uber-taking, Netflix-loving property owner, things are going to get pretty expensive for you.
Remember the call for DNA samples from people who believed their family had been killed by John Wayne Gacy? The results have cleared 11 unrelated cold cases.
With the announcement that Chicago and Cheap Trick would be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, the questions became whether Peter Cetera and Bun E. Carlos, who have been estranged from their respective bands, would perform at the induction ceremony. As of right now, Cetera says he's out; as for Carlos, he's in, but it's a little more complicated.
Musician and programmer Erik Cameron tells the story of being held at gunpoint by police while walking on Wabash Avenue near the Billy Goat. It took 10 cops to figure out that the tea in his hand wasn't a gun. "Pointless escalations like this are exactly how people get shot for holding cell phones, half full cups of tea, and so on," he says.
Technically, it's illegal to place ads on city property -- as in, a concert poster on a lamppost -- but it's rarely enforced. However, RCP Publications (the local communist press) is challenging the law in court after it was fined $350 for hanging posters for a documentary screening, potentially paving the way for flyers all over the place.
A grand jury did not indict the jailers in Texas where Chicagoan Sandra Bland died. However, the jury reached no decision regarding charges against the officer who arrested her, and will meet again in January to continue deliberation. Not surprisingly, Bland's family was disappointed in the decision.
Northwestern is opening a "new space" in San Francisco featuring joint programming from the Medill School of Journalism and McCormick School of Engineering.
After a scaled-down Chicago Fire Festival and canceling two major events, Redmoon Theatre is ceasing operations. The spectacle-oriented theater company was 25 years old.
Over the next two weeks, we'll be highlighting some of the most significant, interesting and otherwise "best" of what's been published on Gapers Block since 2003. To start, one of the first bits of breaking news we published: an assault in Andersonville in 2004.
This Sunday, Dec. 20, The 606, aka the Bloomingdale Trail, hosts A Walk with Light. Bring a string of lights, glow sticks, LED candles or other non-flame lights, and walk the trail to Walsh Park for fire pits, warm drinks, s'mores, music and fire dancing.
Retired police officer and IPRA investigator Lorenzo Davis spoke with the NYTimes about the code of silence that keeps IPRA and other officers from acknowledging wrong-doing by police. DNAinfo's Mark Konkol tracks the control of CPD not to the superintendent, but to City Hall.
The Department of Justice has asked for community input regarding its investigation of CPD patterns and practices. Call 844-401-3735 or email community.cpd@usdoj.gov to share relevant info. [via]
Wheaton College students planned to wear hijabs on their flights home for the holidays in solidarity with Muslims and in support of suspended professor Larycia Hawkins (previously). Meanwhile, TouchVision's Mariam Sobh explains why Hawkins' decision to wear the hijab means so much.
The Chicago Design Museum in Block 37 is hosting a Holiday Yard Sale tonight from 4 to 7pm. Shop for design-y gifts from local designers and companies like Cards Against Humanity, You Are Beautiful, Perfectly Acceptable Press and more. Free; RSVP on Facebook if you like.
Edgewater residents Caro D'Offay and Laura Gilmore put up an oversized letter to Santa from "Bobby" in their front yard. It's on Norwood Avenue between Broadway and Glenwood if you want to stop by.
NewCity has launched a new podcast, "A Lot You Got to Holler," hosted by Newcity design editor (and GB alum) Ben Schulman and architectural journalist Zach Mortice. The first episode is about Chicago in the movies.
Chicago Public Schools will be paying $280k in damages and back pay to a group of Northwest Side teachers who were fired after receiving performance ratings that an federal investigation later revealed were intentionally lowered by their school principal. The reason for this? They were pregnant.
Wheaton College political science professor Larycia Hawkins was suspended for wearing a hijab during Advent "in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book."
This morning, I partook of the Eucharist, the culmination of the Christian liturgy where Christians through the...
Bryan Smith tells the story of Sandra Bland, the Chicago woman who killed herself after being taken into custody in Texas under odd circumstances. (Previously.)
Photographer Jen Jansen works in the rare old medium of tintypes -- as well as digital tintypes and ambrotypes made from your digital images. There's just enough time to order for the holidays.
Before he was fired, former CPS superintendent Garry McCarthy went on a "listening tour" aimed at improving communication between police and the community. DNAinfo obtained a draft of the PowerPoint presentation McCarthy prepared based on what he heard.
A sleeping patron from North Dakota pulled a gun on a Pump Room manager when awoken. He was eventually escorted by security to his room at the Public Hotel, where the police met him later.
"For the citizens of a community to trust the police, they have to know that they aren't being systematically lied to." The New Yorker on Chicago's relationship with its police force.
A taxi driver lobby convinced McPier to levy its $4 airport departure tax against rideshares in addition to the already-covered taxis -- but almost nobody knows about it, and it's not clear if the tax is getting paid.
The Kickstarter campaign to relaunch "Mystery Science Theater 3000" ends tonight, but there are two screenings of classic episodes this weekend to give the campaign one last push.
For the punk rocker on your list, consider Ork Records: New York, New York, a catalogue reissue of the seminal New York punk label by Numero Group. The Guardian just gave it a great write-up.
The Kartemquin documentary Almost There, about outsider artist Peter Anton, is screening at the Siskel Film Center Dec. 11-17, with different members of the crew doing Q&As after each showing. Attend the Saturday screening to hear GB's own David Schalliol and Co-Director/Cinematographer Aaron Wickenden discuss shooting the film.
Dispensary 33, Chicago's first licensed marijuana dispensary, opened today. If you've got a patient ID card, you've got seven to 10 strains of pot to choose from.
Touchvision has produced a three-partdocumentary about Reader editor Brianna Wellen's journey through diagnosis and treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Definitely worth setting aside a half hour to watch.
Photos from the 1933 Century of Progress exposition tell the story of the events and people dramatized in Chicago's last world's fair. In this 144-page book, photos from the Tribune archives track all aspects of the fair from technology through entertainment.
This Wednesday, Dec. 9, Stars Align, our monthly music series in which two artists who don't normally work together perform a one-night-only collaboration, returns to The Whistler with Yoo Soo Kim of Hemmingbirds and Jesse W. Johnson.
Here's a little taste of what you'll hear: Hemmingbirds' "Mess of Things."
The surprise hit Broadway musical about Alexander Hamilton will be launching a national touring production in Chicago next September at the Bank of America Theatre, appropriately enough -- although by then it'll be called the PrivateBank Theatre, which seems like political commentary.
Cane and Ebel fro Two Brothers in Warrenville (25), Gatecrasher IPA from Temperance in Evanston (43) and Ninja vs. Unicorn from Pipeworks in Chicago are among Livability's 99 Beers in 99 Cities list.
Next Friday's Eat to the Beat dinner with WBEZ Sound Opinions and musician Neko Case is sold out, but they are holding a drawing this Thursday at 5pm for a free pair of tickets to the event. Enter, you fool!
Tickets for next year's Baconfest (Apr. 30th and May 1st at UIC Forum) go on sale today at noon. Give someone the gift of pork. UPDATE: Early bird tickets are already sold out. Regular VIP tickets will become available soon.
The NYTimes' review is more mixed, but also seems to think Chicago is a literal hellscape, "where sidewalks are washed with blood, and human hearts beat to the rhythm of gunfire." So take that with a grain of salt.
For the die-hard Blackhawks fan in your family: a bit of (melted) home ice from the Hawk's championship game last year go on sale Dec. 11 at the Michigan Avenue team store and other locations across the region.
Chicagoist got Instagram to share the 20 most Instagrammed spots in Chicagoland. The Bean shows up twice, under both its true title and its nickname, but you might be surprised at what tops the list.
The Whistler transforms into the Mos Eisley Cantina, featuring the music of Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes. They've just added a late show for those who aren't already in line for the new Star Wars movie.
To commemorate their 25th anniversary, next year's Lollapalooza will add on an extra day to be a four-day affair; passes to the full event will cost $355.
Mayor Emanuel appeared at a Politico event this morning (presumably booked long before the Laquan McDonald video was released.) Things got a bit testy when his family's holiday vacation plans came up.
Sheriff Tom Dart has been thwarted in his attempt to shut down Backpage.com, a site where "adult services" are listed. Dart says Backpage is facilitating prostitution and sex trafficking, but an appeals court ruled that the site is protected under the First Amendment.
Field Notes just released a flight log version for drone and model plane pilots, designed in collaboration with Adam Savage of "Mythbusters" and Tested.com. Buy it online today, or stop by their open house later this week.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan called for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division to investigate the Chicago Police Department for potential civil rights violations.
The Alley, once the stalwart anchor of the Clark & Belmont countercultural district, is closing as soon as the end of the year, citing construction next door as the final straw. Sister store Taboo Tabou will remain in the neighborhood, and owner Mark Thomas plans to reopen the Alley in Avondale sometime next year.
Tickets for the Alps, which is the first Next menu of 2016, go on sale next Wednesday at 10am (past customers get a two-day head start); if that's not your bag, later menus will pay homage to South America and The French Laundry.
Fifty-seven years ago today, a massive fire at Our Lady of the Angels School on the city's West Side killed 92 children and three nuns. Read more here.
