Merge

Where We Started

Gapers Block went live on April 25, 2003, with a Merge post about the Berghoff adding seats in the bar. The first couple 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.

We launched Airbags, our collection of columns, on Sept. 2, 2003, beginning with Ramsin Canon's Revenge of the Second City, Alice Maggio's Ask the Librarian, Media Warm & Tepid by various authors, and Cinnamon Cooper's One Good Meal.

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.

Vintage Pilsen

Chicago Voz interviews Akito Tsuda, a Japanese photographer who just published a book of photos of Pilsen in the early 1990s.

Best of GB: The Lies

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.

A Tale of Two Cities

In a NYTimes op-ed, Megan Stielstra juxtaposes tonight's Chi-Town Rising event, which was once free but now costs $99-150 to attend, with the protests that are bringing people together for a very different reason. Meanwhile, Rick Perlstein writes in the New Yorker about "The Sudden But Well-Deserved Fall of Rahm Emanuel."

Easy Mistake to Make, Jeb

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."

Chicago Women Who Owned 2015

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.

Get Home Free on New Year's Eve

As usual, the CTA will be free tonight from 10pm to 4am, courtesy of MillerCoors.

Every Tube Down in TubeVille

Comedian Owen Weber takes on trolls in the song "How the Troll Stole YouTube."

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Next Year's CPS Schedule Released

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.

"Empowered Feminist," Empowered

Hale Goetz writes about discovering that photos of her have gone viral on Reddit.

"We can do this here. And we can do this now."

Scott Smith writes in the Beverly Review about why fighting racism and encouraging diversity is an ongoing effort.

Best of GB: Teaching You to Cook

Cinnamon Cooper's column One Good Meal spawned a cookbook, The Everything Cast Iron Cookbook. Try the roast chicken.

Armed Mental Health Counselors

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.

Best of GB: To Be Demolished

In To Be Demolished, David Schalliol's photo series documenting soon-to-be-demolished buildings throughout the city.

"Our Love is the Size of These Tumors Inside Us"

Jennifer Farrell of Starshaped Press created a series of letterpress prints featuring song lyrics inspired by her husband's fight with cancer.