Word was that construction had already started on a new film studio at the Ryerson steel plant on the west side. But the deal is still in the discussion stage, and Cornell University professor Susan Christopherson suggests it may not be a boon for Chicago if it goes through.
The union representing Lyric Opera orchestra members says its options are "narrowing" in negotiations over a new contract. The union charges that its members are being asked to take too much of the brunt of economic hard times, and that management's plans will "diminish the product."
My Kind of Town, John Conroy's unforgiving new play about the Chicago police torture scandal, gets a reading at the Chicago Writers' Bloc New Play Festival.
D. Bradford Hunt's study of the Chicago Housing Authority, Blueprint for Disaster, argues that public housing projects like Cabrini-Green failed because they put too many children in hard-to-access towers.
The Saints board takes disciplinary action against several members--including Deborah Granite, drummed out after 24 years--exposing a schism in the organization that supplies ushers and grants to nonprofit theaters in the Chicago area.
As 4Art Inc prepares to leave its Pilsen location, John Podmajersky III's Chicago Arts District looks more and more like a ghost town. Also: the Chicago Artists Coalition loses its recently appointed executive director in the wake of a Web site crisis.
Painter and musician Mary Barnes-Gingrich donates a suite of four canvases, The Four Seasons, to the Recycled Art benefit at the Art Center in Highland Park. Paintings from the Como Inn restaurant and studies by Tricia Vail are also among many items for sale at the benefit.
Executive director Joan Mazzonelli is out as the Theatre Building Chicago board decides to pursue a new direction; artistic director John Sparks leaves in solidarity.
TenFab Design either quits or is fired by the Burnham Plan Centennial Committee when it goes overdue and over budget on building a Zaha Hadid-designed Burnham Centennial pavilion for Millennium Park.
The board of Circesteem, which uses circus skills to help kids build confidence, has fired its founder, Paul Miller. A second item tells how Donna Gustafsson became the new CEO of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies makes severe cuts, Powell's Bookstores pares down its brick-and-mortar facilities, and John Callaway is remembered.