Patrick Sisson - Writer, Journalist, Cultural Documentarian, Music Lover

Tag: chicago

Curbed October, 17 2016 Potential changes to zoning rules meant to protect the city’s manufacturing could radically reshape Chicago In a city where broad shoulders and a brawny industrial past are a civic cliche, there was always something magical about seeing sparks fly at Chicago’s A. Finkl & Sons Steel plant. In an industrial strip […]

Curbed October 2, 2015 The Polis concept from Studio Gang would remake police stations into community centers and neighborhoods hubs offering numerous community services. Images via Studio Gang. The eclectic body of work of Chicago architect Jeanne Gangdraws inspiration from unlikely sources. The angled profile of the WMS Boathouse mimics the motion of rowers, and […]

Chicago Reader Feature March 12, 2015 “I’m working-class,” says Danny Cimaglio, when asked to describe his occupation. The 63-year-old’s matter-of-fact demeanor and scrappy work history were the norm in Bucktown back in 1986, the year Cimaglio and some friends opened Danny’s Tavern, a funky bar in a solidly blue-collar hood that helped usher in the area’s […]

Article/Interview Chicago Reader March 20, 2014 Link “Three shots closed Texas Guinan’s show at the Green Mill cafe, Lawrence avenue and Broadway, at 4 o’clock yesterday morning. The internationally known night club hostess was asking the suckers to give the little girl a big hand.”—Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1930 It’s not uncommon to walk into a bar in […]

Article/Interview Nothing Major August 2013 Link  History—and city skylines—tend to be constructed by the winners, but that’s never the whole story. Alexander Eisenshmidt, an architecture professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, discovered the truth of this maxim while researching unfinished Chicago building projects and collecting a dossier of grandiose proposals, eccentric dreams, and impossible ideas that […]