Author: Emeline Posner

Development | Lit

A City Built on Sludge

An ambitious book chronicles the early years of the South and West Sides’ sewage systems

by 1 day ago

May 11, 1937. The sun is shining through the access manhole above and through floor manholes into the gate chamber. Access to the backwater gates on West Town's outlet sewer section 3 is through the operating gallery above the gate chamber. (Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Archives)

The largest and greatest sludge plant in the world… wasn’t intended to be that way,” Richard Lanyon, former executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), said to a rapt audience, a playful smile spreading across his face. “It just happened.”

Features | Food | Politics | Woodlawn

God’s Little Acres

First Presbyterian Church has fostered community gardens since the nineteenth century. Its now-former pastor nearly put an end to that.

by 2 weeks ago 4 Comments

Jason Schumer

For D’onminique Boyd, it was the 65th Street Community Garden that turned Woodlawn into a home. She had moved there in 2011, and had taken to biking around to familiarize herself with the neighborhood. One morning, she biked by the garden and saw Tony Samford, 65th Street’s “godfather of gardening,” as she would later come to call him, tending to his plot. She asked what he was growing; he told her to come back the next day at 6am, and he would teach her.

Food Issue 2018 | Hyde Park

Z&H Is Dead, Long Live Z&H

An obituary for Hyde Park's do-it-all café

by 3 weeks ago 3 Comments

Ellie Mejía

Last month, a banner unfurled in the windows of a beloved storefront on 57th Street, bearing an announcement that would be a disappointment to some and a relief to others: after a year under new, and failing, management, Zaleski & Horvath MarketCafe was shuttering for good.

Education | Food

The ABCs of Gardening

A national nonprofit brings gardening and learning into Chicago schools

by and 6 months ago

Ellie Mejía

On a rainy and unseasonably cold October day, Sam Koentopp and others from the national nonprofit organization The Kitchen Community (TKC) was leading the kickoff for the Woodlawn Charter School’s new Learning Garden. Every twenty-minute class began in the cafeteria, with a discussion about gardening and the importance of winter crops—crops that are planted not to be harvested, but to keep the soil filled with nutrients over the winter—and continued out in the garden.

Bridgeport | Development | Features | Politics | South Shore

Who Gets to Keep the Gates?

Two aldermen claim to seek to transform parts of South Shore and Bridgeport through zoning, with mixed results

by 10 months ago

71st Street in South Shore (Denise Naim)

Murmurs and greetings circulated through the wood-paneled meeting room of Bryn Mawr Community Church as one hundred South Shore residents settled in for the monthly 5th Ward meeting on May 23.