Category Living Here

Where to eat, what to do, and what’s worth the trip across Chicago and the suburbs. Recommendations here are editorial picks; nobody pays for placement.

Living Here

The Park District’s Event File Is Three Calendars in One: 96,765 Permit Rows, 40,553 Administrative Reservations, 5,048 Venue Rentals — and 13 Rows Marked Denied Since 2012

A Chicago lakefront park lawn with picnic tables on a summer morning

The Chicago Park District - a separate government from the city - keeps a reservation ledger of 142,366 rows, 2012 into future-dated 2026 bookings. Read by its own labels it is three calendars: 96,765 permit rows (98 percent marked Approved; 13 denial-labeled rows in fifteen years), 40,553 administrative reservations, and 5,048 venue rentals, 1,867 of them weddings. Athletic training is one permit row in three, and the most-reserved space in the file is a greenhouse. No applicant name was queried.

KCM Desk
August 25, 2026

Living Here

11 of Chicago’s Most Haunted Places: The Stories as They’re Told — and What the Record Shows at Each of Them

Wrought-iron cemetery gates at dusk with mist, old monuments and a hazy Chicago skyline beyond

The eleven places where Chicago's ghost stories are told, each set against the record: the Iroquois fire's 602 dead per the city library, the Eastland's 844 per the historical society, the Park District's own page on the tomb in Lincoln Park, Jane Addams's firsthand 1916 account of the Devil Baby, five city-landmark buildings - and no ghost in any record this page reviewed. Every quoted sentence checked against its source page.

KCM Desk
August 24, 2026

Living Here

CPS’s Own Progress File: Chronic Truancy Is 37.6 Percent at the Median School — and the Rating Columns Are Mostly Empty

Empty Chicago classroom with sunlight through tall windows

CPS's school-by-school progress file for SY2425, read as recorded: chronic truancy at 37.6 percent for the median school (62.6 at the median high school), 51 percent of schools in the culture survey's top two levels - and rating columns that are mostly empty, with no school carrying a growth rating. No school named, nothing re-graded.

KCM Desk
August 19, 2026

Living Here

The Chicago Community Areas With the Most Individual Landmarks

Historic building facades along a Loop street

The Loop holds 77 of the 409 placed entries on Chicago's individual-landmark register - one in five - with the Near North Side second at 43. Twelve areas listed, because the cut lands mid-tie at 12; districts counted separately; every tie shown at shared rank.

KCM Desk
August 18, 2026

Living Here

Every Chicago Lakefront Beach, Ranked by Advisory-Level Water Tests

Clear water at a Chicago lakefront beach on a summer morning

North Avenue Beach has the cleanest water-test record on Chicago's lakefront - 1.4 percent of its lab tests since 2021 at or above the swim-advisory action level - while 63rd Street sits at 10.3 percent, seven times that share. All 17 lakefront beaches ranked from the city's own 9,524 lab results, with Humboldt's inland lagoon counted apart.

KCM Desk
August 15, 2026

Living Here

Buses Are at 86 Percent of 2019. The L Is at 65. Divvy Is at 176.

Illustration of riders on blue share bikes along Chicago's lakefront trail with the skyline and an L train in the distance

On the same January-May window where CTA buses run at 86 percent of 2019 and the L at 65, Divvy logged 1.76 million trips against 998,000 - an expansion, not a recovery, and the piece explains the difference.

KCM Desk
August 2, 2026

Living Here

Chicago Re-Legalized ADUs in May 2021. It Has Issued 201 ADU Permits Since, Fewer Than One a Week.

A small Chicago coach house above a garage at the rear of a residential lot

We read all 856 ADU-related building permits since Chicago's pilot began and counted conservatively: 201 ADU permits in five-plus years, two-thirds of them in five North Side areas. The citywide expansion went live in April 2026 - this count is its baseline.

KCM Desk
July 28, 2026

Living Here

93% of Chicago House Parcels the Assessor Turned Down Appeared at the Board of Review Too. More Than 4 in 10 Won There.

A brick Chicago two-flat with a bay window on a sunny street

We matched every tax-year-2025 Chicago house appeal across both stages, parcel by parcel. The Assessor granted no reduction to five in six parcels that appealed; 93% of those later appeared at the Board of Review, and 42.5% received the reduction there. The 2026 appeal season opened July 27.

KCM Desk
July 27, 2026

Living Here

Last Call on the Red Line: 10 Chicago Bars Open Till 4 A.M.

Ten Chicago bars licensed to serve until 4 a.m., every one a short walk from the 24-hour Red Line. Verified against city licence records and each bar’s own posted hours, with the ones that shut at two flagged.

KCM Desk
July 21, 2026

Living Here

The Yellow Flag Flies 7 Times as Often at One Chicago Beach as at Another

A yellow advisory flag flying beside a Chicago Lake Michigan beach on a sunny summer morning

Chicago tests its beach water every swimming day and raises a yellow flag when the reading hits 1,000. We counted 9,524 lakefront tests since 2021. The flag flies at 63rd Street seven times as often as at North Avenue, and it is not a north-south story.

KCM Desk
July 19, 2026