After a long tour though construction and permitting, Chicago Paws District is now open at 4520 N. Broadway. A photographic tour of the interior can be located here (via Instagram). The space has come a long way from the days when this was a bookstore.
Available services include doggy "camps," daycare, training and boarding.
And, in a nice improvement, the back of the McJunkin Building now has a nice looking fenced in area next to the Aldi parking lot.
Welcome!
Books4Cause is opening a third city location, this time in Uptown. Most recently home to the Chicago Center for Photojournalism, the Books4Cause location at 1225 W. Wilson is expected to work as a hybrid - a freecycle equivalent to neighborhood little libraries and also a low cost used bookstore.
Since the Center for Photojournalism closed and vacated the space, we have been watching the installation of bookshelves and saw people shelving books late at night on Saturday.
Per a post on Magnolia Malden Block Club (h/t Gabriella Filisko), it sounds like opening day is July 10.
Books4Cause currently operates locations at 7080 N. McCormick Blvd in Skokie and 2931 N. Milwaukee Ave in Chicago. The organization takes donations (FAQ here) and resells some donated items to ensure operations are paid for. From the website:
Books4Cause finds the best possible use for each donated CD, DVD, and book. K-12 books are donated to African Library Project, Bernie’s Book Bank, or sent to our free bookstore. Some college-level books and textbooks are donated to the ALP, depending on demand. We work directly with universities in need of higher-level learning books. Most bestselling fiction and non-fiction books are sent to our free bookstore. Some books are sold to raise money for operations and the shipment of books to Africa. If we can’t find a home for a book, it is recycled. CDs, DVDs, are sold to pay for operations.
As for the Chicago Center for Photojournalism, we were extremely sorry to see the storefront location close. The location had some great shows (thank you!) and was a great resource. The founder attributed the closure to "unmitigated air quality and mold issues," so we are hoping those have been brought under control for this new bookstore.
We look forward to browsing the shelves soon!
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| Graphic via Illinois Policy |
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No details to offer other than social media at this point, but multiple reports coming in that there was a shooting involving multiple people, including (possibly) a police officer, at Argyle and Ainslie. We caution that this is VERY preliminary information.
As of now, readers are sharing photos that depict the intersection of Lawrence and Clark cut off to all vehicular traffic. Be aware and use other routes for now.
UPDATE: Social media saying a male shot a female, refused to stop for police, and then was shot by the police. NO police were shot according to an update just now.
UPDATE 2: Clark is closed southbound at Winnemac. Winnemac is closed eastbound at Ashland
All proceeds from Buena Blooms for Brennemann will benefit Friends of Brennemann, a 501C-3 dedicated to supporting our local Chicago public elementary school.
Check out the website here to learn more and purchase tickets!
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| Photo courtesy reader EK |
Right around the time former Alderman James Cappleman was elected in 2012, however, homeless encampments under the viaducts became a thing. Nearly overnight, people who slept outside were provided tents by homeless 'advocates' and encouraged to relocate under the viaduct.
For Cappleman's opponents, the tent cities were a perfect political tool.
You could make the Alderman look bad to local residents and visitors by having a large organized collection of homeless residents under a major viaduct, with trash, open drug and alcohol use and public sex.
If anyone dared to say that the camps were a public safety issue, you could criticize those people as being anti-homeless. (Eds: read the comments on that story)
If the Alderman questioned social service agencies and good samaritans who facilitated the tent encampments and de-prioritized housing efforts, you could criticize the Alderman as being opposed to homeless people.
It was win-win-win.
In 2017 things came to a head when the City and State tried to rehabilitate the viaducts. Groups closely aligned with the current Alderwoman filed a lawsuit to prevent the rehabilitation.
During the lawsuit, the City offered the ninety-seven (97) tent encampment residents two years worth of free housing. Local 'activists' encouraged them to refuse the offer, and most did. The residents ultimately lost the battle in Federal Court, with a judge ruling moving the encampment was a legitimate governmental purpose and having a tent encampment was not protected "free speech," as the activists had argued.
Construction started in fall 2017 and led to reopening of the viaducts in 2018.
That's where we pick up our story.
Groups aligned with Alderwoman Clay opposed the inclusion of bike lanes in the renovated viaducts, with op-eds arguing that the bike lanes were "defensive architecture" intended to prevent homeless from moving back into the viaduct, and surprise (!) criticizing Alderman Cappleman for allowing the bike lanes to be installed.
And so it went, with homeless advocates and people in the greater Helen Shiller-Angela Clay universe criticizing the bike lanes installed by the City and State as anti-homeless architecture.
Despite the new bike lanes, the homeless returned. Fire after fire after fire after fire followed. We knew Alderman Cappleman was trying to address the situation, and we asked why the City would allow a public safety hazard to continue in April 2022. CDOT and the Chicago Fire Department both determined that it was unsafe for people to continue to live under the viaducts, but once again 'advocates' encouraged the homeless to remain.
When Angela Clay took office in 2023, nothing changed. Tents remained under the viaduct, and new tent cities popped up both east and west of DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Tents under the viaduct caught fire and exploded in 2023, 2024 and 2025. These were met with effective silence and a shrug from Alderwoman Clay's office. New layers of white paint were used to cover up the burn marks.
But then some strange things happened.
Tents magically disappeared from the Lawrence Viaduct in early 2025. Some of the Lawrence tents moved to Wilson. In one of our trips to the beach in the summer of 2025 we counted 18 tents.
Then, all of a sudden, in the fall of 2025, at a time when homeless would normally move back under the viaduct, there were ZERO tents in the viaducts. Wilson was completely free of tents for the first time since Alderman Cappleman was elected 13 years earlier.
This of course got our Spidey-senses tingling! Was there a breakthrough in rehousing people? Nothing made sense, until....
WE REALIZED IT WAS RE-ELECTION SEASON!
Of course!!! The tents curiously disappeared and Angela Clay and Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth all of a sudden started doing news hits and social media thingies and tried to look real busy.
And the coup-de-grace?
In a sign of the reelection times, the 46th Ward got very nice signs (like the one above), memorializing that there are bike lanes AND pedestrian lanes under the viaducts. Wow! Who knew!?
From backing federal lawsuits to supporting homeless encampments across from Target to trying to preserve parking lots to this new neighborhood beautification, it's been a long strange trip for the greater Shiller team, which includes Alderwoman Clay and her allies.
But who cares about principle when you can pretend to be doing something to get reelected?
Via a lovely article from Rick Kogan in the Chicago Tribune (paywalled), we learn that longtime Green Mill owner Dave Jemilo has sold the Green Mill to new owners, Jason Cole and Jill Skintges.
June 19th is the date the new owners take over, coinciding with the 40 year anniversary of Jemilo's ownership of the celebrated jazz club. Jemilo is the 5th owner in the club's history.
From the article:
“This place has been my life for more than 40 years,” Jemilo said one recent afternoon, sitting in a Green Mill booth. “It was time. Nothing dramatic. I just don’t think I have the energy, that high level that it takes to be here every day until sometimes four in the morning. And there is other stuff in life I’d like to do.”
The new owners are Jason Cole and Jill Skintges, and any regular Green Mill patron will breathe a sigh of relief, erasing the anxiety and worry that arose when Jemilo, having in 2021 purchased the adjacent retail spots in the Green Mill building for $5 million, announced last summer that the Green Mill was for sale.
Courtesy Chicago Tribune and Rick Kogan
Both Cole and Skintges are long time employees of the Green Mill.
“We have great confidence in the future,” says Cole, a native South Sider who grew up in Berwyn and now lives on the Northwest Side. “We have both been able to watch closely how Dave works and that has been an inspiring foundation.”
Says Skintges, who is originally from the West Side and now lives in Lincolnwood, “I like to think of us as stewards, caretakers.”
Courtesy Chicago Tribune and Rick Kogan
Of note, Cole and Skintges are restoring the 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. closing times that existed before COVID-19.
The article does not say if the building housing the Green Mill has also changed hands in the purchase. As of publishing, the building's "for sale" listing remains active.
We are thrilled to see the Green Mill is in good hands for the many chapters to come!
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| "Hops & Grapes" at 1027 W. Argyle |
We told you in February 2025 that Foremost Liquors was leaving their longtime 1040 W. Argyle home for the opposite corner.
We can now report that "Hops & Grapes" has officially opened its doors at 1027 W. Argyle in another handsome, historic building.
Check out their website for a complete list of offerings! Be sure to select the "Edgewater" location.
Chicago Paws District will soon be opening its doors at 4520 North Broadway (the old City Sports, or Beck's Books, if you prefer for us olds) just north of Aldi. They just got their business license and it's all systems "go" from a city licensing standpoint.
A collaboration of the folks behind Smart Paws Chicago dog walking service and The Ranch Dog Training in Los Angeles, Chicago Paws District will open this summer and is now enrolling "campers."
You can check out the website here, and sign up for its launch party on June 20th here.
We wish Chicago Paws District much success! Woof arf drool.
Since we first heard a new restaurant was coming, we have been watching activity at 1046 W. Argyle, the former Gusto's space, with interest. We have been in contact with the owner for a little while now, and signs up on the windows revealed the news: starting today, the space will be home to a new Indonesian restaurant, Garuda Street Food.
"We are very excited to bring Garuda to the Uptown community. Garuda will be an Indonesian restaurant focused on authentic Indonesian street food and flavors."
Garuda will join Rendang Republic, which opened in 2025, as the only two Indonesian restaurants in the city.
The owners had a soft opening yesterday and are fully open today. Per the owners, expect menu offerings that are a bit more diverse than Rendang, which offers Indonesian foods with an American spin. Garuda's owner promises nasi goreng, mie goreng, rendang, satay, bakso, soto ayam, ayam penyet, and a variety of Indonesian sambals and street food favorites. Menus are below.
With food ranging from Turkish doner to Venezuelan arepas to Mexican (Oaxacan) cornish hens to Vietnamese pho to Nigerian jollof rice in a 300 foot stretch of the city, Garuda will add even more flavor to an already diverse restaurant landscape on Argyle (and more to come, shhh).
The Argyle and Broadway restaurant row is pretty exciting these days, and it's of course so close to the rehabbed Argyle Red Line stop, Timeline Theatre and the Aragon and Riviera.
We are excited!
Some developments in Lakeview relevant to Uptown.
While Holiday Club strips the last elements off of the facade at 4000 N. Sheridan, they are finalizing plans to relocate to 3044 N. Lincoln in Lakeview.
The location is a similar one story structure that was until recently the former home of Waxman candles, which closed in March.
While we are happy that Holiday Club might have found a new home, we are sad that the new home isn't in Uptown, which has some open spots that might have worked. The most obvious, of course, is the former Nick's Uptown spot (already set up for a restaurant/bar) right across the street, but Thorek Hospital seems uninterested in leasing it.
Trader Joe's usually plays things close to the vest, so in the absence of an official announcement, we've had to rely on sources to confirm our scoop regarding the new Trader Joe's location at 804 W. Montrose.
Now it's officially official, as the new store page for the Montrose location (Trader Joe's 884) is now live.
And TJ's reapplied for their liquor license yesterday, too.
