South Loop residents get a new ‘taste'
Local church hosts its second neighborhood festival

The South Loop is changing—developers are staking their claim and colleges are expanding their foothold—and the congregation of the 2nd Presbyterian Church, 1936 S. Michigan Ave., is determined to be a part of the change. The 104-year-old church made its presence in the expanding community known on Aug. 7 with its annual Taste of the South Loop festival.

Now in its second year, the Taste of the South Loop, sponsored by the Women's Association of the 2nd Presbyterian Church, is starting to take off.
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Millennium Park makes its debut

Despite being four years behind schedule, a ballooning budget and a barrage of criticism, Millenium Park, which officially opened to the public on July 19, received an enthusiastic welcome from an endless crowd of visitors. During its first week, Chicagoans and tourists alike got their first look at the park that encompasses the steel structures and two towers of faces that have been peaking the curiosity of passers-by for months.

Throughout its opening week the $475 million, 24.5-acre park welcomed visitors from as far away as India to those who live and work right across from the park. The site offers architectural eye candy in the form of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the steel structure that some liken to a lion; the silver “bean” or as the artist Anish Koopur, who designed the sculpture, calls it “Cloud Gate”; and the Crown Fountain, the two 50-foot high towers, made out of glass block, featuring a water element and faces that look down on Michigan Avenue.
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Click here to view the photo slide show of Millennium Park.

One year later ... and still going strong
The road to respect remains trying for Congress Plaza Hotel strikers

Despite what they contend is an unresponsive owner, a risk to their livelihoods, pickets that total thousands of miles of walking in the cold, heat, rain and snow, workers at the Congress Plaza Hotel remain dedicated to their cause—to receive fair wages, full benefits and respect.

The strike, which will reach the one-year mark on June 15, is a familiar sight to Columbia students and faculty who pass by the hotel’s front doors at 520 S. Michigan Ave. Recently, the striking worker’s union, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 1, has attempted to expand the focus of the strike by highlighting abuse charges against the 101-year-old hotel’s owner, Albert Nasser, who operates garment-manufacturing plants in the Philippines.
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CAN TV may receive long-awaited funding
Parent company jeopardizes station’s future

A proposed ordinance by alderman Bernard Stone (50th Ward) on May 5 would give Chicago Access Network Television one-fifth of the city’s cable franchise fee, giving public access $2 million for their yearly budget. The amount is an estimate of the 1 percent CAN TV would receive from the city’s total 5 percent cable franchise fee.

According to a CAN TV press release, almost 80 percent of public access television stations across the country run on the same system of payment.
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Chicago’s own ‘Tin Man’ full of heart
Street performer attracts pedestrians’ attention with dance moves, poses

Leroy Midyette gets off the Red Line at Chicago Avenue on his way to work, much like the majority of the passengers. Only his work garb isn’t the conventional shirt and tie.

Midyette is dressed in his “Tin Man” costume, a somewhat robotic and more modern version of the famous Tin Man of The Wizard of Oz.
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Experts, parents gather to discuss autism treatments
Conference to dispell myths about disability

When Mary Romaniec’s son was diagnosed with autism, she was told there was no hope.

But despite doctors’ words, the southern California mother was determined to help her son, and three and a half years after she implemented a new diet for him, he was fully recovered.
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