A View from Chicago's City Hall


Book Description

A View from City Hall: Mid-Century to Millennium offers readers a richly detailed, visual road map of Chicago as viewed from the mayor's office in City Hall. Within these pages are emblematic images of Chicago evolving from blue-ribbon Mayor Martin Kennelly's 1947-1955 administration through his successors, including the city's first and second black mayors, the city's first female mayor, the city's first non-Irish mayor since 1933, and finally, the Daley "double," Richard J. and Richard M. Witness the excitement as City Hall rolls out the welcome wagon for traveling kings and queens, dignitaries, and counts, as well as figures of great historic import, including Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bishop Tutu, and Frank Sinatra. View rare scenes of the "builder" mayor tradition and the construction of such architectural triumphs as the Sears Tower, which was then the world's-tallest building. With over 200 photographs accompanied by informative captions, this volume highlights a variety of Chicago's ethnic festivals, parades, and political campaigns, skillfully bringing each scene to life.




Queer Clout


Book Description

Queer Clout weaves together activism and electoral politics to trace the gay movement's path since the 1950s in Chicago. Stewart-Winter stresses gay people's and African Americans' shared focus on police harassment, highlighting how black political leaders enabled white gays and lesbians to join an emerging liberal coalition in city hall.




Views and Viewmakers of Urban America


Book Description

Union list catalog of the lithographic views of cities and towns made during the 19th century.




City of the Century


Book Description

“A wonderfully readable account of Chicago’s early history” and the inspiration behind PBS’s American Experience (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). Depicting its turbulent beginnings to its current status as one of the world’s most dynamic cities, City of the Century tells the story of Chicago—and the story of America, writ small. From its many natural disasters, including the Great Fire of 1871 and several cholera epidemics, to its winner-take-all politics, dynamic business empires, breathtaking architecture, its diverse cultures, and its multitude of writers, journalists, and artists, Chicago’s story is violent, inspiring, passionate, and fascinating from the first page to the last. The winner of the prestigious Great Lakes Book Award, given to the year’s most outstanding books highlighting the American heartland, City of the Century has received consistent rave reviews since its publication in 1996, and was made into a six-hour film airing on PBS’s American Experience series. Written with energetic prose and exacting detail, it brings Chicago’s history to vivid life. “With City of the Century, Miller has written what will be judged as the great Chicago history.” —John Barron, Chicago Sun-Times “Brims with life, with people, surprise, and with stories.” —David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of John Adams and Truman “An invaluable companion in my journey through Old Chicago.” —Erik Larson, New York Times–bestselling author of The Devil in the White City




Metropolis Berlin


Book Description

Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 reconstitutes the built environment of Berlin during the period of its classical modernity using over two hundred contemporary texts, virtually all of which are published in English translation for the first time. They are from the pens of those who created Berlin as one of the world’s great cities and those who observed this process: architects, city planners, sociologists, political theorists, historians, cultural critics, novelists, essayists, and journalists. Divided into nineteen sections, each prefaced by an introductory essay, the account unfolds chronologically, with the particular structural concerns of the moment addressed in sequence—be they department stores in 1900, housing in the 1920s, or parade grounds in 1940. Metropolis Berlin: 1880-1940 not only details the construction of Berlin, but explores homes and workplaces, public spaces, circulation, commerce, and leisure in the German metropolis as seen through the eyes of all social classes, from the humblest inhabitants of the city slums, to the great visionaries of the modern city, and the demented dictator resolved to remodel Berlin as Germania.




The American Engineer


Book Description




Views from the Streets


Book Description

Chicago has long served as a symbol of urban pathology in the public imagination. The city’s staggering levels of violence and entrenched gang culture occupy a central place in the national discourse, yet remain poorly understood and are often stereotyped. Views from the Streets explains the dramatic transformation of black street gangs on Chicago’s South Side during the early twenty-first century, shedding new light on why gang violence persists and what might be done to address it. Drawing on years of community work and in-depth interviews with gang members, Roberto R. Aspholm describes in vivid detail the internal rebellions that shattered the city’s infamous corporate-style African American street gangs. He explores how, in the wake of these uprisings, young gang members have radically refashioned gang culture and organization on Chicago’s South Side, rejecting traditional hierarchies and ideologies and instead embracing a fierce ethos of personal autonomy that has made contemporary gang violence increasingly spontaneous and unregulated. In calling attention to the historical context of these issues and to the elements of resistance embedded in Chicago’s contemporary gang culture, Aspholm challenges conventional views of gang members as inherently pathological. He critically analyzes highly touted “universal” violence prevention strategies, depicting street-level realities to illuminate why they have ultimately failed to reduce levels of bloodshed. An unprecedented analysis of the nature and meaning of gang violence, Views from the Streets proposes an alternative framework for addressing the seemingly intractable issues of inequality, despair, and violence in Chicago.




History of Chicago


Book Description




Tokyo


Book Description

Donald Richie takes the reader on a revealing tour of the different districts of Japan's capital city. Starting from the original centre of Tokyo – the Imperial Palace – Richie branches outwards, taking in other areas such as Yoshiwara, the original red-light district, and Ginza, the world-famous shipping street. The author has kept a diary for the entire time he has lived in Tokyo, and excerpts from it provide on-the-spot insights into the significance of fashions and fads in Japanese culture (for example the recent Tamagochi craze), as well as the various aspects of life in a small neighborhood. Richie gives a real sense of how Japanese society has changed since the Second World War, yet remained rooted in its past. With the eclectic eye and ear of a film-maker, Richie describes the flavor and idiosyncrasies of this chaotic, teeming city. Tokyo is illustrated with 30 intriguing photographs by Seattle-based photographer, Joel Sackett.