Official name	City of Chicago
Settlement type	City
Nickname	The Windy City, The Second City, Chi-Town, Hog Butcher for the World, City of Big Shoulders, The City That Works, White City, and others found at List of nicknames for Chicago
Motto	(''City in a Garden''), Make Big Plans (Make No Small Plans), I Will
Named for	("Wild onion")
Website	cityofchicago.org
Image seal	Chicago city seal.png
Map caption	Location in the Chicago metropolitan area and Illinois
Pushpin map	USA2
Pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	US-IL
Unit pref	Imperial
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision type1	State
Subdivision type2	Counties
Subdivision name	USA
Subdivision name1
Subdivision name2	Cook, DuPage
Government type	Mayor–council
Leader title	Mayor
Leader name	Rahm Emanuel (D)
Leader title1	City Council
Leader name1
Leader title2	State House
Leader name2
Leader title3	State Senate
Leader name3
Leader title4	U.S. House
Leader name4
Area magnitude	1 E+8
Area total sq mi	234.0
Area total km2	606.1
Area land sq mi	227.2
Area water sq mi	6.9
Area water percent	3.0
Area urban sq mi	2122.8
Area metro sq mi	10874
Population as of	2010 Census
Population total	2,695,598
Population rank	3rd US
Population urban	8711000
Population metro	9461105
Population density sq mi	11864.4
Population density km2	4447.4
Population demonym	Chicagoan
Timezone	CST
Utc offset	−6
Timezone dst	CDT
Utc offset dst	−5
Area code	312, 773, 872
Elevation ft	597
Latns	N
Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Longew	W
Established title	Settled
Established date	1770s
Established title2	Incorporated
Established date2	March 4, 1837
Footnotes	}}

Chicago ( or , local pronunciation ) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the USA, after New York City and Los Angeles. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland," is the 27th most populous urban agglomeration in the world, the largest in the Great Lakes Megalopolis, and the third largest in the United States, home to an estimated 9.5 million people spread across the US states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second most populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California.

Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, the city retains its status as a major hub for industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. , the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. As of 2010, Chicago's metropolitan area has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amongst world metropolitan areas.

The city is a center for services, business and finance and is listed as one of the world's top ten Global Financial Centers. The World Cities Study Group at Loughborough University rated Chicago as an "alpha world city". In a 2010 survey collaboration between Foreign Policy and A.T Kearney ranking cities, Chicago ranked 6th, just after Paris and Hong Kong. The ranking assesses five dimensions: value of capital markets, diversity of human capital, international information resources, international cultural resources, and political influence. Chicago has been ranked by ''Forbes'' as the world's 5th most economically powerful city. Chicago is a stronghold of the Democratic Party and has been home to many influential politicians, including the current President of the United States, Barack Obama.

The city's notoriety expressed in popular culture is found in novels, plays, movies, songs, various types of journals (for example, sports, entertainment, business, trade, and academic), and the news media. Chicago has numerous nicknames, which reflect the impressions and opinions about historical and contemporary Chicago. The best known include: "Chi-town," "Windy City," "Second City,"|group="footnote"}} and the "City of Big Shoulders."|group="footnote"}} Chicago has also been called "the most American of big cities."

History

During the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, who had taken the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox peoples. The 1780s saw the arrival of the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who is believed to be of African and European (French) descent. In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over by some Native Americans in the Treaty of Greenville to the United States for a military post.

In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in the War of 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn. The Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1804 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were eventually forcibly removed from their land following the Treaty of Chicago in 1833. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of around 200 at that time. Within seven years it would grow to a population of over 4,000. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837.

The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word ''shikaakwa'', translated as "wild onion" or "wild garlic," from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir written about the time. The wild garlic plants, ''Allium tricoccum,'' were described by LaSalle's comrade, naturalist-diarist Henri Joutel, in his journal of LaSalle's last expedition.

As the site of the Chicago Portage, the city emerged as an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, opened in 1848, which also marked the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants abroad. Manufacturing and retail sectors became dominant among Midwestern cities, influencing the American economy, particularly in meatpacking, with the advent of the refrigerated rail car and the regional centrality of the city's Union Stock Yards.

In the 1850s Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas, the champion of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for the nation's presidency at the 1860 Republican National Convention and went on to defeat Douglas in the general election, setting the stage for the American Civil War.

Chicago experienced some of the fastest population growth in the world, requiring infrastructure investments. In February 1856, the Chesbrough plan for the building of Chicago's and the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system was approved by the Common Council. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade. While raising Chicago out of its mud and sewage, and at first improving the health of the city, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, thence into Lake Michigan, polluting the primary source of fresh water for the city. Chicago responded by tunneling two miles (3 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage was largely resolved when the city undertook a major engineering feat. The city reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that water flowed from Lake Michigan into the river, instead of the water flowing from the river into the lake. It began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal leading to the Illinois River which joins the Mississippi River. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed a third of the city, including the entire central business district, Chicago experienced rapid rebuilding and growth. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. Labor conflicts and unrest followed, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886. Concern for social problems among Chicago's lower classes led Jane Addams to be a co-founder of Hull House in 1889. Programs developed there became a model for the new field of social work.

During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago and the state of Illinois together attained national stature as leaders in the movement to improve public health. City and state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera, small pox and yellow fever were not only passed, but also enforced. These in turn became templates for public health reform in many other states. The city invested in many large, well-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate and driving force for improving public health in Chicago was Dr. John H. Rauch, M.D., who established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866, created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with festering, shallow graves, and helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health in 1867 in response to an outbreak of cholera. Ten years later he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago.

In the 19th century, Chicago became an important railroad center and in 1883 the standardized system of North American Time Zones was adopted by the general time convention of railway managers in Chicago. This gave the continent its uniform system for telling time.

In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago was founded in 1892 on the same South Side location. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects Washington and Jackson Parks.

20th and 21st centuries

The 1920s brought notoriety to Chicago as gangsters, including the notorious Al Capone, battled each other and law enforcement on the city streets during the Prohibition era. Chicago had over 1,000 gangs in the 1920s.

The 1920s also saw a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the South. Between 1910 and 1930, the black population of Chicago increased from 44,103 to 233,903. Arriving in the hundreds of thousands during the Great Migration, the newcomers had an immense cultural impact. It was during this wave that Chicago became a center for jazz, with King Oliver leading the way.

In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition Worlds Fair. The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding.

On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project.

Mayor Richard J. Daley was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics. Starting in the early 1960s due to blockbusting, many white residents, as in most American cities, left the city for the suburbs. Whole neighborhoods were completely changed based on race. Structural changes in industry caused heavy losses of jobs for lower skilled workers. In 1966, James Bevel, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Albert Raby led the Chicago Open Housing Movement, which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders. Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside the convention hall, including full-scale riots, or in some cases police riots, in city streets. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower, which in 1974 became the world's tallest building), University of Illinois at Chicago, McCormick Place, and O'Hare International Airport, were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. When Richard J. Daley died, Michael Anthony Bilandic served as mayor for three years. Bilandic's subsequent loss in a primary election has been attributed to the city's inability to properly plow city streets during a heavy snowstorm. In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She popularized the city as a movie location and tourist destination.

In 1983, Harold Washington became the first African American to be elected to the office of mayor, in one of the closest mayoral elections in Chicago. After Washington won the Democratic primary, racial motivations caused a few Democratic alderman and ward committeemen to back the Republican candidate Bernard Epton, who ran on the race-baiting slogan ''Before it's too late''. Washington's term in office saw new attention given to poor and minority neighborhoods. Washington died in office of a heart attack in 1987, shortly after being elected to a second term. Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development. After successfully standing for reelection five times and becoming Chicago's longest serving Mayor, Richard M. Daley announced he would step down at the end of his final term in 2011.

On February 23, 2011, former White House chief of staff and congressman Rahm Emanuel won the municipal election to succeed Daley, beating five rivals with 55 percent of the vote. Emanuel was sworn in as Mayor on May 16, 2011.

Geography

Topography

Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois at the southwestern tip of Lake Michigan. It sits on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds. The city lies beside freshwater Lake Michigan, and two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and the Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow entirely or partially through Chicago. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connects the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River, which runs to the west of the city. Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect, moderating Chicago's climate; making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

When Chicago was founded in 1833, most of the early building began around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas, is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is above sea level. The lowest points are along the lake shore at , while the highest point, at , is a landfill located in the Hegewisch community area on the city's far south side.

The Chicago Loop is the central business district but Chicago is also a city of neighborhoods. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's lakefront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park and Jackson Park. 29 public beaches are also found along the shore. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier, Northerly Island, the Museum Campus, and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings can be found close to the waterfront.

An informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area is ''Chicagoland'', used primarily by copywriters, advertising agencies, and traffic reporters. There is no precise definition for the term "Chicagoland," but it generally means the city and its suburbs together. The Chicago Tribune, which coined the term, includes the city of Chicago, the rest of Cook County, eight nearby Illinois counties: Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Will and Kankakee, and three counties in Indiana: Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The Illinois Department of Tourism defines Chicagoland as Cook County ''without'' the city of Chicago, and only Lake, DuPage, Kane and Will counties. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce defines it as all of Cook and DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

Climate

The city lies within the humid continental climate zone, and experiences four distinct seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with a July daily average of . In a normal summer temperatures exceed on 21 days. Winters are cold, snowy, and windy, with some sunny days, and with a January average of . Temperatures often (43 days) stay below freezing for an entire day, and lows below occur on eight nights per year. Spring and fall are mild seasons with low humidity.

According to the National Weather Service, Chicago's highest official temperature reading of was recorded on June 1, 1934 and July 11, 1936, both at Midway Airport. The lowest temperature of was recorded on January 20, 1985, at O'Hare Airport. The city can experience extreme winter cold spells that may last for several consecutive days.

Cityscape

Architecture

The outcome of the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. Perhaps the most outstanding of these events was the relocation of many of the nation's most prominent architects from New England to the city for construction of the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building, the Home Insurance Building, rose in Chicago, ushering in the skyscraper era. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest and most dense. The nation's two tallest buildings are both located in Chicago; Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), and Trump International Hotel and Tower. The Loop's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building, the Fine Arts Building, 35 East Wacker, and the Chicago Building, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments by Mies van der Rohe, along with many others. The Merchandise Mart, once first on the list of largest buildings in the world, and still listed as 20th with its own ZIP code, stands near the junction of the North and South branches of the Chicago River. Presently, the four tallest buildings in the city are Willis Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. Industrial districts, such as on the South Side, the areas along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Chicago Southland, and Northwest Indiana are clustered. Chicago gave its name to the Chicago School and was home to the Prairie School, movements in architecture. Multiple kinds and scales of houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings can be found in Chicago. Large swaths of Chicago's residential areas away from the lake are characterized by bungalows built from the early 20th century through the end of World War II. Chicago is also a prominent center of the Polish Cathedral style of church architecture. One of Chicago's suburbs, Oak Park, was home to the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had designed The Robie House located near the University of Chicago.

One of the city's most famous thoroughfares, Western Avenue, is one of the longest urban streets in the world. Other famous streets include Belmont Avenue, Pulaski Road, and Division Street. The City Beautiful movement inspired Chicago's Boulevards and Parkways.

Culture and contemporary life

The city's waterfront allure and nightlife has attracted residents and tourists alike. Over one-third of the city population is concentrated in the lakefront neighborhoods (from Rogers Park in the north to South Shore in the south). The city has many upscale dining establishments as well as many ethnic restaurant districts. These districts include the Mexican villages, such as Pilsen along 18th street, and ''La Villita'' along 26th Street, the Puerto Rican enclave ''Paseo Boricua'' in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, "Greektown" along South Halsted St, "Little Italy" along Taylor St, "Chinatown, Chicago" on the South Side, ''"Polish Patches"'' in Avondale and Belmont-Central, "Little Seoul" around Lawrence Avenue, a cluster of Vietnamese restaurants on Argyle Street, and South Asian (Indian/Pakistani) along Devon Avenue.

Downtown is the center of Chicago's financial, cultural, and commercial institutions and home to Grant Park and many of the city's skyscrapers. Many of the city's financial institutions (for example, CBOT, Chicago Fed) are located within a section of downtown called "The Loop", which is an eight block by five block square of city streets that are encircled by elevated rail tracks. The term "The Loop" is largely used to refer to the entire downtown area as well. The central area includes the Near North Side, the Near South Side, and the Near West Side, as well as the Loop. These areas contribute famous skyscrapers, abundant restaurants, shopping, museums, a stadium for the Chicago Bears, convention facilities, parkland, and beaches.

The North Side is the most densely populated section of the city outside of downtown and many high-rises line this side of the city along the lakefront. Lincoln Park is a park stretching for along the waterfront and containing the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lincoln Park Conservatory. The River North neighborhood features the nation's largest concentration of contemporary art galleries outside of New York City. As a Polonia center, due to the city having a very large Polish population, Chicago celebrates every Labor Day weekend at the Taste of Polonia Festival in the Jefferson Park area. The Chicago Cubs play in the North Side's Wrigleyville district.

The South Side is home to the University of Chicago (UC), ranked one of the world's top ten universities; and the Museum of Science and Industry. Burnham Park stretches along the waterfront of the South Side. Two of the city's largest parks are also located on this side of the city: Jackson Park, bordering the waterfront, hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and is home of the aforementioned museum; and slightly west sits Washington Park. The two parks themselves are connected by a wide strip of parkland called the Midway Plaisance, running adjacent to the UC. The South Side hosts one of the city's largest parades, the annual African American Bud Billiken Day parade. The American automaker Ford Motor Company has an assembly plant located on the South Side, and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago are here. The Chicago White Sox play in the South Side's Armour Square neighborhood.

The West Side holds the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest collections of tropical plants of any US city. Prominent Latino cultural attractions found here include Humboldt Park's Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Puerto Rican Day Parade, as well as the National Museum of Mexican Art and St. Adalbert's Church in Pilsen. The Near West Side holds the television production company of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks play on Madison Street.

Entertainment, the arts, and performing arts

Chicago's theatre community spawned modern improvisational theatre. Two renowned comedy troupes emerged—The Second City and I.O. (formerly known as ImprovOlympic). Renowned Chicago theater companies include the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (on the city's north side), the Goodman Theatre, and the Victory Gardens Theater. Chicago offers Broadway-style entertainment at theaters such as Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, Bank of America Theatre, Cadillac Palace Theatre, Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, and Drury Lane Theatre Water Tower Place. Polish language productions for Chicago's large Polish speaking population can be seen at the historic Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park. Since 1968, the Joseph Jefferson Awards are given annually to acknowledge excellence in theater in the Chicago area.

Classical music offerings include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, recognized as one of the best orchestras in the world, which performs at Symphony Center. Also performing regularly at Symphony Center is the Chicago Sinfonietta, a more diverse and multicultural counterpart to the CSO. In the summer, many outdoor concerts are given in Grant Park and Millennium Park. Ravinia Park, located north of Chicago, is also a favorite destination for many Chicagoans, with performances occasionally given in Chicago locations such as the Harris Theater. The Civic Opera House is home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lithuanian Opera Company of Chicago was founded by Lithuanian Chicagoans in 1956, and presents operas in Lithuanian. It celebrated fifty years of existence in 2006, and operates as a not-for-profit organization. It is noteworthy for performing the rarely staged Rossini's ''William Tell'' (1986) and Ponchielli's ''I Lituani'' (1981, 1983 and 1991), and also for contributing experienced chorus members to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The opera ''Jūratė and Kastytis'' by Kazimieras Viktoras Banaitis was presented in Chicago in 1996.

The Joffrey Ballet and Chicago Festival Ballet perform in various venues, including the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Chicago is home to several other modern and jazz dance troupes, such as the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Other live music genre which are part of the city's cultural heritage include Chicago blues, Chicago soul, jazz, and gospel. The city is the birthplace of house music and is the site of an influential hip-hop scene. In the 1980s, the city was a center for industrial, punk and new wave. This influence continued into the alternative rock of the 1990s. The city has been an epicenter for rave culture since the 1980s. A flourishing independent rock music culture brought forth Chicago indie. Annual festivals feature various acts such as Lollapalooza, the Intonation Music Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival.

Chicago has a distinctive fine art tradition. For much of the twentieth century it nurtured a strong style of figurative surrealism, as in the works of Ivan Albright and Ed Paschke. In 1968 and 1969, members of the Chicago Imagists, such as Roger Brown, Leon Golub, Robert Lostutter, Jim Nutt, and Barbara Rossi produced bizarre representational paintings. Today Robert Guinan paints gritty realistic portraits of Chicago people which are popular in Paris, although he is little known in Chicago itself.

Chicago is home to a number of large, outdoor works by well known artists. These include the Chicago Picasso, ''Miró's Chicago'', ''Flamingo'' and ''Flying Dragon'' by Alexander Calder, ''Monument with Standing Beast'' by Jean Dubuffet, ''Batcolumn'' by Claes Oldenburg, ''Cloud Gate'' by Anish Kapoor, ''Crown Fountain'' by Jaume Plensa, and the ''Four Seasons'' mosaic by Marc Chagall.

Tourism

, Chicago attracted 32.4 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.7 million domestic business travelers and 1.3 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, there is the reflective ''Cloud Gate'' sculpture. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.

Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. Its tall Ferris wheel is one of the most visited landmarks in the Midwest, attracting about 8 million people annually.

In 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications and the Museum of Science and Industry.

The top activity while visitors tour Chicago for leisure is entertainment, approximately 33% of all leisure travelers. Facilities such as McCormick Place and the Chicago Theatre contribute to this percentage.

Parks

When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto ''Urbs in Horto'', a Latin phrase which translates into English as "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of 552 parks with over of municipal parkland. There are 33 sand Chicago beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, 16 historic lagoons, and 10 bird and wildlife gardens. Lincoln Park, the largest of the city's parks, covers and has over 20 million visitors each year, making it second only to Central Park in New York City in number of visitors. With berths for more than 5,000 boats, the Chicago Park District operates the nation's largest municipal harbor system; even larger than systems in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, or Miami. In addition to ongoing beautification and renewal projects for the existing parks, a number of new parks have been added in recent years, such as the Ping Tom Memorial Park in Chinatown, DuSable Park on the Near North Side, and most notably, Millennium Park in a section of one of Chicago's oldest parks, Grant Park in the Chicago Loop.

The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's periphery, home to both the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe and the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield.

Cuisine

Chicago lays claim to a large number of regional specialties, all of which reflect the city's ethnic and working class roots. Included among these are its nationally renowned deep-dish pizza, This style is said to have originated at Pizzeria Uno. The Chicago-style thin crust is popular in the city as well.

The Chicago-style hot dog, typically a Vienna Beef dog loaded with an array of fixings that often includes neon green pickle relish, yellow mustard, pickled sport peppers, tomato wedges, dill pickle spear and topped off with celery salt all on a S. Rosen's poppy seed bun. Ketchup on a Chicago hot dog is frowned upon by enthusiasts of the Chicago-style dog, but may prefer to add giardiniera.

There are several distinctly Chicago sandwiches, among them the Italian beef sandwich, which is thinly sliced beef slowly simmered au jus and served on an Italian roll with sweet peppers or spicy giardiniera. A popular modification is the Combo – an Italian beef sandwich with the addition of an Italian sausage. Another is the Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled or deep-fried kielbasa – on a hot dog roll, topped with grilled onions, yellow mustard, and hot sport peppers.

Ethnically originated creations include chicken Vesuvio, with roasted bone-in chicken cooked in oil and garlic next to garlicky oven-roasted potato wedges and a sprinkling of green peas. Another is the Puerto Rican-influenced jibarito, a sandwich made with flattened, fried green plantains instead of bread. There is also the tamale with chile, Mother-in-law sandwich. Yet another is the Greek saganaki, an appetizer of cheese served flambé at the table.

The Taste of Chicago in Grant Park runs from the final week of June through Fourth of July weekend. Hundreds of local restaurants take part.

A number of well-known chefs have restaurants in Chicago, including Charlie Trotter, Rick Tramonto, Grant Achatz, and Rick Bayless. In 2003, Robb Report named Chicago the country's "most exceptional dining destination."

The city is home to 23 Michelin starred restaurants, with Alinea and L2O receiving three stars.

Chicago features a wide selection of vegetarian cuisine, with 22 fully vegetarian restaurants and many vegetarian-friendly establishments within the city.

Religion

Due to its cosmopolitan history, Chicago has a rich blend of religious heritage as displayed by the architecture and institutions throughout the city. Christianity is predominant among the city's population represented by the various denominations including Catholic, Protestant, Oriental and Orthodox churches. The city also includes adherents of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and the Bahá'í, among others. Because of this diversity, Chicago has a wealth of sacred architecture.

Through the city's size and notoriety, it has gained recognition as a religious center. The city played host to the first two Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 and 1993. Chicago contains many theological institutions, which include seminaries and colleges such as the Moody Bible Institute and DePaul University. Chicago is the seat of numerous religious leaders from a host of bishops of a wide array of Christian denominations as well as other religions. In the northern suburb of Wilmette, Illinois, is the Bahá'í Temple, the only temple for the Bahá'í Faith in North America.

Numerous prominent religious leaders have visited the city, including the Lama and Mother Teresa. Pope John Paul II visited Chicago in 1979 as part of his first trip to the United States after being elected to the Papacy in 1978.

Sports

Chicago was named the ''Best Sports City'' in the United States by ''The Sporting News'' in 1993, 2006, 2010. The city is home to two Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Chicago Cubs of the National League (NL), who play in Wrigley Field on the North Side, and the Chicago White Sox of the American League (AL), who play in U.S. Cellular Field on the South Side. Chicago is the only city that has had more than one MLB franchise every year since the AL began in 1901. The Chicago Bears, one of the last two remaining charter members of the National Football League (NFL), have won nine NFL Championships, including Super Bowl XX. The other remaining charter franchise, the Chicago Cardinals, also started out in the city, but are now known as the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears play their home games at Soldier Field just off the coast of Lake Michigan. The Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) are one of the most recognized basketball teams in the world. During the 1990s with Michael Jordan leading them, the Bulls took six NBA championships in eight seasons. The Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL), who began play in 1926, and are one of the "Original Six," teams of the National Hockey League (NHL), have won four Stanley Cups. The Blackhawks are the 2010 Stanley Cup champions, and hosted the 2009 NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. Both the Bulls and Blackhawks play at the United Center on the Near West Side. The Chicago Rush has been a member of the Arena Football League since 2001 and won ArenaBowl XX. The team plays in suburban Rosemont. Chicago was also home to the Chicago Bruisers, and original member of the AFL. The Chicago Fire are members of Major League Soccer and reside at Toyota Park in suburban Bridgeview, after playing its first eight seasons at Soldier Field. The Fire have won one league title and four U.S. Open Cups since their founding in 1997.

While four of the five major franchises have won championships within recent time: The Bears (1985), The Bulls (91, '92, '93, '96, '97, and '98), The White Sox (2005), and The Blackhawks (2010), the Chicago Cubs are known for their drought of over 100 years without a championship (Currently 103 years as of the 2011 MLB Season). The last time the Cubs were in a world series was 1945. Local lore amongst Cubs fans often claims the Curse of the Billy goat is responsible for the drought.

The Chicago Marathon has been held each year since 1977 except for in 1987, when a half marathon was run in its place. The Chicago Marathon is one of five World Marathon Majors. In 1994, the United States hosted a successful FIFA World Cup with games played at Soldier Field on Chicago's downtown lakefront. After a months long process that saw the elimination of several American and international cities, Chicago was selected on April 14, 2007, to represent the United States internationally in the bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Chicago had previously hosted the 1959 Pan American Games and the 2006 Gay Games. Chicago was selected to host the 1904 Olympics, but they were transferred to St. Louis to coincide with the World's Fair. On June 4, 2008, the International Olympic Committee narrowed the field further and selected Chicago as one of four candidate cities for the 2016 games. On October 2, 2009, Rio de Janeiro was selected instead of Chicago.

Starting just off Navy Pier is Chicago Yacht Club's Race to Mackinac, a offshore sailboat race held each July that is the longest annual freshwater sailing distance race in the world. 2010 marks the 102nd running of the "Mac".

At the collegiate level, the greater Chicago area and has four national athletic conferences represented, the Big East Conference with DePaul University, and the Big Ten Conference with Northwestern University in Evanston are premier national conferences. Loyola University Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago play Division I sports as members of the Horizon League.

Literature

Chicago literature found its roots in the city's tradition of lucid, direct journalism, lending to a strong tradition of social realism. Consequently, most notable Chicago fiction focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check. Writers such as Mike Royko, Studs Terkel, Stuart Dybek, Carl Sandburg, James T. Farrell, Upton Sinclair, Saul Bellow, John Guzlowski, Sandra Cisneros Nelson Algren and Finley Peter Dunne have all drawn the city's literary portrait in diverse ways, united by the fact that their observations brought the world's attention to focus on Chicago.

Media

The Chicago metropolitan area is the third-largest media market in North America, after New York City and Los Angeles. Each of the big four U.S. television networks, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox, directly owns and operates a high-definition television station in Chicago (WBBM, WLS, WMAQ and WFLD, respectively). WGN-TV, which is owned by the Tribune Company, is carried with some programming differences, as "WGN America" on cable and satellite TV nationwide and in parts of the Caribbean. The city is also the home of several talk shows, including ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' on WLS-TV, while Chicago Public Radio produces programs such as PRI's ''This American Life'' and NPR's ''Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'' Chicago's PBS station can be seen on WTTW, producer of shows, such as ''Sneak Previews'', ''The Frugal Gourmet'', ''Lamb Chop's Play-Along'' and ''The McLaughlin Group'', just to name a few and WYCC.

There are two major daily newspapers published in Chicago, the ''Chicago Tribune'' and the ''Chicago Sun-Times'', with the former having the larger circulation. There are also several regional and special-interest newspapers and magazines, such as ''Chicago'', the ''Dziennik Związkowy (Polish Daily News)'', ''Draugas'' (the Lithuanian daily newspaper), the ''Chicago Reader'', the ''SouthtownStar'', the ''Chicago Defender'', the ''Daily Herald'', ''Newcity'', ''StreetWise'' and the ''Windy City Times''. The entertainment and cultural magazine ''Time Out Chicago'' is also published in the city.

Chicago is a filming-friendly location. Since the 1980s, many motion pictures have been filmed in the city, most notably ''The Blues Brothers'', ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'', ''Home Alone'', ''The Fugitive'', ''Blade: Trinity'', ''I, Robot'', ''Wanted'', ''Batman Begins'', ''The Dark Knight'', and ''Transformers: Dark of the Moon''.

Chicago has also been the setting for many popular television shows. Chicago-based TV shows include the situation comedies ''Perfect Strangers'' and its spinoff ''Family Matters'' and ''The Bob Newhart Show''. The city served as the venue for the medical dramas ''ER'' and ''Chicago Hope'', as well as the science fiction drama series ''Early Edition''. Discovery Channel films two shows in Chicago: ''Cook County Jail'' and the Chicago version of ''Cash Cab''.

Chicago is also home to a number of national radio shows, including ''Beyond the Beltway'' with Bruce DuMont on Sunday evenings.

Economy

Chicago has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—approximately US$506 billion according to 2007 estimates. The city has also been rated as having the most balanced economy in the United States, due to its high level of diversification. Chicago was named the fourth most important business center in the world in the MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index. Additionally, the Chicago metropolitan area recorded the greatest number of new or expanded corporate facilities in the United States for six out of the seven years from 2001 to 2008. The Chicago metropolitan area has the third largest science and engineering work force of any metropolitan area in the nation. In 2009, Chicago placed 9th on the UBS list of the world's richest cities. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists John Crerar, John Whitfield Bunn, Richard Teller Crane, Marshall Field, John Farwell, Morris Selz, Julius Rosenwald and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry.

Chicago is a major world financial center, with the second largest central business district in the US. The city is the headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (the Seventh District of the Federal Reserve). The city is also home to major financial and futures exchanges, including the Chicago Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (the "Merc"), which is owned, along with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) by Chicago's CME Group. The CME Group, in addition, owns the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the Commodities Exchange Inc. (COMEX) and the Dow Jones Indexes. Perhaps due to the influence of the Chicago school of economics, the city also has markets trading unusual contracts such as emissions (on the Chicago Climate Exchange) and equity style indices (on the U.S. Futures Exchange). Chase Bank has its commercial and retail banking headquarters in Chicago's Chase Tower.

The city and its surrounding metropolitan area are home to the second largest labor pool in the United States with approximately 4.25 million workers. In addition, the state of Illinois is home to 66 Fortune 1000 companies, including those in Chicago. The city of Chicago also hosts 12 Fortune Global 500 companies and 17 Financial Times 500 companies. The city claims one Dow 30 company: aerospace giant Boeing, which moved its headquarters from Seattle to the Chicago Loop in 2001. Two more Dow 30 companies, Kraft Foods and McDonalds are in Chicago suburbs, as are Sears Holdings Corporation and the technology spin-offs of Motorola. Chicago is also home to United Continental Holdings and its United Airlines.

Manufacturing, printing, publishing and food processing also play major roles in the city's economy. Several medical products and services companies are headquartered in the Chicago area, including Baxter International, Boeing, Abbott Laboratories, and the Healthcare Financial Services division of General Electric. Moreover, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which helped move goods from the Great Lakes south on the Mississippi River, and of the railroads in the 19th century made the city a major transportation center in the United States. In the 1840s, Chicago became a major grain port, and in the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry expanded. As the major meat companies grew in Chicago many, such as Armour and Company, created global enterprises. Though the meatpacking industry currently plays a lesser role in the city's economy, Chicago continues to be a major transportation and distribution center. Lured by a combination of large business customers, federal research dollars, and a large hiring pool fed by the area's universities, Chicago is also home to a growing number of web startup companies like CareerBuilder, Orbitz, 37signals, Groupon, and Feedburner.

Late in the 19th century, Chicago was part of the bicycle craze, as home to Western Wheel Company, which introduced stamping to the production process and significantly reduced costs, while early in the 20th century, the city was part of the automobile revolution, hosting the Brass Era car builder Bugmobile, which was founded there in 1907. Chicago was also home to the Schwinn Bicycle Company.

Chicago is a major world convention destination. The city's main convention center is McCormick Place. With its four interconnected buildings, it is the largest convention center in the nation and third largest in the world. Chicago also ranks third in the U.S. (behind Las Vegas and Orlando) in number of conventions hosted annually.

Demographics

During its first 100 years, Chicago was one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. When founded in 1833, less than 200 people had settled on what was then the American frontier. By the time of its first census, seven years later, the population had reached over 4000. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 in 1850 to over 1 million by 1890. By the close of the 19th century, Chicago was the fifth largest city in the world, and the largest of the cities that did not exist at the dawn of the century. Within sixty years of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the population went from about 300,000 to over 3 million, and reached its highest ever-recorded population of 3.6 million for the 1950 census.

As of the 2010 census, there were 2,695,598 people with 1,045,560 households residing within Chicago. More than half the population of the state of Illinois lives in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago is also one of the nation's most densely populated major cities. The racial composition of the city was:

45.0% White (31.7% non-Hispanic whites)

32.9% Black or African American

13.4% from some other race

5.5% Asian (1.6% Chinese, 1.1% Indian, 1.1% Filipino, 0.4% Korean, 0.3% Pakistani, 0.3% Vietnamese, 0.2% Japanese, 0.1% Thai)

2.7% from two or more races

0.5% American Indian

Chicago has a Hispanic or Latino population of 28.9%. (Its members may belong to any race; 21.4% Mexican, 3.8% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Guatemalan, 0.6% Ecuadorian, 0.3% Cuban, 0.3% Colombian, 0.2% Honduran, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Peruvian)

Based on Census data from 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $38,625, and the median income for a family was $42,724. Males had a median income of $35,907 versus $30,536 for females. About 16.6% of families and 19.6% of the population lived below the poverty line.

According to the 2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates for Total Ancestry Reported, for the city of Chicago, the majority of residents, or 64% of 2,986,974 people, reported their ancestry as "other groups". Of the 36% of residents that reported their ancestries in groups that were measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest groups, based on the total population, were: Irish (6.6%); German (6.5%); Polish (5.8%); Italian (3.5%); Assyrian (3.5%); English (2.0%); Sub-Saharan African (1.2%); American (1.1%); Filipino (1.0%); Russian (0.97%); Swedish (0.91%); French (except Basque) (0.9%); Arab (0.7%); Greek (0.6%); Dutch (0.5%); Norwegian (0.5%); Scottish (0.5%); European (0.5%); West Indian (0.5%); Lithuanian (0.4%); Ukrainian (0.38%); Czech (0.4%); Hungarian (0.3%); Scotch-Irish (0.2%); Welsh (0.2%); Danish (0.2%); French Canadian (0.2%); Slovak (0.2%); British (0.1%); Swiss (0.1%); and Portuguese (0.1%). The city also has a large Assyrian population numbering between 80,000–120,000, and it is the location of the seat of the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV.

Law and government

Chicago is the county seat of Cook County. The government of the City of Chicago is divided into executive and legislative branches. The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive, elected by general election for a term of four years, with no term limits. The mayor appoints commissioners and other officials who oversee the various departments. In addition to the mayor, Chicago's two other citywide elected officials are the clerk and the treasurer.

The City Council is the legislative branch and is made up of 50 aldermen, one elected from each ward in the city. The council enacts local ordinances and approves the city budget. Government priorities and activities are established in a budget ordinance usually adopted each November. The council takes official action through the passage of ordinances and resolutions.

During much of the last half of the 19th century, Chicago's politics were dominated by a growing Democratic Party organization dominated by ethnic ward-heelers. During the 1880s and 1890s, Chicago had a powerful radical tradition with large and highly organized socialist, anarchist and labor organizations. For much of the 20th century, Chicago has been among the largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds in the United States, with Chicago's Democratic vote the state of Illinois has been "solid blue" in presidential elections since 1992. The citizens of Chicago have not elected a Republican mayor since 1927, when William Thompson was voted into office. The strength of the party in the city is partly a consequence of Illinois state politics, where the Republicans have come to represent the rural and farm concerns while the Democrats support urban issues such as Chicago's public school funding. Chicago contains close to 25% of the state's population, and as such, eight of Illinois' 19 U.S. Representatives have part of Chicago in their districts.

Former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley's mastery of machine politics preserved the Chicago Democratic Machine long after the demise of similar machines in other large U.S. cities. During much of that time, the city administration found opposition mainly from a liberal "independent" faction of the Democratic Party. The independents finally gained control of city government in 1983 with the election of Harold Washington. From 1989 until May 16, 2011, Chicago was under the leadership of Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. Daley. Because of the dominance of the Democratic Party in Chicago, the Democratic primary vote held in the spring is generally more significant than the general elections in November for U S House and Illinois State seats. The aldermanic, mayoral, and other city offices are filled through nonpartisan elections with runoffs if needed. On May 16, 2011, Rahm Emanuel was sworn in as the 55th mayor of Chicago, ending a 22-year era led by Richard M. Daley.

City planning

Chicago has four main sections: Downtown (which contains the Loop), the North Side, the South Side, and the West Side. The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white strips. These sections can further be informally subdivided or grouped, for example as shown on the map (right). Further sectional references are the Northwest side and the Southwest side. In the late 1920s, sociologists at the University of Chicago subdivided the city into 77 distinct community areas, which can further be subdivided into over 200 neighborhoods.

The central commercial area often is portrayed, as in the map at right, to include parts of Near North Side and Near South Side, as well as the Loop. The North Side is the most densely populated residential section of the city and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the city's land area. The South Side contains the University of Chicago and most of the facilities of the Port of Chicago.

Chicago's streets were laid out in a street grid that grew from the city's original townsite plat. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections. As new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and 16 in the other direction. The grid's regularity would provide an efficient means to develop new real estate property. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Indian trails, also cross the city. Many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed.

Crime

Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders when the city's population was over three million people (resulting in a murder rate of around 29 per 100,000), and again in 1992 with 943 murders, resulting in a murder rate of 34 per 100,000. Chicago, along with other major US cities, experienced a significant reduction in violent crime rates through the 1990s, eventually recording 448 homicides in 2004, the lowest total since 1965 (15.65 per 100,000.) Chicago's homicide tally remained steady throughout 2005, 2006, and 2007 with 449, 452, and 435 respectively.

In 2008, murders rebounded to 510, 2nd highest in the country, breaking 500 for the first time since 2003. For 2009 the murder count was down about 10% for the year, to 458.

2010 saw Chicago's murder rate at its lowest levels since 1965. Overall, 435 homicides were recorded for the year, a 5% decrease from 2009.

Education

Schools and libraries

There are 675 public schools, 394 private schools, 83 colleges, and 88 libraries in Chicago. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the governing body of the school district that contains over 600 public elementary and high schools citywide, including several selective-admission magnet schools. There are 9 selective enrollment high schools in the Chicago Public Schools. They are designed to meet the needs of Chicago’s most academically advanced students. The schools offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Northside College Preparatory High School is ranked number one in the city of Chicago. Walter Payton College Prep High School is ranked number two. The Chicago high school rankings are determined by the average test scores on state achievement tests. The oldest magnet school in the City of Chicago, Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, was opened in 1975, and was attended by the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. The district, with an enrollment exceeding 400,000 students (2005 stat.), ranks as the third largest in the US

Chicago's private schools are largely run by religious groups, with the two largest systems being the Catholic and Lutheran schools. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates the city's Catholic schools, including the Jesuit preparatory schools. Some of the more prominent Catholic schools are: De La Salle Institute, Gordon Technical High School, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Brother Rice High School, St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, St. Scholastica Academy, Mount Carmel High School, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Patrick High School and Resurrection High School. In addition to Chicago's network of 32 Lutheran schools, there are also several private schools run by other denominations and faiths, such as the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in West Ridge. Additionally, a number of private schools are run in a completely secular educational environment, such as the Latin School of Chicago, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Hyde Park, the Francis W. Parker School, the Chicago City Day School in Lake View, the Feltre School in River North and the Morgan Park Academy. Chicago is also home of the private Chicago Academy for the Arts, a high school focused on six different categories of the arts, such as Media Arts, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Musical Theatre and Theatre.

The Chicago Public Library system operates 79 public libraries including the central library, two regional libraries, and numerous branches distributed throughout the city.

Colleges and universities

Since the 1850s, Chicago has been a world center of higher education and research with several universities that are in the city proper or in the immediate environs. These institutions consistently rank among the top "National Universities" in the United States, as determined by ''U.S. News & World Report''. Top Universities in Chicago are: University of Chicago; Northwestern University; DePaul University; Illinois Institute of Technology; and University of Illinois at Chicago. Other selective national universities include Loyola University Chicago;. Other notable schools include: Chicago State University; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago; East–West University; National-Louis University; North Park University; Northeastern Illinois University; Columbia College Chicago; Robert Morris University; Roosevelt University; Saint Xavier University; Dominican University; and Rush University.

William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the creation of the junior college concept, establishing nearby Joliet Junior College as the first in the nation in 1901. His legacy continues with the multiple community colleges in the Chicago proper, including the seven City Colleges of Chicago, Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy–King College, Malcolm X College, Olive–Harvey College, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College, in addition to the privately held MacCormac College.

Chicago proper also has a large concentration of graduate schools, seminaries and theological schools such as the Adler School of Professional Psychology, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Catholic Theological Union, Moody Bible Institute and the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Public health

Although Chicago as a whole is in compliance with federal laws regulating particulates many areas of the city have high concentrations of soot from diesel exhaust.

Transportation

Chicago is a major transportation hub in the United States. It is an important component in global distribution, as it is the third largest inter-modal port in the world after Hong Kong and Singapore.

Rail

Six of the seven Class I railroads meet in Chicago, with the exception being the Kansas City Southern Railway. As of 2002, severe freight train congestion caused trains to take as long to get through the Chicago region as it took to get there from the West Coast of the country (about 2 days). About one-third of the country's freight trains pass through the city, making it a major national bottleneck. Announced in 2003, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) initiative is using about $1.5B in private railroad, state, local, and federal funding to improve rail infrastructure in the region to reduce freight rail congestion by about one third. This is also expected to have a positive impact on passenger rail and road congestion, as well as create new greenspace.

Chicago is one of the largest hubs of passenger rail service in the nation. Many Amtrak long distance services originate from Union Station. The services terminate in San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York City, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee, Quincy, St. Louis, Carbondale, Boston, Grand Rapids, Port Huron, Pontiac, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. An attempt was made in the early 20th century to link Chicago with New York City via the Chicago – New York Electric Air Line Railroad. Parts of this were built, but it was ultimately never completed.

Metra provides commuter rail service. It has 11 lines radiating north, west and south.

Expressways

Nine interstate highways run through Chicago and its suburbs. Segments that link to the city center are named after influential politicians, with three of them named after former U.S. Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan) and one named after two-time Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. When referring to the expressways, local citizens tend to use the names of the expressways rather than the interstate numbers, primarily because the names denote certain sections of the interstate(s).

The Kennedy Expressway and the Dan Ryan Expressway are the busiest state maintained routes in the City of Chicago and its suburbs.

Public transportation

The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) coordinates the operation of the three service boards: CTA, Metra, and Pace.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) handles public transportation in the city of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs outside of the Chicago city limits. The CTA operates an extensive network of buses and a rapid transit elevated and subway system known as the 'L' (for "elevated"), with lines designated by colors. These rapid transit lines also serve both Midway and O'Hare Airports. The CTA's rail lines consist of the Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. Both the Red and Blue lines offer 24 hour service which makes Chicago one of the few cities in the world (and one of only three cities in the United States of America) to offer rail service every day of the year for 24 hours around the clock. A new rapid transit line, the Circle Line, is also in the planning stages by the CTA.

Metra, the nation's second-most used passenger regional rail network, operates an 11-line commuter rail service in Chicago and its suburbs. The Metra Electric Line shares its trackage with Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's South Shore Line, which provides commuter service between South Bend and Chicago. Pace provides bus and paratransit service in over 200 surrounding suburbs with some extensions into the city as well. A 2005 study found that one quarter of commuters used public transit.

Greyhound Lines provides inter-city bus service to and from the city, and Chicago is also the hub for the Midwest network of Megabus (North America).

Cycling

Chicago offers a wide array of bicycle transportation facilities and events, including several miles of on-street bike lanes, 10,000 bike racks, of bike route signage, a state-of-the-art central bicycle commuter station in Millennium Park and the annual Bike Chicago festival. The network has of on-street bike lanes and of off-street trails. Bicycles are permitted on CTA trains and their fleet of over 2,000 buses that have been equipped with racks that carry bikes. The successes of the Bike Program are due in large part to Mayor Daley's leadership and the incorporation of bicycling into the mandates and programs of the Chicago Department of Transportation, CTA, Chicago Park District and the Mayor's Office of Special Events, in partnership with the Active Transportation Alliance. The Chicago Park District maintains an multi-use path, popular with bicycle commuters, along Lake Michigan called the Lakefront Trail.

Walkability

A 2011 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the fourth most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States.

Air transportation

Chicago is served by Midway International Airport on the South Side and O'Hare International Airport, the world's third busiest airport, on the far Northwest Side. In 2005, O'Hare was the world's busiest airport by aircraft movements and the second busiest by total passenger traffic (due to government enforced flight caps). Both O'Hare and Midway are owned and operated by the City of Chicago. Gary/Chicago International Airport and Chicago Rockford International Airport, located in nearby Gary, Indiana and Rockford, Illinois, respectively, serve as alternate Chicago area airports. Chicago is the world headquarters for United Airlines, the world's second-largest airline by revenue-passenger-kilometers and the city is a hub for American Airlines.In 2010 United Airlines merged with Continental to create the world's largest airline, moving ahead of Delta, known as United Continental Holdings with world headquarters in Chicago. Midway is a hub for low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines.

Port

The Port of Chicago consists of several major port facilities within the city of Chicago operated by the Illinois International Port District (formerly known as the Chicago Regional Port District). The central element of the Port District, Calumet Harbor, is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Facilities

Iroquois Landing Lakefront Terminal: at the mouth of the Calumet River, it includes of warehouses and facilities on Lake Michigan with over 780,000 square meters (8,390,000 square feet) of storage. Lake Calumet terminal: located at the union of the Grand Calumet River and Little Calumet River inland from Lake Michigan. Includes three transit sheds totaling over 29,000 square meters (315,000 square feet) adjacent to over 900 linear meters (3000 linear feet) of ship and barge berthing.

Grain (14 million bushels) and bulk liquid (800,000 barrels) storage facilities along Lake Calumet.

The Illinois International Port district also operates Foreign trade zone #22, which extends from Chicago's city limits.

Infrastructure

Utilities

Electricity for most of northern Illinois is provided by Commonwealth Edison, also known as ComEd. Their service territory borders Iroquois County to the south, the Wisconsin border to the north, the Iowa border to the west and the Indiana border to the east. In northern Illinois, ComEd (a division of Exelon) operates the greatest number of nuclear generating plants in any US state. Because of this, ComEd reports indicate that Chicago receives about 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Recently, the city started the installation of wind turbines on government buildings with the aim to promote the use of renewable energy.

Natural Gas is provided by Peoples Gas, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, which is headquartered in Chicago.

Domestic and industrial waste was once incinerated but it is now landfilled, mainly in the Calumet area. From 1995 to 2008, the city had a blue bag program to divert certain refuse from landfills. In the fall of 2007 the city began a pilot program for blue bin recycling similar to that of other cities due to low participation rates in the blue bag program. After completion of the pilot the city will determine whether to roll it out to all wards.

Health systems

Chicago is home to the Illinois Medical District, on the Near West Side. It includes Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, the largest trauma-center in the city.

The University of Chicago Medical Center was ranked the 14th best hospital in the country by ''U.S. News & World Report''. It is the only hospital in Illinois ever to be included in the magazine's "Honor Roll" of the best hospitals in the United States.

The Chicago campus of Northwestern University includes the Feinberg School of Medicine; Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which is ranked as the best hospital in the Chicago metropolitan area by ''U.S. News & World Report'' for 2010–11; the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which is ranked the best U.S. rehabilitation hospital by ''U.S. News & World Report''; the new Prentice Women's Hospital; and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, which is currently under construction.

The University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC is the largest medical school in the United States (2,600 students including those at campuses in Peoria, Rockford and Urbana–Champaign).

In addition, the Chicago Medical School and Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine are located in the suburbs of North Chicago and Maywood, respectively. The Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine is in Downers Grove.

The American Medical Association, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, American Osteopathic Association, American Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry, American Dietetic Association, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American College of Surgeons, American Society for Clinical Pathology, American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Hospital Association, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association are all based in Chicago.

Telecommunications

Using only 3% of the total available bandwidth capacity and 13% of the available fiber pairs, Chicago area data centers move data for local, area, regional and international networks.

Sister cities

Chicago has 28 Sister Cities. Like Chicago, many of them are or were, the second city of their country, or they are the main city of a country that has had many immigrants settle in Chicago. Paris is a ''Partner City'', due to the one sister city policy of their respective French commune.

To celebrate the sister cities, Chicago hosts a yearly festival in Daley Plaza, which features cultural acts and food tastings from the other cities. In addition, the Chicago Sister Cities program hosts a number of delegation and formal exchanges. In some cases, these exchanges have led to further informal collaborations, such as the academic relationship between the Buehler Center on Aging, Health & Society at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and the Institute of Gerontology of Ukraine (originally of the Soviet Union), that was originally established as part of the Chicago-Kiev sister cities program.

Partner City Paris (France) ''1996'' Sister Cities Warsaw (Poland) ''1960'' Milan (Italy) ''1973'' Osaka (Japan) ''1973'' Casablanca (Morocco) ''1982'' Shanghai (China) ''1985'' Shenyang (China) ''1985'' Gothenburg (Sweden) ''1987'' Accra (Ghana) ''1989'' Prague (Czech Republic) ''1990'' Kiev (Ukraine) ''1991'' Mexico City (Mexico) ''1991'' Toronto (Canada) ''1991'' Birmingham (United Kingdom) ''1993'' Vilnius (Lithuania) ''1993'' Hamburg (Germany) ''1994'' Petah Tikva (Israel) ''1994'' Athens (Greece) ''1997'' Durban (South Africa) ''1997'' Galway (Ireland) ''1997'' Moscow (Russia) ''1997'' Lucerne (Switzerland) ''1998'' Delhi (India) ''2001'' Amman (Jordan) ''2004'' São Paulo (Brazil) ''2004'' Belgrade (Serbia) ''2005'' Lahore (Pakistan) ''2007'' Busan (South Korea) ''2007'' Bogotá (Colombia) ''2009''

==Bibliography==

See also

List of cities with most skyscrapers

National Register of Historic Places listings in Central Chicago

National Register of Historic Places listings in North Side Chicago

National Register of Historic Places listings in South Side Chicago

National Register of Historic Places listings in West Side Chicago

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

City of Chicago official website

City of Chicago data portal

Explore Chicago: City of Chicago's official tourism website

Category:Cities in Illinois Category:Communities on U.S. Route 66 Category:County seats in Illinois Category:Irish-American culture Category:Polish American history Category:Italian-American culture Category:Port settlements in the United States Category:Populated places established in 1833 Category:Populated places in Cook County, Illinois Category:Populated places on the Great Lakes Category:Populated places in the United States with African American plurality populations Category:United States places with Orthodox Jewish communities Category:Populated places in DuPage County, Illinois

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Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
name	Chicago Tribune
type	Daily newspaper
format	Broadsheet
foundation	June 10, 1847
owners	Tribune Company
publisher	Tony W. Hunter
editor	Gerould W. Kern
price	US$0.75 (Chicago)US$1.00 (elsewhere)
sunday price	USD 1.79 city & suburbs USD 2.00 elsewhere
headquarters	Tribune Tower435 North Michigan AvenueChicago, Illinois 60611USA
circulation	441,508 daily 768,073 Sunday
issn	1085-6706
Political	Republican
website	Chicago Tribune }}

The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is currently the eighth largest newspaper in the United States by circulation (and the second largest under Tribune's ownership behind ''Los Angeles Times''). Traditionally published as a broadsheet, on January 13, 2009, the ''Tribune'' announced it would continue publishing as a broadsheet for home delivery, but would publish in tabloid format for newsstand, news box and commuter station sales.

On April 2, 2007, the Tribune Company announced a buy-out plan led by Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell worth $8.2 billion, associated with a stock buyback at $34 per share, and an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. The deal closed on December 20, 2007, with Zell as the company's new chairman. As part of the deal, the company sold the Chicago Cubs and its properties, including Wrigley Field and a stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, to the family of J. Joseph Ricketts. Less than a year after the deal closed, the Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 8, 2008.

History

The ''Tribune'' was founded by James Kelly, John E. Wheeler and Joseph K. C. Forrest, publishing its first edition on June 10, 1847. The paper saw numerous changes in ownership and editorship over the next eight years. Initially, the ''Tribune'' was not politically affiliated but tended to support either the Whig or Free Soil parties against the Democrats in elections. By late 1853, it was frequently running xenophobic editorials that criticized foreigners and Roman Catholics. About this time it also became a strong proponent of temperance. However nativist its editorials may have been, it was not until February 10, 1855 that the ''Tribune'' formally affiliated itself with the nativist American or Know Nothing party, whose candidate Levi Boone was elected Mayor of Chicago the following month.

thumb|left|Tribune in 1919By about 1854, part-owner Capt. J. D. Webster, later General Webster and chief of staff at the Battle of Shiloh, and Dr. Charles H. Ray of Galena, Illinois through Horace Greeley convinced Joseph Medill of Cleveland's ''Leader'' to become managing editor. Ray became editor-in-chief, Medill became the managing editor, and Alfred Cowles, Sr., brother of Edwin Cowles, initially was the bookkeeper. Each purchased one third of the ''Tribune''. Under their leadership the ''Tribune'' distanced itself from the Know Nothings and became the main Chicago organ of the Republican Party. However, the paper continued to print anti-Catholic and anti-Irish editorials. The ''Tribune'' absorbed three other Chicago publications under the new editors: the ''Free West'' in 1855, the ''Democratic Press'' in 1858, and the ''Chicago Democrat'' in 1861, whose editor, John Wentworth, left his position to become Chicago Mayor. Between 1858 and 1860, the paper was known as the ''Chicago Press & Tribune''. After November 1860, it became the ''Chicago Daily Tribune''. Before and during the American Civil War, the new editors pushed an abolitionist agenda and strongly supported Abraham Lincoln, whom Medill helped secure the Presidency in 1860. The paper remained a force in Republican politics for years afterwards.

In 1861, the ''Tribune'' published new lyrics for the song "John Brown's Body" by William W. Patton, rivaling the ones published two months later by Julia Ward Howe. Medill served as mayor of Chicago for one term after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Under the 20th Century editorship of Colonel Robert R. McCormick the paper was strongly isolationist and actively biased in its coverage of political news and social trends, calling itself, "The American Paper for Americans," excoriating the Democrats and the New Deal, resolutely disdainful of the British and French and greatly enthusiastic for Chiang Kai-shek and Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

When McCormick assumed the position of co-editor (with his cousin Joseph Medill Patterson) in 1910, the Tribune was the third-best-selling paper among Chicago's eight dailies, with a circulation of only 188,000. The young cousins added features such as advice columns and homegrown comic strips like ''Little Orphan Annie'' and ''Moon Mullins'', then turned to "crusades", with their first success coming with the ouster of the Republican political boss of Illinois, Sen. William Lorimer. At the same time, the Tribune competed with the Hearst paper, the ''Chicago Examiner'', in a circulation war. By 1914, the cousins succeeded in forcing out Managing Editor William Keeley. By 1918, the ''Examiner'' was forced to merge with the ''Chicago Herald''.

In the 1920s, Patterson left to take over the editorship of his own paper, the ''New York Daily News''. In a renewed circulation war with Hearst's ''Herald-Examiner'', McCormick and Hearst ran rival lotteries in 1922. The ''Tribune'' won the battle, adding 250,000 readers to its ranks. Also in 1922, the ''Chicago Tribune'' hosted an international design competition for its new headquarters, the Tribune Tower. The competition worked brilliantly as a publicity stunt, and more than 260 entries were received. The winner was a neo-Gothic design by New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood.

During the McCormick years, the ''Tribune'' was a champion of modified spelling (such as spelling "although" as "altho"). McCormick, a vigorous campaigner for the Republican Party, died in 1955, just four days before Democratic boss Richard J. Daley was elected mayor for the first time.

One of the great scoops in ''Tribune'' history came when it obtained the text of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Another was its revelation of United States war plans on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack. The ''Tribune'''s June 7, 1942, front page announcement that America had broken Japan's naval code was actually the potential revelation of a closely guarded military secret by the paper. According to the Newseum, the story revealing that Americans broke the enemy naval codes was not cleared by censors, and had FDR so enraged that he considered shutting the ''Tribune''.

U.S. presidential election, 1948

The paper is also well known for a mistake it made during the 1948 presidential election. At that time, much of its composing room staff was on strike, and early returns led the paper to believe that the Republican candidate Thomas Dewey would win. An early edition of the next day's paper carried the headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN", turning the paper into a collector's item when it turned out that Harry S. Truman won and proudly brandished it in a famous picture taken at St. Louis Union Station. More recently, the ''Tribune'' reported in its print edition (Sunday, August 1, 2010) that a fireworks exhibition occurred at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton. When actual reports arrived, the story was quickly edited without notice online, to more accurately recount the actual occurrences at the wedding ceremony.

The ''Tribune'''s legendary sports editor Arch Ward created the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1933 as part of the city's Century of Progress exposition.

The ''Tribune'''s reputation for innovation extended to radio — it bought an early station, WDAP, in 1924 and renamed it WGN (AM), the station call letters standing for the paper's self-description as the "World's Greatest Newspaper." WGN Television was launched April 5, 1948. These broadcast stations remain ''Tribune'' properties to this day and are among the oldest newspaper/broadcasting cross-ownerships in the country. (Later, the ''Tribune'''s East Coast sibling, the ''New York Daily News'', would establish WPIX television and radio.)

After McCormick: The Watergate years

Although under Colonel McCormick, the ''Tribune'' for years refused to participate in the Pulitzer Prize competition, it has won 25 of the awards over the years, including many for editorial writing. The ''Tribune'' won its first post-McCormick Pulitzer in 1961, when Carey Orr won the award for editorial cartooning. Reporter George Bliss won a Pulitzer the following year for reporting, and reporter Bill Jones snagged one in 1971 for reporting. A reporting team won the award in 1973, followed by reporter William Mullen and photographer Ovie Carter, who won a Pulitzer for international reporting in 1975. A local reporting team won the award in 1976, and architecture critic Paul Gapp won a Pulitzer in 1979.

In 1969, under the leadership of publisher Harold Grumhaus and editor Clayton Kirkpatrick (1915–2004), the ''Tribune's'' past conservative partisanship became history. Though the paper retained its Republican and conservative perspective in its editorials, it began to publish perspectives in wider commentary that represented a spectrum of diverse opinions, while its news reporting no longer had the conservative slant it had in the McCormick years.

In early 1974, in a major feat of journalism, the ''Tribune'' published the complete 246,000-word text of the Watergate tapes in a 44-page supplement that hit the streets a mere 24 hours after the transcripts' release by the Nixon White House. Not only was the ''Tribune'' the first newspaper to publish the transcripts, but it beat the Government Printing Office's own published version, and made headlines doing so.

A week later, after studying the transcripts, the paper's editorial board observed that "the high dedication to grand principles that Americans have a right to expect from a President is missing from the transcript record." The ''Tribune'''s editors concluded that "nobody of sound mind can read [the transcripts] and continue to think that Mr. Nixon has upheld the standards and dignity of the Presidency," and called for Nixon's resignation. The ''Tribune'' call for Nixon to resign made news, reflecting not only the change in the type of conservativism practiced by the paper, but as a watershed event in terms of Nixon's hopes for survival in office. The White House reportedly saw the ''Tribune'''s editorial as a loss of a long-time supporter and as a blow to Nixon's hopes to weather the scandal.

On December 7, 1975, Kirkpatrick announced in a column on the editorial page that Rick Soll, a "young and talented columnist" for the paper whose work had "won a following among many Tribune readers over the last two years" resigned from the paper after acknowledging that a column he wrote that appeared on November 23, 1975, contained verbatim passages that another columnist wrote in 1967 and later published in a collection. Kirkpatrick did not identify the columnist. The passages in question, Kirkpatrick wrote, had been in a notebook where Soll had copied words, phrases and bits of conversation that he had wished to remember. Although the paper initially suspended Soll for a month without pay, Kirkpatrick noted that further evidence then came out that another column contained information that Soll knew was false. At that point, Kirkpatrick wrote, Tribune editors decided to accept the resignation that Soll offered when the investigation began. Soll went on to marry Chicago newspaper (and future TV) reporter Pam Zekman and eventually work for the short-lived ''Chicago Times'' magazine in the late 1980s.

In March 1978, the Tribune announced that it hired columnist Bob Greene away from the Chicago Sun-Times.

The 1980s and 1990s

Kirkpatrick stepped down as editor in 1979 and was succeeded by Maxwell McCrohon (1928–2004), who served as editor until 1981, when he was transitioned to a corporate position. McCrohon held the corporate position until 1983, when he left to become editor in chief of the United Press International. James Squires served as the paper's editor from July 1981 until December 1989.

Jack Fuller served as the ''Tribune'''s editor from 1989 until 1993, when he became the president and chief executive officer of the ''Chicago Tribune''. Howard Tyner served as the ''Tribune'''s editor from 1993 until 2001, when he was promoted to vice president/editorial for Tribune Publishing.

The ''Tribune'' won 11 Pulitzer prizes during the 1980s and 1990s. Editorial cartoonist Dick Locher won the award in 1983, and editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly won one in 1985. Then, future editor Jack Fuller won a Pulitzer for editorial writing in 1986. In 1987, reporters Jeff Lyon and Peter Gorner won a Pulitzer for explanatory reporting, and in 1988, Dean Baquet, William Gaines and Ann Marie Lipinski won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting. In 1989, Lois Wille won a Pulitzer for editorial writing and Clarence Page snagged the award for commentary. In 1994, Ron Kotulak won a Pulitzer for explanatory journalism, while R. Bruce Dold won it for editorial writing. In 1998, reporter Paul Salopek won a Pulitzer for explanatory writing, and in 1999, architecture critic Blair Kamin won it for criticism.

The ''Tribune'' scored a coup in 1984 when it hired popular columnist Mike Royko away from the rival ''Chicago Sun-Times''.

In 1986, the ''Tribune'' announced that celebrated film critic Gene Siskel, the ''Tribune'''s best-known writer, was no longer the paper's film critic, and that his position with the paper had shifted from being that of a full-time film critic to that of a free-lance contract writer who was to write about the film industry for the Sunday paper and also provide capsule film reviews for the paper's entertainment sections. The demotion occurred after Siskel and longtime Chicago film critic colleague Roger Ebert decided to shift the production of their weekly movie-review show —- then known as At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert and later known as Siskel & Ebert & The Movies -- from Tribune Entertainment to The Walt Disney Company's Buena Vista Television unit. "He has done a great job for us," editor James Squires said at the time. "It's a question of how much a person can do physically. We think you need to be a newspaper person first, and Gene Siskel has always tried to do that. But there comes a point when a career is so big that you can't do that." Siskel declined to comment on the new arrangement, but Ebert publicly criticized Siskel's ''Tribune'' bosses for punishing Siskel for taking their television program to a company other than Tribune Entertainment. Siskel remained in that free-lance position until his death in 1999. He was replaced as film critic in 1986 by Dave Kehr.

In November 1992, Tribune associate subject editor Searle "Ed" Hawley was arrested by Chicago police and charged with seven counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for allegedly having sex with three juveniles in his home in Evanston, Illinois. Hawley formally resigned from the paper in early 1993, and pleaded guilty in April 1993. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

In an unusual move at that time, the Tribune in October 1993 fired its longtime military-affairs writer, retired-Marine David Evans, with the public position that the post of military affairs was being dropped in favor of having a national security writer.

In December 1993, the Tribune's longtime Washington, D.C. bureau chief, Nicholas Horrock, was removed from his post after he chose not to attend a meeting that editor Howard Tyner requested of him in Chicago. Horrock, who shortly thereafter left the paper, was replaced by James Warren, who attracted new attention to the Tribune's D.C. bureau through his continued attacks on celebrity broadcast journalists in Washington.

Also in December 1993, the Tribune hired Margaret Holt from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel as its assistant managing editor for sports, making her the first female to head a sports department at any of the nation's 10 largest newspapers. In mid-1995, Holt was replaced as sports editor by Tim Franklin and shifted to a newly-created job, customer service editor.

In 1994, reporter Brenda You was fired by the ''Tribune'' after free-lancing for supermarket tabloid newspapers and lending them photographs from the ''Tribune'''s photo library. You later worked for the ''National Enquirer'' and as a producer for ''The Jerry Springer Show'' before committing suicide in November 2005.

In April 1994, the Tribune's new television critic, Ken Parish Perkins, wrote an article about then-WFLD-TV morning news anchor Bob Sirott in which Perkins quoted Sirott as making a statement that Sirott later denied making. Sirott criticized Perkins on the air, and the Tribune later printed a correction acknowledging that Sirott had never made that statement. Eight months later, Perkins stepped down as TV critic, and he left the paper shortly thereafter.

In December 1995, the alternative newsweekly ''Newcity'' published a first-person article by the pseudonymous Clara Hamon (a name mentioned in the play ''The Front Page'') but quickly identified by Tribune reporters as that of former Tribune reporter Mary Hill that heavily criticized the paper's one-year residency program. The program brought young journalists in and out of the paper for one-year stints, seldom resulting in a full-time job. Hill, who wrote for the paper from 1992 until 1993, acknowledged to the Chicago Reader that she had written the diatribe originally for the Internet, and that the piece eventually was edited for ''Newcity''.

In 1997, the ''Tribune'' celebrated its 150th anniversary in part by tapping longtime reporter Stevenson Swanson to edit the book ''Chicago Days: 150 Defining Moments in the Life of a Great City''.

On April 29, 1997, popular columnist Mike Royko died of a brain aneurysm. On September 2, 1997, the Tribune promoted longtime City Hall reporter John Kass to take Royko's place as the paper's principal Page Two news columnist.

On June 1, 1997, the ''Tribune'' published what ended up becoming a very popular column by Mary Schmich called "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young", otherwise known as "Wear Sunscreen" or the "Sunscreen Speech." The most popular and well-known form of the essay is the successful music single released in 1999, accredited to Baz Luhrmann.

In 1998, reporter Jerry Thomas was fired by the ''Tribune'' after he wrote a cover article on boxing promoter Don King for ''Emerge'' magazine at the same time that he was writing a cover article on King for the ''Chicago Tribune'' Sunday magazine. The paper decided to fire Thomas—and suspend his photographer on the ''Emerge'' story, Pulitzer Prize-winning ''Tribune'' photographer Ovie Carter for a month—because Thomas did not tell the ''Tribune'' about his outside work and also because the ''Emerge'' story wound up appearing in print first.

The ''Tribune'' has been a leader on the Internet, acquiring 10 percent of America Online in the early 1990s, then launching such web sites as Chicagotribune.com (1995), Metromix.com (1996), ChicagoSports.com (1999), ChicagoBreakingNews.com (2008), and ChicagoNow.com (2009). In 2002, the paper launched a tabloid edition targeted at 18- to 34-year-olds known as ''RedEye''.

The 2000s

Ann Marie Lipinski was the paper's editor from February 2001 until stepping down on July 17, 2008. Gerould W. Kern was named the paper's editor in July 2008. In early August 2008, managing editor for news Hanke Gratteau resigned, and several weeks later, managing editor for features James Warren resigned as well. Both were replaced by Jane Hirt, who previously had been the editor of the Tribune's ''RedEye'' tabloid.

In June 2000, Times Mirror merged with Tribune Company making The Baltimore Sun and its community papers Baltimore Sun Media Group / Patuxent Publishing a subsidiary of Tribune.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/about/bal-about-sun,0,7001763.htmlstory

http://www.baltimoresun.com/about/bal-about-sun-execpro,0,4434764.htmlstory

Tribune's Baltimore Community papers include, Arbutus Times, Baltimore Messenger, Catonsville Times, Columbia Flier, Howard County Times, The Jeffersonian, Laurel Leader, Lifetimes, North County News, Northeast Booster, Northeast Reporter, Owings Mills Times, Towson Times.

The Howard County Times (www.explorehoward.com) was named 2010 Newspaper of the Year by the Suburban Newspaper Association. http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?p=2102

The Towson Times expands coverage beyond the Towson area and includes Baltimore County government and politics. http://www.explorebaltimorecounty.com/

http://www.patuxent.com/publications.html

The Tribune won five Pulitzer prizes in the first decade of the 21st century. Salopek won his second Pulitzer for the Tribune in 2001 for international reporting, and that same year an explanatory reporting team—lead writers of which were Louise Kiernan, Jon Hilkevitch, Laurie Cohen, Robert Manor, Andrew Martin, John Schmeltzer, Alex Rodriguez and Andrew Zajac -- won the honor for a profile of the chaotic U.S. air traffic system. In 2003, editorial writer Cornelia Grumman snagged the award for editorial writing. In 2005, Julia Keller won a Pulitzer for feature reporting on a tornado that struck Utica, Illinois. And, in 2008, an investigative reporting team including Patricia Callahan, Maurice Possley, Sam Roe, Ted Gregory, Michael Oneal and Evan Osnos won the Pulitzer for its series about faulty government regulation of defective toys, cribs and car seats.

In late 2001, sports columnist Michael Holley announced he was leaving the Tribune after just two months because he was homesick. He ultimately returned to the Boston Globe, where he had been working immediately before the Tribune had hired him.

On September 15, 2002, Lipinski wrote a terse, page-one note informing readers that the paper's longtime columnist, Bob Greene, resigned effective immediately after acknowledging "engaging in inappropriate sexual conduct some years ago with a girl in her late teens whom he met in connection with his newspaper column." The conduct later was revealed to have occurred in 1988 with a woman who was of the age of consent in Illinois. "Greene's behavior was a serious violation of Tribune ethics and standards for its journalists," Lipinski wrote. "We deeply regret the conduct, its effect on the young woman and the impact this disclosure has on the trust our readers placed in Greene and this newspaper."

In March 2004, the Tribune announced that free-lance reporter Uli Schmetzer, who retired from the Tribune in 2002 after 16 years as a foreign correspondent, had fabricated the name and occupation of a person he had quoted in a story. The paper terminated Schmetzer as a contract reporter and began a review of the 300 stories that Schmetzer had written over the prior three years.

In May 2004, the Tribune revealed that free-lance reporter Mark Falanga was unable to verify some facts that he inserted in a lifestyle-related column that ran on April 18, 2004, about an expensive lunch at a Chicago restaurant—namely, that the restaurant charged $15 for a bottle of water and $35 for a pasta entree. "Upon questioning, the freelance writer indicated the column was based on an amalgam of three restaurants and could not verify the prices," the paper noted. After the correction, the Tribune stopped using Falanga.

In October 2004, Tribune editor Ann Marie Lipinski at the last minute spiked a story written for the paper's WomanNews section by free-lance reporter Lisa Bertagnoli titled "You c_nt say that (or can you?)," about a noted vulgarism. The paper ordered every spare body to go to the Tribune's printing plant to pull already-printed WomanNews sections containing the story from the Wednesday, October 27, 2004, package of preprinted sections in the Tribune.

In September 2008, the Tribune considered hiring controversial sports columnist Jay Mariotti, shortly after his abrupt resignation from Tribune archrival Chicago Sun-Times. Discussions ultimately ended, however, after the Sun-Times threatened to sue for violating Mariotti's noncompete agreement, which was to run until August 2009.

In April 2009, 55 Tribune reporters and editors signed their names to an e-mail sent to Kern and managing editor Jane Hirt, questioning why the newspaper's marketing department had solicited subscribers' opinions on stories before they were published, and suggesting that the practice raised ethical questions as well as legal and competitive issues. Among those who signed off on the e-mail were reporters John D. McCormick and Rick Kogan. Reporters declined to speak on the record to the Associated Press about their issues. "We'll let the e-mail speak for itself," reporter John Chase told the AP. In the wake of the controversy, Kern abruptly discontinued the effort, which he described as "a brief market research project."

In the first decade of the 21st century, the Tribune had multiple rounds of reductions of staff through layoffs and buyouts as it has coped with the industrywide declines in advertising revenues:

In December 2005, the Tribune eliminated 28 editorial positions through a combination of buyouts and layoffs, including what were believed to be the first layoffs in the paper's history. Among the reporters who left the paper in that round were Carol Kleiman, Bill Jauss and Connie Lauerman. In June 2007, about 25 newsroom employees took buyouts, including well-known bylines like Charles Madigan, Michael Hirsley and Ronald Kotulak, along with noted photographer Pete Souza. In March 2008, the paper gave buyouts to about 25 newsroom employees, including sportswriter Sam Smith. On August 15, 2008, the Tribune laid-off more than 40 newsroom and other editorial employees, including reporters Rick Popely, Ray Quintanilla, Lew Freedman, Michael Martinez and Robert Manor; also Gail Glaser and Bodhan Pauk. Also in August 2008, about 36 editorial employees took voluntary buyouts or resigned, including well-known bylines like Michael Tackett, Ron Silverman, Timothy McNulty, Ed Sherman, Evan Osnos, Steve Franklin, Maurice Possley, Hanke Gratteau, Chuck Osgood and Skip Myslenski. On November 12, 2008, five editorial employees in the paper's Washington, D.C. bureau were laid off, including John Crewdson. On December 4, 2008, about 11 newsroom employees were laid-off, with one sports columnist, Mike Downey, having departed several weeks earlier when his contract was not renewed. Well-known bylines who were laid off included Neil Milbert, Stevenson Swanson, Lisa Anderson, Phil Marty, Charles Storch, Courtney Flynn and Deborah Horan. In February 2009, the Tribune laid off about 20 editorial employees, including several foreign correspondents, and some feature reporters and editors, although several, including Charles Leroux and Jeff Lyon, technically took buyouts. Among those who were fired were reporters Emily Nunn, Susan Chandler, Christine Spolar and Joel Greenberg. On April 22, 2009, the paper laid off 53 newsroom employees, including well-known bylines like Patrick Reardon, Melissa Isaacson, Russell Working, Jo Napolitano, Susan Diesenhouse, Beth Botts, Lou Carlozo, Jessica Reaves, Tom Hundley, Alan Artner, Eric Benderoff, James P. Miller, Bob Sakamoto, Terry Bannon and John Mullin. That number was less than the 90 newsroom jobs that Crain's Chicago Business previously had reported were to be eliminated.

The Tribune broke the story on Friday, May 29, 2009, that several students had been admitted to the University of Illinois based upon connections or recommendations by the school's Board of Trustees, Chicago politicians, and members of the Rod Blagojevich administration. Initially denying the existence of a so-called "Category I" admissions program, university President B. Joseph "Joe" White and Chancellor Richard Herman later admitted that there were instances of preferential treatment. Although they claimed the list was short and their role was minor, the Tribune, in particular, revealed emails through a FOIA finding that White had received a recommendation for a relative of convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko to be admitted. The Tribune also later posted emails from Herman pushing for underqualified students to be accepted. The Tribune has since filed suit against the University administration under the Freedom of Information Act to acquire the names of students benefited by administrative clout and impropriety.

On February 8, 2010, the Chicago Tribune shrank its newspaper's width by an inch. They cited that the new format was becoming the industry standard and that there would be minimal content changes.

Editorial policy

In a 2007 statement of principles published in the ''Tribune'''s print and online editions, the paper's editorial board described the newspaper's philosophy, from which is excerpted the following: :The ''Chicago Tribune'' believes in the traditional principles of limited government; maximum individual responsibility; minimum restriction of personal liberty, opportunity and enterprise. It believes in free markets, free will and freedom of expression. These principles, while traditionally conservative, are guidelines and not reflexive dogmas.

:The ''Tribune'' brings a Midwestern sensibility to public debate. It is suspicious of untested ideas.

:The ''Tribune'' places great emphasis on the integrity of government and the private institutions that play a significant role in society. The newspaper does this in the belief that the people cannot consent to be governed unless they have knowledge of, and faith in, the leaders and operations of government. The ''Tribune'' embraces the diversity of people and perspectives in its community. It is dedicated to the future of the Chicago region.

The ''Tribune'' has remained economically conservative, being widely skeptical of increasing the minimum wage and entitlement spending. Although the ''Tribune'' criticized the Bush administration's record on civil liberties, the environment, and many aspects of its foreign policy, it continued to support his presidency while taking Democrats, such as Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, to task and calling for their removal from office.

In 2004, the ''Tribune'' endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election, a decision consistent with its longstanding support for the Republican Party. The ''Chicago Tribune'' endorsed Chicago area politician and Illinois junior U.S. Senator Barack Obama in 2008.

The ''Tribune'' has previously backed independent candidates. In 1872, it supported Horace Greeley, a former Republican Party newspaper editor, and in 1912 the paper endorsed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran on the Progressive Party slate against Republican President William Howard Taft.

Over the years, the ''Tribune'' has endorsed Democrats for lesser offices, including recent endorsements of Bill Foster, Barack Obama for the Senate and Democrat Melissa Bean, who defeated Philip Crane, the House of Representatives' longest-serving Republican. Though the ''Tribune'' endorsed George Ryan in the 1998 Illinois gubernatorial race, the paper subsequently investigated and reported on the scandals surrounding Ryan during his preceding years as Secretary of State. Ryan declined to stand for re-election in 2002 and was subsequently indicted, convicted and imprisoned as a result of the scandal.

Tribune Company

The ''Chicago Tribune'' is the founding business unit of Tribune Company, which includes many newspapers and television stations around the country. In Chicago, Tribune owns the WGN radio station (720 AM) and WGN-TV (Channel 9). Tribune Company also owns the ''Los Angeles Times'' -- which displaced the Tribune as the company's largest property—and the Chicago Cubs baseball team. The Cubs were sold in 2009.

Tribune Company owned ''The New York Daily News'' from its 1919 founding until its 1991 sale to Robert Maxwell. The founder of the ''News'', Capt. Joseph Patterson and Col. McCormick, were both descendants of Medill. Both were also enthusiasts of simplified spelling, another hallmark of their papers for many years. Tribune Company sold the Long Island newspaper ''Newsday'' in 2008.

Since 1925, the ''Chicago Tribune'' has been housed in the Tribune Tower on North Michigan Avenue on the Magnificent Mile. The building is neo-Gothic in style, and the design was the winner of an international competition hosted by the ''Tribune''.

On June 25, 2008, the Tribune company announced they had hired a real estate company to entertain bids of the sale of both the Tribune Tower in Chicago, and the Times Building in Los Angeles. The ''Los Angeles Times'', is also owned by the Tribune Company.

Columnists

Current

Brad Biggs

Steve Chapman

David Haugh

John Kass

Clarence Page

Dawn Turner Trice

Phil Rosenthal

Mary Schmich

Eric Zorn

Past

Ring Lardner – deceased

Ann Landers – deceased

Mike Royko – deceased

Arch Ward – deceased

David Condon – deceased

Bob Greene

Bob Verdi

Skip Bayless

Terry Armour – deceased

Charles Madigan

Mike Downey

Gene Siskel – deceased

William Armstrong

2008 redesign

The September 2008 redesign (discussed here on the ''Tribune'''s web site) was controversial and is largely regarded as an effort in cost-cutting. Since then the newspaper has returned to a more toned down style. The style is more a mix of the old style and a new modern style.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

After a $124 million dollar third-quarter loss, the Tribune Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on December 8, 2008. The company made its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, citing a debt of $13 billion and assets of $7.6 billion.

As part of its bankruptcy plan, owner Sam Zell intended to sell the Cubs to reduce debt. This sale has become linked to the corruption charges leading to the December 9, 2008, arrest of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Specifically, the ex-governor was accused of exploiting the paper's financial trouble in an effort to have several editors fired.

Prices

The Tribune prices are: $1 Daily, $1.99/$1.75 Sunday. The Tribune on weekdays was $0.75 until January 18, 2010, when it was raised to $1.

See also

Chicago Tribune Silver Basketball

Chicago Tribune Silver Football

References

Further reading

External links

''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper web site

''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper mobile web site

Chicago Tribune Archives (1852 to present)

''Tribune Company'' corporate web site

''Tribune Group Overview'' (external corporate profile)

Janet A. Ginsburg Chicago Tribune Collection (1880s to 1940s) (searchable database of 12,000 images on 5,500 pages, digitized and available for all educational uses worldwide)

Tribune Category:Old Right (United States) Category:Publications established in 1847 Category:Pulitzer Prize winning newspapers Category:Tribune Company subsidiaries Category:Worth Bingham Prize recipients

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Eric Morse is the pen name for author and multi-medium artist William Pattison.

Under that name, Pattison wrote the ''Friday The 13th'' Young Adult Book Series for Berkley Books, published 1993 through 1994. These books include ''Mother’s Day'', ''Jason’s Curse'', ''The Carnival'', and ''Road Trip''. He is the webmaster of the website ''Outpost Vevetta''.

References

External links

Friday the 13th novelist William Pattison (aka Eric Morse) speaks with Fridaythe13thfilms

Category:Pseudonymous writers Category:Living people Category:Friday the 13th series

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
birth date	June 20, 1931
birth place	Lowell, Massachusetts, U.S.
spouse	Louis Zorich (1962-present)
occupation	Actress
years active	1962–present }}

Olympia Dukakis (born June 20, 1931) is an American actress. In 1987, she won an Academy Award, BAFTA, and a Golden Globe for her performance in ''Moonstruck''. She received another Golden Globe nomination for ''Sinatra'', and Emmy nominations for ''Lucky Day'', ''More Tales of the City'', and ''Joan of Arc''.

Personal life

Dukakis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Alexandra (née Christos) and Constantine S. Dukakis. Her parents were Greek immigrants to the United States, her father from Anatolia and her mother from the Peloponnese. She has a brother, Apollo, and is a cousin of Michael Dukakis, a former governor of Massachusetts and the Democratic nominee for president in 1988, for whom she was a delegate from New Jersey at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. She is an alumna of Arlington High School in Arlington, Massachusetts, and was educated at Boston University.

Dukakis has been married to actor Louis Zorich since 1962. They have three children.

Career

Dukakis has held a lengthy career in a diverse range of films, including ''Steel Magnolias'', ''Mr. Holland's Opus'', ''Jane Austen's Mafia!'', ''The Thing About My Folks'', and ''Moonstruck'', for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She also played the role of Anna Madrigal in the ''Tales of the City'' television mini-series, which garnered her an Emmy Award nomination, and appeared on ''Search for Tomorrow'' as Dr. Barbara Moreno, who romanced Stu Bergman. She appears as Dolly Sinatra (Frank's mother) in the mini-series of Frank Sinatra's life (1992). Her Broadway theatre credits include ''Who's Who in Hell'', ''Social Security'', and the one-woman play ''Rose''. Her theater, film, and television work has also won her an Obie Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, and a Golden Globe.

Dukakis won a BAFTA Award,and a Golden Globe for ''Moonstruck'' and was nominated for the Canadian Academy Award for ''The Event''. She provided the voice of Grandpa's love interest for ''The Simpsons'' episode "The Old Man and the Key". In 2003, Dukakis published her national bestselling autobiography ''Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress''. Recent films include ''3 Needles'', ''The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines'', ''In the Land of Women'', and ''Away From Her'', the 2006 film which cast her alongside Gordon Pinsent as the spouse of two Alzheimers patients.

In 1998, she starred as Charlotte Kisko in the British TV drama ''A Life for a Life'' (ITV), based on the real-life story of Stefan Kisko, a man wrongfully imprisoned for seventeen years for the murder of a child, Lesley Molseed, after police suppressed evidence of his innocence.

She recently directed the world premiere production of Todd Logan's ''Botanic Garden'' at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.

In the 2008 season of Hartford Stage, Dukakis starred in the revival of Tennessee Williams' ''The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore'', opposite Kevin Anderson.

In 2008, Dukakis also co-adapted and starred in the world-premiere of ''Another Side of the Island'', based on Shakespeare's ''The Tempest'', at Alpine Theatre Project in Whitefish, Montana.

She starred in and executive-produced the 2009 film ''Montana Amazon'', co-starring Haley Joel Osment.

In 2011, Dukakis is set to guest-star on ''Law & Order: SVU''. She will play the role of Debby Marsh, an attorney.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1964		Patient	uncredited
1964	''Twice a Man''	Young mother
1969	''Stiletto''	Mrs. Amato, woman accepting perfume	uncredited
1969		John's mother
1971		Gig's Mother
1973		Louise Wilanski, Bakery Shop Employee #2	uncredited
1974		Cop at the precinct	uncredited
1974	''''
1979	''Rich Kids''	Lawyer
1979	''''	Joey's Mom
1980	''''	Mrs. Vacarri
1982	''National Lampoon Goes to the Movies''	Helena Naxos	segment "Success Wanters"
1985	''Walls of Glass''	Mary Flanagan
1987	''Moonstruck''	Rose Castorini
1988	''Working Girl''	Personnel Director
1989	''Steel Magnolias''	Clairee Belcher
1989	''Look Who's Talking''	Rosie
1989		Bette Tremont
1990	''Look Who's Talking Too''	Rosie
1990	''In the Spirit''	Sue
1992	''Over the Hill''	Alma Harris
1993	''Look Who's Talking Now''	Rosie
1993	''''	Doris Silverman
1993		Bea
1994		Jeannie, Peter's Secretary
1995	''Mr. Holland's Opus''	Principal Helen Jacobs
1995	''Mighty Aphrodite''	Jocasta
1995		Mrs. Marcangelo
1995	''Dead Badge''	Dr. Doris Rice
1995		Rose Garaventi
1996	''Milk & Money''	Goneril Plogg
1996	''Jerusalem''	Mother (Mrs. Gordon)
1996		Mrs. Jay
1997	''''	Helen Rosner
1997		Rita Mosley
1998	''Better Living''	Nora
1998	''Jane Austen's Mafia!''	Sophia
1998	''''	Madam Chairwoman
1999	''Joan of Arc''	Mother Babette
2000	''Brooklyn Sonnet''	Helen Manners
2003	''Charlie's War''	Charlie
2003	''''	Lila	Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
2005	''Whiskey School''	Ellen Haywood
2005	''3 Needles''	Hilde the Missionary Nun
2005	''''	Muriel Kleinman
2005	''''	Judy Hillerman	segment "Judy's Story"
2005	''''	Erina
2006	''Day on Fire''	Dr. Mary Wade
2006	''Away from Her''	Marian
2006	''Jesus, Mary and Joey''	Sophia Vitello
2007	''In the Land of Women''	Phyllis
2008	''Poor Things''
2008	''''	Esther
2011	''Montana Amazon''	Ira

References

External links

Category:1931 births Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress Category:Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Boston University alumni Category:Living people Category:Actors from Massachusetts Category:Massachusetts Democrats Category:Obie Award recipients Category:People from Arlington, Massachusetts Category:American people of Greek descent Category:People from Lowell, Massachusetts

ca:Olympia Dukakis da:Olympia Dukakis de:Olympia Dukakis el:Ολυμπία Δουκάκη es:Olympia Dukakis fr:Olympia Dukakis id:Olympia Dukakis it:Olympia Dukakis he:אולימפיה דוקאקיס nl:Olympia Dukakis ja:オリンピア・デュカキス no:Olympia Dukakis pl:Olympia Dukakis pt:Olympia Dukakis ru:Дукакис, Олимпия fi:Olympia Dukakis sv:Olympia Dukakis tl:Olympia Dukakis tr:Olympia Dukakis uk:Олімпія Дукакіс yo:Olympia Dukakis

birthname	Nora Eloise Dunn
birth date	April 29, 1952
birth place	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
occupation	Actress/Comedienne
yearsactive	1985–present
spouse	Ray Hutcherson (1987–1995) (divorced)Sean McGarry (1998–present) }}

Nora Eloise Dunn (born April 29, 1952) is an American actress and comedian, perhaps best known for her work on NBC's ''Saturday Night Live''.

Early life

Dunn was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Margaret, a nurse, and John Dunn, a musician and poet. Her brother is actor Kevin Dunn. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1970 to 1972, San Francisco City College, and the Academy of Fine Arts.

Career

Dunn joined ''SNL'' in 1985 with the return of Lorne Michaels as executive producer. The 1985–1986 season proved to be a ratings disaster, and she was one of only five cast members who were not fired at its end (the others were newcomers Jon Lovitz, A. Whitney Brown, Dennis Miller and longtime featured player Al Franken). As part of the 1986–1987 cast including newcomers Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and Kevin Nealon, Dunn would be part of what was considered the show's second golden age.

Although she never became one of its breakout stars, Dunn was a dependable supporting player. Her characters included half of "The Sweeney Sisters" lounge act alongside Hooks, as well as talk show host Pat Stevens (which became a popular recurring role starting in the low-rated 1985–1986 season), melodramatic French hooker Babette, and film buff Ashley Ashley from the "Actors on Film" sketch from the 1985–1986 season. Her many impressions included Ann Landers, Imelda Marcos, Liza Minnelli, Tyne Daly, Joan Baez, Martina Navratilova, and Cokie Roberts.

Dunn made headlines in 1990 when she, along with original musical guest Sinéad O'Connor, boycotted an episode which was hosted by comedian Andrew Dice Clay because they found his misogynistic humor offensive. Since then, in addition to numerous feature film roles, she has gone back to television with recurring roles on ''Sisters'' from 1993–1996 and ''The Nanny'' from 1998–1999, as well as a guest-starring role in a two-part episode of ''The X-Files'' in 1998.

Her participation in films include ''Miami Blues'' with Alec Baldwin, ''Three Kings'' with George Clooney, ''Runaway Jury'' with John Cusack and ''Zoolander'' with Ben Stiller, and most recently the hit independent film ''Love for Rent'' (2005) as well as ''Pineapple Express'' (2008).

Recurring characters on ''SNL''

Ashley Ashley, a pretentious film critic from the recurring sketch, "Actors on Film" (her partner was Jimmy Chance, played by Robert Downey, Jr.)

Babette, a melodramatic French prostitute

Pat Stevens, a model turned talk show host

Denise Venetti, host of "Learning To Feel"

Dr. Norma Hoeffering, a lesbian psychiatrist who writes male-bashing self-help books

Liz Sweeney, one half of a pair of singing sisters (the other half played by Jan Hooks)

Loose Chang, Ching Chang's (Dana Carvey) love interest

Mrs. Campbell, Wayne Campbell's (Mike Myers) mom

Celebrity impersonations

Ann Landers

Imelda Marcos

Liza Minnelli

Tyne Daly

Martina Navratilova

Cokie Roberts

Jeane Dixon

Jeane Kirkpatrick

Joan Baez

Brigitte Nielsen

Catherine Deneuve

Donna Rice

Barbara Bush

Cindy Adams

Barbara Merrill

Leona Helmsley

Linda Dano

Peggy Lee

Shelley Duvall

Marilyn Quayle

Pat Schroeder

Linda Ellerbee

Mary Hart

Raisa Gorbacheva

Frida Kahlo

Personal life

Nora married Ray Hutcheson, a playwright, in September 1987. The couple divorced in 1995. In 1998 Nora married Sean McGarry, a set builder.

References

External links

Category:1952 births Category:Actors from Chicago, Illinois Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:Living people Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Category:Women comedians

de:Nora Dunn fi:Nora Dunn sv:Nora Dunn it:Nora Dunn