Chicago’s individual-landmark register credits Frank Lloyd Wright on 11 of its 412 entries — 10 as sole architect, plus the Charnley House’s shared credit — from an 1891 house on Astor Street to a 1917 pair on South Hoyne. All 11, in construction-date order, with the register’s own dates and designations.
The oldest standing building on Chicago’s individual-landmark register is an 1833 farmhouse in Norwood Park — three years older than the Clarke House. The twelve oldest register entries, through a four-way tie at 1869, with the commemorative sites and one stone marker kept apart and every date the register’s own.
Chicago’s ledger of vacant-building cases against financial institutions: 5,012 violations across 4,175 hearing dockets, most from the early 2010s — and four in five ended in “City non-suit,” the city ending its own case. $1.53 million assessed at the docket grain the file itself uses, $1.26 million paid. Read in full, with the double-counting trap the file sets explained.
Chicago’s register of individually designated landmarks holds 412 entries, and more than half were designated in one mayor’s 22 years — about 10.4 a year under Richard M. Daley against roughly 6.5 under the next two administrations, with the pace back near Daley-era levels since 2023. Mapped area by area, with the register’s 1990s-built civic monuments included.
Chicago’s $1.89 billion ARPA grant is 98.6 percent expended, with $27.2 million left across 22 program lines as of the city ledger’s July 31 refresh — the largest balance on the CARE alternative-response program, and one broadband line showing $695 spent of $4 million. Counted from the city’s own files, with Treasury’s December 31 deadline reported as Treasury’s rule.
Chicago keeps two rolling 90-day lists of vehicles it has moved: tows to the pound, and relocations — cars moved without being impounded. We archived both on August 8: 5,396 recorded tows, 95 percent to two pounds, and 4,259 relocations, more than half labeled with city work reasons — and 72 percent of relocated cars record a different drop street than where they started.
Ten falls of CPS’s own 20th-day files: district-run schools under 250 students went from 56 to 115 — 22 percent of the district’s schools — while the median school shrank from 498 students to 396, and 19 traditional schools crossed under the line in fall 2025 alone. Counted with the bands stated plainly: descriptive, not a CPS standard.
We read all 21 of CPS’s 20th-day enrollment files, fall 2005 through fall 2025, and joined them on the district’s own school IDs. The count fell from 420,925 to 316,224 — and the map is uneven: 63 of 77 community areas are below their fall 2012 level while the Loop’s schools nearly doubled. Mapped area by area, with the reading rules that matter.
On July 1, 2003, Chicago’s license file shows 1,386 premises holding an active tavern license; this July it shows 758 — a 45 percent slide spread across two decades, with premises licensed for package goods outnumbering licensed taverns every July since 2013. Counted and mapped from the city’s own license file.
Chicago permitted 1,169 sidewalk cafés for 2025 against 1,192 in 2019 — but the Loop sits at 75 percent of its old count while Lincoln Park and Lincoln Square run well above theirs, and barely half of 2019’s cafés return under the same owner account. Counted and mapped from the city’s own permit file.
