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.

Chicago Deep Dish, by the Record: Born Fall 1943, With a Creator the Reference Work Never Names — and 2,445 Active Licenses With PIZZ in the Name

A deep dish pizza in a steel pan with a slice being lifted

Seven things about Chicago deep dish, each traced to a named source: a fall 1943 birth per the Encyclopedia of Chicago, an origin Uno's page credits to Ike Sewell while the reference work names three partners and no inventor, a 600-degree recipe, pizza in Chicago since the 1890s, a first Lou Malnati's that opened in Lincolnwood on St. Patrick's Day 1971, a Gino's East opened by two taxi drivers and a partner - and 2,445 active licenses with PIZZ in the name, counted by us. No pizza is ranked; no restaurant is recommended.

7 Things Under Chicago, by the Record: Raised Streets, a Freight-Tunnel Flood — and Tunnels 300 Feet Down

An old underground freight tunnel with rail tracks receding into darkness

Seven things under Chicago, each traced to a named record: streets raised four to five feet on average in the 1850s, buildings lifted one owner at a time, a forgotten freight-tunnel network that flooded the Loop with 250 million gallons of river water in 1992, a Pedway linking more than 40 blocks, a separate government's 110 miles of tunnels up to 300 feet down, and the 811 file that logs what diggers hit. Every quote verified against its source; every figure of ours labeled.

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.

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.

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.

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