A Day in the Life

Hyde Park Treasures: Professors Sunstein and Stone Speak at 57th Street Books

Two of the best things about U of C are its professors and its location.  You all undoubtedly know that the Law School faculty is comprised of some of the most amazing legal minds in the country many of whom you could easily pass by along the sidewalks of Hyde Park, which leads us to another great things about U of C.  Hyde Park, in addition to being just 10-15 minutes from downtown Chicago, has a wealth of great restaurants, coffee shops and bookstores.  One of the best bookstores here, or anywhere, is 57th Street Books located at Dorchester Ave. and 57th Street.  57th Street Books resides in the lower level of the building and its offerings in everything from philosophy to picture books wind through its twisting hallways.  In addition to its vast collection 57th Street also regularly hosts world-famous authors, including some of our very own faculty.

Today, October 16th at 7pm, Professor Cass Sunstein, will speak about his new book, Republic 2.0, which deals with the question of what happens to democracy and free speech if people use the Internet to self-select a forum for the "marketplace of ideas" limited to only a portion of society.  Professor Geoffrey Stone ('71), a widely recognized expert on the First Amendment, will speak this Saturday, October 20th at 6 p.m. about his latest work, Top Secret: When Our Government Keeps Us In the Dark, which examines the tension between the government's need to keep information classified and freedom of expression protected by the First Amendment.

For all you bibliophiles out there check out 57th Street Books' sister stores, Seminary Co-Op Bookstore (5757 S. University) and The Newberry Library Bookstore (60 W. Walton).

The 2007 Chicago Marathon

Do you know what it takes to run 26.2 miles?  Yeah, me neither, but one of our students who ran in this year's Chicago Marathon, does and gave us a recap of the experience below.  The 30th Annual Chicago Marathon, held this past Saturday, October 7th, is an internationally renowned race that attracts runners from all over the world.  The Chicago Marathon (not unlike U of C) is unique in several ways.  First the race is often the site of record-breaking finishes for both its professional and amateur runners.  The course also offers its participants some spectacular views and an excellent tour of the city's diverse neighborhoods and landmarks as the course winds throughout the entire city.  Runners get to see everything that Chicago has to offer ... or least as much of it as you can fit into 26 miles.  Finally one of the most common comments heard every year is the great support the Chicago crowds provide and this year was no exception!  More than 1.5 million spectators lined the streets, cheering not only for their friends and family, but also for the more than 35,000 runners -- just another example of how great Chicagoans are! 

Katy Welter, a 2L, described the "marathon experience" in this way:

"I began training for the marathon at the beginning of Spring Quarter, my 1L year.  I wasn't getting outside very much and wanted to enjoy Chicago's lakefront, only a mile away but out of my sight throughout the year.  Since I worked in the Law School Clinic this summer, I had a great opportunity to spend the summer training in Chicago for Chicago.  Training got me up early in the morning and forced me to make smart decisions about my health and diet on weeknights and weekends.  Training added a dimension of physical self-discipline that complemented my academic commitment.  I crossed the finish line proud to have made good on such a long commitment.  I'm already scouting out my next marathon!"

Kristin Love, a 2L, made the marathon a family affair:

"My dad and I ran our fourth (and hottest!) Chicago Marathon.  The spectators were wonderful, as always, and I enjoyed running Chicago's flat and fast course through some of my favorite neighborhoods.  Pilsen (on Chicago's west side) was particularly excellent with mariachi bands and tasty orange slice, which gave me an extra boost of sugar that I needed to keep plugging away at the race.  Some law school friends turned out to cheer fellow law students and others congratulated us when we proudly wore our marathon t-shirts and jackets to class on Monday after the race.  Midweek after the marathon, I was back on the beautiful lakefront running trail for a training run.  Next up is Chicago's 50/50 in a couple of weeks.

Congrats to Katy and Kristin -- check back for a photo of the Law School folks who participated in the marathon this year!

Farmer's Markets

Chicago is a city that prides itself on "green space." This means more than just our system of parks and public spaces - it also means a wonderful assortment of Farmer's Markets operating from May to November each year. There are five such markets in the downtown area alone and twenty different markets all over the city that operate on a weekly basis (days of the week vary). The Hyde Park Famer's Market operates in Harper Court every Thursday morning from June 7 to October 5. It opens at 7am each week and has wonderful seasonal produce. You could very easily stop by one of these markets any day in the summer and enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables for many months.

A Summer Weekend in the City

Chicago is an amazing city in the summertime. There's some sort of festival every weekend (sometimes more than one!), street fairs galore, music everywhere, and, of course, tons of people taking advantage of the lakefront and parks. This weekend is particularly exciting. The Printer's Row Book Fair is always a highlight of June. It's been going on since 1985, and has nearly 200 booksellers with stalls showcasing new, used, and antique books, as well as 90 different literary events on seven stages. Dozens of authors will be there for events and signings. Admission is free, but if you're a reader, you'll end up spending a fair amount of cash on books!

If music is more your thing, Chicago's Blues Fest starts June 7 and goes through the 10th. It's the 24th Annual Festival, and the largest free outdoor blues festival in the world. It's in Grant Park, featuring local acts and nationally known names like Koko Taylor and Zac Harmon. Music starts around noon every day and goes until about 9:30pm.

If you prefer art, try the Old Town Art Fair or the Wells Street Art Fair, which are within a short walk of each other this Saturday and Sunday. Both feature live performances as well as juried art competitions. There's a wide range of materials used and price ranges as well.

For serious gastronomy (and the chance to experience some interesting neighborhoods), try Ribfest Chicago, Andersonville Midsommarfest, or Fiesta Back of the Yards. And if none of the rest of this excites you, there's always the Chicago branch of the World Naked Bike Ride (we kid you not) to protest reliance on oil. It's June 9, and the ride begins at 9pm (body painting starts at 6pm).

This is a fairly typical line up of events for a Chicago summer weekend. You can keep up with the schedule in a variety of places. If you're moving here soon (or want to give a gift to someone who is), a subscription to Time Out Chicago is a great idea - it's a weekly magazine showcasing all the great things there are to do in Chicago.

Olympics in Chicago?

Many of us at the Law School were excited to hear Chicago was chosen to be the official bid city of the United States for the 2016 Summer Olympic games. The International Olympic Committee announced its decision a little over a week ago; the final decision for will be held in 2009 when Chicago will vie to be the host city with cities such as Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid competing. The repercussions of such a decision will be enormous for Hyde Park and the Law School, as the Olympic stadium would be built nearby Washington Park. Over the next few years, Mayor Daley and the city will undergo serious efforts at further beautifying Hyde Park, making it a truly marketable location for the Summer Olympics' most important venue. We are looking forward to these improvements as well as waiting to see if, as many expect, Chicago will be selected. If so, plans are already being made for 2016 reunions in Hyde Park! The fact that Chicago is being considered further attests to the exciting nature of the city and makes everyone here feel a little more proud of our home.

A Weekend in Chicago

Spring is in the air and the City of Chicago is blooming with exciting things to do this weekend.  Since it is Friday, I thought I would give you an idea of some of the things going on in Chicago this weekend.    There is ArtChicago which is a fabulous art show with both modern and contemporary art.  The play The Color Purple recently opened at the Cadillac Palace Theatre and there is the 10th Annual Improve Festival which includes a number of performances at different theaters in the city.  Also our baseball teams are back on the field and the Chicago White Sox play this weekend.  And we can't forget about our Chicago Bulls who are in the playoffs!    Some students might also be heading to the Museum of Science and Industry (just a few minutes from the Law School) for the last few days of the Body Worlds 2 Exhibit which is open around the clock this weekend.  This is just a brief sampling of the happenings in Chicago this weekend and what the students can take advantage of during a study break!  Have a great weekend! 

Theater in Hyde Park

Geographically speaking, Hyde Park is a pretty small neighborhood - only about one square mile. The opportunities within that square mile, however, never cease to amaze me. Take theater, for example. Chicago is a great theater town - we have over 300 theater companies here, ranging from nationally-known ones like the Goodman, Steppenwolf, and Lookingglass to tiny storefronts doing avant garde work. We also get nearly all of the national tours of Broadway productions, and several of them - including Wicked and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee- have set up long-term homes here. Best of all, nearly all of these theaters have inexpensive student tickets.

But one of the great joys of being in a University community is that you don't have to leave our neighborhood to get your live theater fix. Hyde Park is home to several University theater options, and a world-class professional theater as well. The Court Theater, which is affiliated with the University, is a short walk from the Law School. the company formed in 1955 when a group of Hyde Park residents produced three Moliere plays outdoors in Hutchinson Courtyard at the University. In 1975, the Court was formally established as a not-for-profit professional theater company and in 1981 they opened their first 5-play season in their 250 seat auditorium. Since 1955, they've produced more than 200 shows, including 39 of Shakespeare's works. The Court produces both classic and new works - the 2005-06 season, for example, included Man of La Mancha, Fences, and Mabou Mines Dollhouse (a new adaptation of Ibsen's work). This season opened with a critically-acclaimed production of Raisin - the rarely-seen musical version of the famous Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun. Raisin was a particularly meaningful show for the Court, as Hansberry grew up in Hyde Park, and the show strongly evokes her childhood here.

The University itself offers the opportunity for law students to both regularly attend the theater, and also to get involved. University Theater begin in 1898 and puts on approximately five productions per quarter in three theater spaces, ranging from large-scale musicals to small workshop pieces. Law students are welcome to audition. The University also has a very popular improv comedy troupe known as Off-Off Campus. The famed Second City Theater was originally formed as the Compass players at the University in the 1950s, and their founder, Bernie Sahlins, returned to campus in the 1980s to start Off-Off Campus. "Off-Off" alumni (as it is locally known) have done pretty well for themselves - they include Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Auburn and Urinetown librettist Greg Kotis. They've had more revues than any other comedy group, and put on a new one each quarter. The current show is called In Case of Emergency, Breakdance.

And I know what you're thinking - will I have time to go to any of these shows? Yes. Yes, you will. You can even perform live theater right here at the Law School!

Students Volunteer at Food Bank

Last week a group of law student volunteers joined the Dean of Students for a wonderful service opportunity.  The group spent the evening at the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD) on Chicago’s west side.  The GCFD distributes more than 40 million pounds of food each year through a network of 600 local member agencies that include food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and the Chicago public schools.    Through these efforts over 500,000 people each year receive services from the GCFD.  33% of those served are children.  Volunteers from the law school spent most of the evening in an assembly line re-packaging food for a program called “Nourish for Knowledge” that provides supplemental food supplies to impoverished children and their families.  We all worked hard, but there was plenty of time for the students to chat with each other and with some of the other volunteers while we went about our work.  Together, we packaged over 1000 bags of food in just under three hours.  Our students commented that in addition to feeling great about the service that was provided, it was a great opportunity for 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls to get to know each other!   We all look forward to the next service event in the Spring Quarter.

What We See Out Our Front Window

This week was the Law School staff and faculty holiday party, which was preceded by ice skating on the Midway. It occurred to me that we should tell you about our neighborhood, so today I'll talk about the Midway.

The Midway Plaisance lies between Washington and Jackson Parks. It's a long grassy mall (like the Washington Mall, rather than the Mall of America) that was laid out at the turn of the twentieth century by legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. (Well, not entirely - Olmstead's vision for the Midway included a Venetian canal that was never built.) The Midway was the focal point of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (popularly known as the World's Fair), and gave its name to the sideshow sections of amusement parks. Directly across from where the Law School currently stands was the famous Ferris Wheel, a huge contraption with 36 cars - each 24 feet long, 13 feet wide, and 10 feet high, and weighing 26,000 pounds. The Museum of Science and Industry sits at one end of the Midway in the last surviving building from the 1893 Fair.

Now managed by the Chicago Park District, the Midway runs right through the University of Chicago campus, and the Law School (together with the School of Social Service Administration, the Harris School of Public Policy, an undergraduate dorm, and several other University buildings) is on the South side of it.

Today, the Midway holds an ice skating rink (which becomes an in-line skating rink in the summer), two beautiful gardens - the Reader's Garden and the North Winter Garden (a South Winter Garden is part of the future plan for the Midway) and several interesting pieces of public art. There are also large expanses of lawn that serve as soccer fields, softball fields, football fields - fields for pretty much any sport you can dream up. Law students can often be found engaged in intramural sports here or in a rousing (and occasionally dangerous) game of snow football.

To learn more about the history of the Midway and the 1893 World's Fair, you can read about this walking tour. Or you can pick up Erik Larson's book Devil in the White City, which chronicles the Fair, the Midway, and the life of a serial killer who preyed on visitors to the Fair. Better yet, come see the Midway for yourself. (I promise - the serial killer is loooooong gone.) In any season, there's something to do, see, and enjoy on the Midway Plaisance. And don't forget to pop into the Law School for a visit while you're here...