Curious City

Biddy Mulligan’s was not built for music. In Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, this unassuming Irish pub was a friendly neighborhood dive bar that, somehow, became an iconic blues club. In the 1970s and ‘80s, fans came from around the world to see blues artists who would become legends: Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor, Billy Branch, Carey Bell, and many more. But today, the old storefront sits empty. Curious City investigates what happened to Biddy Mulligan’s.

Around Chicago, there are ribbons of paint on utility boxes that look like little doodles. But there’s much more to these paint splotches. The street artist and graffiti writer behind this and much larger work says painting has been a lifesaver. This story first published on Feb. 22, 2024.

Chicago has a rich and sometimes sordid past, making it ripe for creepy, perhaps paranormal activity. In that spirit, Curious City recently hosted a live event at the Empty Bottle called “Tales from the Curious Crypt,” where storyteller Jonathan Pitts told an eerie tale of working late nights at the Athenaeum, Vocalo’s Nudia Hernandez talked about the ghost that haunted her family and storyteller Lily Be explained why things were vanishing during a particularly difficult time in her life.

Nuclear power is Illinois’ biggest source of energy — over 50% — and nukes are once again in the spotlight as AI data centers jack up the demand for energy. What does this massive spike in demand mean for consumers in Illinois? Why are our electric bills continuing to rise? And are we at risk of major blackouts, the kind Chicago experienced in the 1990s?

There’s a hole in the map of Chicago. It turns out, it’s a cemetery. But there are many other cemeteries in Chicago that don’t show up as holes on the map, so what’s up with this one? We take you to the 19th Ward and explore the history of this dead zone. This story was first published April 11, 2024. Mt. Greenwood Cemetery is now owned by Troost Cemeteries.

In Chicago, it was house. In Detroit, it was techno. The two genres ushered a new electronic sound into the dance music world. Despite their proximity and shared roots in disco, some consider them rivals. But are they? And what about their adjacent dance cultures, Detroit jit and Chicago footwork? Curious Midwest is a collaboration between Curious City, WUWM’s Bubbler Talk and WDET’s CuriousiD. We’re answering listener questions about the connections between these cities. WBEZ’s Erin Allen and WDET’s Bre’Anna Tinsley focus on Detroit and Chicago, the two cities that became ground zero for electronic dance music and footwork from the Midwest.

For over a century, the Midwest had been defined by what we made, including cars, steel, and beer. But during 75 years of deindustrialization, Chicago lost over half a million manufacturing jobs. Milwaukee lost almost 100,000 jobs. And for some in Detroit, it feels like the whole city was lost. Curious Midwest is a collaboration between Curious City, WUWM’s Bubbler Talk and WDET’s CuriousiD. We’re answering listener questions about the connections between these cities. This week, WUWM’s Jimmy Gutierrez looks at how de-industrialization hit the Midwest and why recovery wasn’t the same for everyone.

In Chicago, it’s the Chicago dog. In Milwaukee, the bratwurst. In Detroit, the Coney dog. Each is a little different, but their origin stories are connected. In a limited series we’re calling “Curious Midwest,” Curious City teamed up with WUWM Milwaukee’s Bubbler Talk and WDET Detroit’s CuriosiD to explore our midwestern links (pun intended). Today, why are these hyper-specific encased meats associated so strongly with these three cities? And which is the best?

From school assemblies to “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,” Ella Jenkins was a rhythm specialist and children’s music pioneer. Her childhood in Chicago was her launching pad. Jenkins forged a path in the music industry during a time when children’s musicians didn’t really exist. She persevered through the civil rights era, took ownership of her music in an industry that often took advantage of women and made the focus about children. Today, we bring you a conversation about this music icon, who harnessed curiosity, life experience and charisma to create some of the most unique and prolific art of the 20th century. Professor of American studies at George Washington University Gayle Wald sat down with Curious City Editor Susie An at the 2025 Evanston Folk Festival to talk about Jenkins’ life. Wald is the author of “This is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children’s Music and the Long Civil Rights Movement.” This episode was originally published on Feb. 11, 2026.

The Frustration Room appeared in a Chicago motel in 1962 and offered visitors the opportunity to smash objects — like a lamp base, a lightbulb or an ashtray — in a space dedicated to relieving frustration. One Curious City listener remembers visiting three times and wanted to know: who thought of this place, why, and what ever happened to it? We look into the Frustration Room’s origins and its next of kin — including a local “rage room” and a “scream club” — to ask if this kind of venting really works.

Thismia americana enjoys near-cult-status among Chicago botanists, ecologists and plant enthusiasts. The tiny, bell-shaped flower hasn't been seen since the early 1900s, but that hasn't stopped believers from trying to find Chicago's most elusive plant once more. A reporter and a team of scientists went hunting for thismia americana to see if, over a hundred years later, it could be re-discovered.

Bynum Island was once a gem in Chicago’s Washington Park, but now it’s abandoned, overgrown and inaccessible to the public. Curious City looks into why, and whether the island will ever reopen.

Former Chicago Public Schools students say school lunch used to be delicious decades ago. That comes as a surprise to current CPS students, who give lunchroom offerings mixed reviews. Also missing from the menu is a once popular butter cookie. What happened to tasty school lunches and this iconic cafeteria cookie?

One of the world’s largest scuba organizations was founded in the Chicago suburbs by Portage Park pool swim instructor Ralph Erickson. Decades later and Chicago still has a small but mighty scuba diving scene, driven in part by Lake Michigan’s many well-preserved shipwrecks. So Curious City jumped into Lake Michigan and talked with people in the local diving community who are carrying on the area’s surprisingly-robust scuba legacy.

Block club signs are all over the city, usually welcoming you to the neighborhood or telling you what you should or should not do while you’re there. A Curious City listener said they often see these signs on their way to work, and they wondered about the story behind them. What is a block club, what’s their history and who are the people involved? We visited two: the Ada United Block Club of 61st and 62nd and The Westside Block Club Association.

Once summer hits, local cover bands are busy working Chicago’s many street festivals. What’s life like for cover band musicians? Curious City spoke with three bands that are regulars on the local festival circuit: The Gingers, Too Much Molly Band, and Dancing Queen: An ABBA Salute.

It’s an invasive species that doesn’t seem harmful at first glance. But if they go unchecked, these little things can disrupt local ecologies.

The Museum of Science and Industry was renamed in 2024 in recognition of megadonor Ken Griffin. The museum’s original founder, Julius Rosenwald, did not want to put his own name on the institution.

For a brief moment in the 1990s, Lake Champlain was known as the sixth Great Lake. The lake wedged between Vermont and New York doesn’t quite measure up to the five Great Lakes. So how did this happen? Curious City partners with the Points North podcast from Interlochen Public Radio to bring you the story.

The name Aaron Montgomery Ward might sound familiar, either from the chain of now-defunct department stores that once bore his name or as the catalog guy who revolutionized mail-order shopping over 150 years ago. His lesser-known legacy, perhaps, is his drawn out fight over Grant Park. Ward spent 22 years and upwards of $1 million in today’s dollars fighting to keep Chicago’s premier downtown park “forever open, clear and free” from buildings. But why did he do it? And why isn’t he celebrated more for his crusade?

Chicago-style magic is close up, funny and usually performed at a bar or restaurant. We learn about its history and talk to several magicians who are part of the tradition. This episode was originally published in 2024.

There’s no New York-land or Boston-land, so why does the Chicago metropolitan area have its own unique name? It turns out this has been a question on the minds of many Curious City listeners. To learn more, we looked at the origins of this term, how its meaning has changed over time and the media mogul — or Colonel — behind it all. This episode originally aired in 2023.

The stretch of beach that starts where DuSable Lake Shore Drive ends wasn’t always as vibrant or as ‘gay’ as it is today. Its transition was spearheaded by Jerry Marcoccia, who was searching for a sense of belonging in the 1990s. "You can't talk about this beach being gay without including me,” he said.

Comic Sans often signals levity or sarcasm. The font is occasionally used for a key phrase in some official city elevator inspection certificates. That’s caused concern for some Chicagoans, including at least two Curious City listeners. Stand-up clips in this episode were from comedian @EricSchwartz.

A concentrated Filipino community area is not as easy to spot as neighborhoods like Chinatown or Little Village. In this episode, we’ll look at the long history Filipinos have had in Chicago stretching back to the early 1900s. We’ll also look at how Filipino restaurants have made a mark across the city in recent years, from Jefferson Park to Pilsen. Originally published in February 2025.

Curious City listeners wondered if helicopters they heard buzzing around their Chicago neighborhoods at night were part of the federal government’s immigration enforcement. There is some truth to that, but it turns out odd helicopter flights have been a curiosity long before Midway Blitz.

There’s an ancient Roman column in Chicago hidden in plain sight near Soldier Field. It was a gift given by Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini during the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair, commemorating a daring transatlantic flight to the fair by Italian Air Marshal Italo Balbo. In a time when controversial monuments get removed, why does this one still stand? (0:26) Balbo Monument Written sources: “Italo Balbo: A Fascist Life” by Claudio Segré “Broken Icarus: The 1933 Chicago World's Fair, the Golden Age of Aviation, and the Rise of Fascism” by David Hanna “Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History” by Ali Abdullatif Ahmida “Italo Balbo's Flight to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair” by Don Fiore “The meaning of monuments : Remembering Italo Balbo in Italy and the United States” by Nick Carter “Italian Colonialism” edited by Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Mia Fuller

Have you ever noticed a branded stamp in the sidewalk? Keen-eyed Chicagoans have found some that date back to Depression-era infrastructure projects by the Works Progress Administration. Who were the workers behind the WPA and why did they brand Chicago sidewalks? We explore the labor history under our feet.

A person’s accent can influence the way they are perceived. When it comes to broadcast journalism, the way a person talks is front and center and can open the door to both praise and unsolicited criticism. In our last episode, contributor Arionne Nettles looked at the Southern roots of the Black Chicago accent. It goes back to the Great Migration. Even though many Chicagoans are generations removed from their Southern relatives, some aspects of the accent persist for three main reasons: Black Chicagoans tend to live close to each other, they maintain relationships with family in the South and they like how the accent sounds. Today, we get personal with Nettles, who grew up on Chicago’s South Side. She’s a journalism professor at Florida A&M University, a culture reporter and author. As a person with the Black Chicago accent, she considered changing the way she spoke to pursue a career in broadcast journalism. She talks about what the accent means to her, and why she ultimately decided not to change it.

How have Black Chicagoans kept so many features of the Southern dialect? To answer starts with the Great Migration.

The Lady Elgin left Chicago for Milwaukee on a stormy September night in 1860 with around 400 passengers aboard. Another vessel was also out in the storm — a small lumber schooner called The Augusta — which crashed into the Lady Elgin a few hours later. “The Lady Elgin was lit, but not well enough for the unlit Augusta to see it,” said Madeline Crispell, the curator at the Chicago Maritime Museum in Bridgeport, home to an exhibit on the Lady Elgin. “Neither ship was able to get out of the way in time.” The Lady Elgin cracked in half a few miles off the coast of Highland Park, Illinois. About 100 people managed to reach the shore, but around 300 lost their lives. “It's the deadliest shipwreck in Great Lakes history,” Crispell said. You may be familiar with the Eastland disaster, which killed over 800 people in 1915 while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. But Crispell said the wreck of the Lady Elgin was even more consequential. She said the Lady Elgin was key to the development of new requirements for…

Lighthouses were manned by keepers until automation took over. Now, preservationists are working to restore Chicago’s most iconic one.

At the turn of the 20th century, Black photographers were starting to make a name for themselves. Photographers like William E. Woodard, James Van Der Zee and Miles Webb were opening and running their own studios. In African American art history, the Harlem Renaissance in New York is often celebrated. But Chicago played a role in that as well. Photographs of Black life circulated in local and international publications at the time, and the photographers behind those images focused on the community, intentionally. “The photographers know of each other and are in some ways competing, yet they're also really supportive of each other's work,” said Amy Mooney, art history professor at Columbia College Chicago. In our last episode, we explored the first art galleries in Chicago. Many of those “established” spaces were owned by white people who exhibited works by white artists. But that didn’t mean skilled and prolific artists of color were scarce. Today, Mooney tells us more about the early Black photographers who…

What was Chicago's first art gallery? Curious City investigates. Nowadays, it’s easy to see and experience art all over Chicago. But where did it all begin, and who was allowed to show their art?

The mayor of Chicago declared martial law after the Great Fire in 1871. The military occupation ended days later, after the death of a civilian. We look back at that history and get the help of legal experts to answer these questions: Was Operation Midway Blitz — the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement campaign in Chicago — an example of martial law? What is martial law, anyway?

Suburban Batavia, just 30 miles west of Chicago, used to be known as the windmill capital of the world. But eventually, technological advances took the wind out of the industry’s sails. In our last episode, we looked into why there are no wind turbines in the Great Lakes even though conditions are favorable. Legal and political hurdles continue to challenge the offshore wind energy business in the Midwest. Today, we’re going to take an historical look at the wind industry in our region. In modern times, Batavia is known for Fermilab, America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory. But long before that, Batavia was on the map for hosting six windmill factories. Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke and City Clerk Kate Garrett dive into the town’s history. They take pride in the past, but look forward to the future.

Strong and consistent winds that sweep across Lake Michigan could provide significant electricity generation. But there are no wind turbines in the lake or any of the Great Lakes. This Curious City story is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

Chicago — like so many other frigid American cities — can’t seem to kick its dependence on road salt.In our last episode, we learned how winter weather on both ends of the thermometer can impact the local economy. Some businesses come out on top during the coldest winters: auto mechanics repairing cars when they hit a pothole, snow plow companies shoveling out small businesses and rock salt providers when the roads get icy.But chloride from salt is harmful to both our natural and built environments. You’d be hard-pressed to find a cold-weather community that avoids road salt altogether, but we found one! In this encore presentation, we visit a place way up north, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Dominick Miller, chief of marketing at the Mackinac State Historic Parks, tells us about how the island deals with snow and ice in the winter without laying down a single grain of salt. And it has a lot to do with the fact that cars have been banned on Mackinac Island for over a century.

Each Chicago winter’s wintery-ness has big implications for your sanity and your wallet. That led one Curious City listener to ask us if mild winters have a noticeable effect on the local economy.

For decades, the FBI was a man’s world. Anybody else was just living in it, especially the administrative staff. In the last episode, we learned how the bureau recruited high school girls for clerical work during the 1940s. But for decades women were explicitly prohibited from becoming special agents. Western Springs resident Jane McCarty was hired out of high school in the late 1960s to work as a stenographer for the FBI. She held several positions during her more than four decades at the organization. Today, the former president of the Society of FBI Alumni talks about the ebbs and flows of women’s access to leadership and autonomy within the bureau. She endured a sexist work environment but later witnessed the first women become FBI special agents.

For a few decades starting in the 1940s, the FBI recruited high school girls for clerical work. A Chicago Catholic school was a go-to spot to make new hires.

From school assemblies to “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,” Ella Jenkins was a rhythm specialist and children’s music pioneer. Her childhood in Chicago was her launching pad. In our last episode, we learned that the first Chicago public school named after a Black person was DuSable High School, in honor of Chicago’s first nonindigenous settler, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. It turns out some of the most notable Chicagoans graduated from DuSable, including Mayor Harold Washington, historian Timuel Black and Jenkins. Today, we bring you a conversation about this music icon, who harnessed curiosity, life experience and charisma to create some of the most unique and prolific art of the 20th century. Jenkins forged a path in the music industry during a time when children’s musicians didn’t really exist. She persevered through the civil rights era, took ownership of her music in an industry that often took advantage of women and made the focus about children.Professor of American studies at George Washington University…

Many of Chicago’s oldest schools are named after white men. The first named after a Black person goes back to the 1930s, and it came with some controversy.

If you pay attention to street signs in Chicago, you’ll notice imperfections and many quirks. Paul Durica of the Chicago History Museum said a coworker informed him that North Avenue becomes North Boulevard when you’re east of Clark Street.“And I was like, what?” Durica recalled. “And it does! And it's because here we are, now in the park.”One of Chicago’s major arteries, Ashland Avenue, has a rich history of its own. In our last episode, we looked at why streets like Ashland are occasionally labelled boulevards (like North Boulevard, sometimes the answer is because the street is adjacent to a park). Today, we’re looking closer at the history of Ashland Avenue, including how it became a major thoroughfare and why the city widened it at great expense 100 years ago. (The short answer? To accommodate car traffic.) Contributing are Durica and Northwestern Professor Bill Savage, author of a forthcoming book on the anomalies and politics behind Chicago’s grid system.

Ashland Avenue is one of the longest and oldest streets in Chicago, but sometimes it’s a boulevard. Is this a misprint? Or is this part of the city’s history to promote park land?

From high-speed chases to preposterous parades, Chicago dazzles on the silver screen. Last episode, we attempted to uncover the best movie ever filmed in Chicago. What we found was that it was impossible to name a definitive best, let alone name every movie that deserves recognition. Today, we dive deeper into movies that resonate with Chicagoans with two film critics: Marya E. Gates, author of Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words and Robert Daniels, associate editor of RogerEbert.com. They argue that the city doesn’t just look good on screen, it also helps tell stories that are reflective of its residents. Gates and Daniels talk about Chicago movies that highlight crime and political tropes (like “The Untouchables,” “Medium Cool,” and “Call Northside 777”), movies that bend space and time to navigate through Chicago’s geography (like “The Fugitive” and “Blues Brothers”), and movies that follow teenagers as they romp around the city (like “Cooley High” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day…

It’s awards season. Time to look at some of the best movies filmed in Chicago.

Thanks to the powerful force that is Lake Michigan and the urban heat island that is Chicago, the city has witnessed some unusual and extreme weather events. Last episode was about lake-effect snow and a phrase you hear all the time: “Cooler by the lake.” But Chicago weather definitely gets stranger than that. We’re talking thundersnow, water spouts and even space weather. Why do these weather events happen, what makes them unusual and how can you have a little fun (safely!) when they come around? We talk with Jeff Frame, a teaching professor in the Department of Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

You’ve heard it in the Chicago weather forecast time and time again: “cooler by the lake.” But how close to Lake Michigan do you need to be to feel that dip in the temperature? And why doesn’t Chicago get the same lake effect snow as Northwest Indiana? We look into the powerful force that is Lake Michigan.

Berlin nightclub in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood closed permanently in November 2023, after four decades in business. The closure happened amid stalled negotiations between the bar’s owners and its unionizing employees. Today, the space remains empty, and it’s unclear what will take its place.In our last episode, Curious City looked into a mural that was a staple at Berlin for much of its existence. Today, we revisit an episode of WBEZ’s The Rundown podcast from just after the club closed. In asking some of the people who worked there, danced there and made memories there, it’s obvious that Berlin was more than just a bar. “It felt like a secret almost,” said All The Way Kay, who DJed at Berlin for over 15 years. “It felt like something that you wanted to hold very, very close to you because spaces like that really don't exist.”We talked with Kay, queer historian Owen Keehnen, DJ Greg Haus and several listeners who called The Rundown podcast to share what Berlin meant to them and what they hope for the…