The Gift of Pianos program

You had the best intentions to learn it when you bought it; or you bought it for your kids’ lessons and they have kids of their own now. Either way, that piano in your living room taunts you with its inuse, but it’s so big and beautiful, you can’t just throw it away. So it sits there. The PianoForte Foundation and the local Piano Technicians Guild run a program to refurbish those old pianos and match donors with schools, churches and community organizations that “are in need of a good instrument.” For example, just last month the program matched a Baldwin Console with the Mitchell Elementary School. Bravo!

408 South Michigan, Suite 820
(312)291-0291
www.pianofortefoundation.org/a-gift-of-pianos/

Best of Chicago 2009

Strawberry Panzanella Salad at Panozzo’s Italian Market

One of August’s highlights is tomato season, as farmers markets and local gardens overflow with abundant local bounty. Suddenly favorite simple seasonal dishes reach sublime levels with garden-grown tomatoes, like panzanella salad. But the newish Italian market in the South Loop, Panozzo’s figured out a way to extend the season for this simple dish, often called a Tuscan peasant salad, by making it with strawberries, which come into season at the beginning of summer. Who knew that a mix of grilled bread, onions, cucumbers, vinegar, oil and basil would find new life mated with the strawberry. Now the whole summer’s delicious.

1303 S. Michigan
(312)356-9966

Best of Chicago 2008

Whole Foods South Loop

If cooking shows and cookbook photography are food porn, then the largest Chicago outpost of this national chain might just be the grocery version of a sex club. Sporting everything from a smokehouse to a noodle shop to an in-house gelateria, this good-eats emporium will satisfy the most active of your culinary fantasies. Sure Whole Foods might sport the nickname “whole paycheck,” but it’s a relative bargain when compared to “whole inheritance” ultra-gourmet stores.

1101 South Canal
(312)435-4600

Audience Choice
Whole Foods
30 West Huron, (312)932-9600; 3300 North Ashland, (773)244-4200; 1000 West North, (312)587-0648; 1101 South Canal, (312)435-4600

Best of Chicago 2007

South Loop

Three little words: location, location, location. When the going gets tough in the investment world, the world takes flight to quality. And in real estate, quality is virtually synonymous with location. The South Loop may suffer disproportionately in the near term due to its enormous supply of new housing units coming onto the market over the next few years, but you can’t take away its location: along the lakefront, at the hub of all mass transit lines and within walking distance of Grant Park, Museum Campus and the Art Institute, shopping and Soldier Field. Those who can buy on price weakness and hold will do quite well.

Audience Choice
Gold Coast; Logan Square (tie)

Best of Chicago 2007

South Loop

Chicago magazine blew it the kiss of death just months ago, decreeing it the “hottest neighborhood in America.” Before long, the collapse in credit markets and declining home prices started dominating America’s front pages, making the thousands of new condo units in the works for the South Loop over the next few years a dark cloud over the neighborhood’s recent prosperity. And sure enough, just this month, major real estate developer Lennar Corp. bailed out of a high-rise condo project, even with construction already underway. Of course, the work goes on, now as a rental project, for, while condo prices are no longer rising, downtown rents have hit all-time highs.

Audience Choice
South Loop

Best of Chicago 2007

Buddy Guy’s Legends
Too many people in Chicago write off Buddy Guy’s as a tourist trap. That’s a crime, since Legends, of all the standard-playing tourist-money-taking blues venues in town, actually goes out of its way to book the best in national blues acts. But the daily grind aside, Buddy Guy’s has become integral to the city because of the man himself, who plays a month of shows every January, and sells them out before the turn of the new year. Oh yeah, and the next time the Rolling Stones are in town, fans of Jagger and Co. should make it a point to hang at Buddy’s; members of the band—huge fans of Guy—make regular appearances, playing on the same stage as their hero.

700 South Wabash (312)427-1190

Best of Chicago 2002

Printers Row Book Fair
This city of neighborhoods offers countless street fairs, most of which offer a chance to eat, drink, shop and listen to music in the sunshine of Chicago’s wonderful summers in one of its diverse enclaves. The Printers Row Book Fair is part street fair, part gigantic outdoor bookstore and, with its readings, panels and open mics, part literary event of the highest intellectual order. Shop for books, new and used, from hundreds of bookstores from around the country, against the backdrop of the architectural museum along the 600 and 700 blocks of South Dearborn, and take the time to listen to a few authors read from their work.
June 7-8, 2003

Best of Chicago 2002

Jazz Showcase
Though the names and places have changed, Jazz Showcase is the brainchild of one of Chicago’s constants, owner Joe Segal. A jazz lover who’s been booking his obsession for more than fifty years in various spots around the city, Segal’s most enduring place has been the Showcase, a smoke-free venue that rides Segal’s nationwide reputation to secure top-name jazz artists. Though Jazz Showcase stays away from the extremes (free and improvised jazz), it’s the place to go for titans like Jacky Terrasson and Milt Jackson, who come to the Showcase for five-day runs.

806 South Plymouth (312)360-0234

Best of Chicago 2002