About 70 people crowded into the Washington Park Refectory Monday evening, Jan. 30, for the Jackson Park Advisory Council's ( JPAC) first meeting under new leadership.

The ice rink on the Midway Plaisance is a reminder that Hyde Park was once a winter playland. Now, cold and snow come in short bursts, but in the 19th century, the average temperature was so consistently cold that ice harvesting was big business. Blocks of ice 18 inches thick were repeatedly…

Thousands of graduate student workers at the University of Chicago are now voting in a union election several years in the making.

Chicago has a long history of puppeteering, including the coining of the term puppeteer in 1912 by Ellen Van Volkenberg. One of the co- founders of the Chicago Little Theater and the American Little Theatre Movement of the early 20th century, Volkenberg came up with the term when she needed …

Two members of the clean-up crew hired to work in the Harper Square Cooperative after a deadly Jan. 25 fire have been charged with stealing $19,000 in cash and two bags of jewelry from a unit there.

A deadly fire in the Harper Square Cooperative, 4850 S. Lake Park Ave., was caused by a resident smoking in a bedroom, the Chicago Fire Department said Thursday.

A fire Wednesday morning at the Harper Square Cooperative residential building, 4850 S. Lake Park Ave., has killed one person and injured at least nine others, Chicago Fire Department officials said.

Middle and high school students are used to answering questions at school. But they don’t often get asked how they view their teachers and classrooms.

Current and former tenants of the two Algonquin Apartment buildings that suffered a major power failure during a sub-zero cold snap last month have filed a class-action lawsuit against property manager Mac Properties. 

Erin Haddad-Null's 4-year-old son had a cold with a persistent cough for several days leading up to his birthday last year.

Fifth Ward aldermanic candidates have differing housing and development proposals, but the 10 who showed up to a Sunday, Jan. 15 forum agreed that trees in Jackson and South Shore Park should stop getting cut down.

After several delays of the city’s plan to house migrants in a repurposed Woodlawn school, hundreds of residents gathered for a community meeting last week to voice their frustrations and demand answers from officials.

The Chicago Commission of Landmarks has granted Promontory Point preliminary landmark status, marking an important step in community efforts to preserve the historic peninsula park.

Doc Films, the 91-year-old University of Chicago club that screens movies most days of the year, needs $60,000 for new equipment. 

This story was co-produced with the South Side Weekly 

The Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO) is opening a cafe and community space for older adults and building out its headquarters thanks to a $3.6 million city grant.

After 30 years in education and 15 years as principal of Murray Language Academy, 5335 S. Kenwood Ave., Greg Mason is ready to retire. As he wraps up his tenure and prepares to step down at the end of June, the search for a new Murray principal is well underway. 

Mac Properties says they are nearly done with repair work on two Algonquin Apartments buildings that froze when their transformer failed due to unpermitted electrical work.

The Hyde Park Bonfire Club, the merry band of regulars from neighborhood bars who gather at the Iowa Building in Jackson Park for food, beverages and camaraderie, is selling T-shirts.

For the second time after reports of the imminent opening of the former Wadsworth Elementary, 6420 S. University Ave., for migrants, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration says "the city has not determined a firm date on when this space will open for shelter."

The League of Women Voters will host a forum for 5th Ward aldermanic candidates this Sunday, Jan. 8. All 12 candidates vying to replace outgoing Ald. Leslie Hairston are confirmed to attend.

Two local government departments will mulch Christmas trees in Chicago parks again this year, from Jan. 7 to 21. The nearest site to Hyde Park will be the Jackson Park Field House parking lot off of Cornell Drive.

On 56th Street just east of Cottage Grove Avenue, century-old ornate wooden gates open onto the University of Chicago playing fields. Though the entrance may look awkward in its humble setting today, those gates once stood between crenelated towers near 1100 E. 57th St. and opened onto a sta…

More than 400 recently unionized workers at Howard Brown Health, an LGBTQ-focused health care organization, are on the last day of a three-day strike in protest of mass layoffs and what they say are other unfair labor practices.  

This story was originally published by South Side Weekly. 

More than one Hyde Parker broke down and cried during brief interviews with the Herald on Jan. 2, 2022. Nerves were fried after the promise of vaccines ending the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 evaporated with breakthrough infections and then a massive wave of illness and death due to the omicron…

The Department of Buildings reports that Mac Properties’ unpermitted electrical work last summer caused the disastrous power failure in two of the Algonquin Apartment buildings that displaced nearly 200 tenants.

After cautious optimism amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and doom and gloom from the omicron variant surge in 2022, Hyde Parkers at Promontory Point were altogether sunnier on Jan. 1, 2023, looking forward to the opportunities the new year has in store.

Hundreds of tenants of two Algonquin Apartment buildings, owned by Mac Properties, are still unhoused after a Dec. 23 power failure knocked out the buildings’ heat, water and electricity.

For years, housing advocates warned of gentrification encroaching in South Side neighborhoods spurred by the incoming Obama Presidential Center, and those alarms are now ringing louder as recent data shows investors flocking to surrounding neighborhoods at higher rates than ever before.

By a margin of four votes, University of Illinois Chicago engineering professor and Promontory Point Conservancy vice president Michael Scott has been elected this year’s Jackson Park Advisory Council (JPAC) president.

Alexandra, Elena and Sergei Shokarev are among the newest students at Kozminski Community Academy, 936 E. 54th St. The siblings – aged 5, 7 and 14 – are, with their parents, the first Russian refugees to arrive in Hyde Park due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Metra is set to receive a $37.6 million federal infrastructure grant as it works to modernize the 59th Street/University of Chicago station and bring it into American Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance. 

No single narrative is dominating local retailers' holiday shopping seasons, as stores with varied offerings report better recent sales than ones specializing in a particular kind of merchandise.

The Jackson Park Advisory Council (JPAC) run-off election for the group’s president will take place Wednesday evening, Dec. 21 at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. The only agenda item on the meeting is the presidential election, which will begin at 7:00 p.m.