This Missouri-born multi-hyphenate is an acclaimed fabric sculptor, designer, and performance artist who currently lives in Chicago and is director of the graduate fashion program at School of the Art Institute Chicago. Cave’s won wide acclaim for his inventive full body “ soundsuits"--fabric costumes that weave together metal, fabric, hair, found objects, and a variety of other things that rub together and make fascinating noises through movement. Some of his soundsuits are politically or socially inspired, possessing a deeper meaning, and they were featured in an 8-page editorial spread in the September issue of Vogue.
Jason Schmidt
After getting her MBA from Harvard Business School, New Orleans native Rogers married John W. Rogers Jr. (the couple are now divorced), moved to Chicago, and started her rapid ascent in the business world. Rogers ran the Illinois State Lottery from 1990-1997, and then served as an executive for several energy companies. She’s served on the boards of several Illinois charities and companies, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, the Northwestern Memorial Foundation, The Polk Foundation, and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art (she quit in 1999 in protest of the museum’s slow response to diversity issues). An Obama family friend, Rogers was selected to serve as the White House Social Secretary in 2009—the first black person ever to hold the position. She stepped down in February 2009 after organizing some 330 events over 14 months. Barack and Michelle Obama said in a statement: “We are enormously grateful to Desiree Rogers for the terrific job she's done as the White House Social Secretary. When she took this position, we asked Desiree to help make sure that the White House truly is the People's House, and she did that by welcoming scores of everyday Americans through its doors.” Rogers currently serves as the CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, a Chicago-based publishing firm responsible for Ebony and Jet magazines.
Jason Schmidt
Cloud Gate--nicknamed “The Bean”--is a gigantic bean-shaped public sculpture that serves as the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park, located in the Loop community area of Chicago. Crafted by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, it’s made of polished stainless steel that reflects a fisheye view of the city’s skyline. The artwork was unveiled on May 15, 2006, and immediately became a tourist magnet and an “extraordinary art object,” according to The New York Times. The sculpture is now a regular fixture on souvenirs, including t-shirts, postcards, and posters, and has served as a backdrop in several movies, including the 2006 film The Break-Up, starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.
Jason Schmidt
A modern form of breakdancing, “footwork” originated in the ghettos of Chicago and accompanied Chicago Juke—a faster version of Ghetto House, using rapid bass drums and DIY production in a style similar to Baile Funk. Footwork is a game of one-upmanship, with some Chicago gangs using it as an alternative to street fighting. “In footwork, an individual, usually a boy, strides out into the center of a group and starts jittering with his feet in fluid slides and taps, sometimes jabbing forwards to provoke an opponent,” described The Guardian. “With the music usually played at aggressive tempos of 155-165 bpm, footwork is an exercise in speed. Dancers' feet blur beneath their static torsos, keeping balance in hypnotic burst of rhythm. The best footworkers can read the music like a map, never missing its subtle changes in dynamic and incorporating shifts in sound into their moves.” Initially spread by Chicago Juke artists Dude ‘n Nem and Starfoxxx, the hood dance phenomenon has traveled all the way to the UK, where it proved very popular in the club scene.
Jason Schmidt
Born on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, Axelrod eventually moved to Chicago and became the City Hall Bureau Chief and a political columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He then started a political consultancy company, Axelrod & Associates, and became a specialist for African American political campaigns, spearheading the reelection of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, as well as several other mayoral campaigns. He’s been the longtime strategist for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and worked on John Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign, as well as Eliot Spitzer’s successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Axelrod’s known Barack Obama since 1992, eventually serving as his top political advisor during his 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate, and then as chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. He also served as Senior Advisor to the President until January 28, 2011. According to The Washington Post, Axelrod said, “If I could help Barack Obama get to Washington, then I would have accomplished something great in my life.”
Jason Schmidt
Making The Daily Beast’s list of America’s Hottest New Fall Restaurants, this Chicago gastropub from former Top Chef champion Stephanie Izard, along with Rob Katz and Kevin Boehm of Boka Restaurant Group, is a Mediterranean-influenced shared-plates hot spot. “The second you spin through its revolving doors you're blasted with a besotting roasty meatgust issuing from the wood oven at the back of the room,” said said Mike Sula, food critic at the Chicago Reader. “It's as if you've stepped onto the scene of a smoldering barn fire where the former inhabitants are being put to the best possible use.” Izard crafts the dishes herself in an open kitchen, and when she’s not posing for pictures with fans of the Bravo reality show, she’s whipping up unique dishes like smoked goat pizza with sour cherries or grilled lamb and avocado with tart pistachio sauce.
Jason Schmidt
Having moved from Pittsburgh to Chicago, Groupon’s founder and CEO Andrew Mason turned a “small town” idea of a discount pizza-stunt into one of the fastest-growing companies ever in the vast former home of the vanished mail-order giant Montgomery Ward. The concept went viral on the Internet, eventually reaching more than 35 million members, and Groupon just turned down Google’s purchase offer of $5.3 billion. Why did Andrew Mason choose to build his online startup in Chicago rather than in Silicon Valley, where so many of the world’s largest technology corporations have started their businesses? For the same reason Facebook started at Harvard: they both needed to be surrounded by an eager young following, as opposed to a community of venture capitalists and cyber nerds.
Jason Schmidt
Emanuel, a long-serving Washington insider, is replacing Chicago’s former Mayor Richard Daley and will take office in May. Buoyed by support from black voters and other traditional blocs, Emanuel is Chicago’s’ first Jewish mayor and is now leading a pack of high-powered Obama stalwarts back to the Windy City. Having suppressed his notorious pugnacity during a campaign full of low-comic challenges from spoiler candidates and a failed lawsuit claiming he wasn’t a bona fide resident, he now faces the real challenge of toughing out punishing deficits without hacking the life out of the vibrant city he has taken over from his revered predecessor.
Jason Schmidt
Chicago has long been poised for a fashion boom, and Ikram Goldman is a central figure of the city’s up-and-coming style set. Not only has Goldman overseen Michelle Obama’s forays into fashion, she also boasts a dress and tchotchke emporium on Chicago’s Rush Street, a notorious block where high-powered female executives can slip away from their Michigan Avenue high-rise offices to elegant boutiques in old townhouses like Goldman’s. Her store has a following of well-to-do ladies who covet Ikram’s unique creations, like one of her $27,000 beaded necklaces made out of woolly-mammoth ivory and “diamonds” resembling chunks of pitted lava.
Marc Dimov / PatrickMcMullan.com
Chef Grant Achatz—who turned Chicago’s Alinea into America’s most remarkable eating place with its far-out, multicourse menu and liquid-nitrogen-frozen futuristic dishes—is opening a completely new restaurant in the raffish West Loop district, appropriately called Next. The progressive chef’s plan is to build the menu around a historical or geographical conceit—a deconstruction of the classic Escoffier cookbook the Guide Culinaire or a visit to Peru.
Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune / Newscom
Fittingly located in the Gold Coast neighborhood, the Elysian is one of Chicago’s most luxurious hotels. Featured on the lists of Conde Nast Traveler’s Hot Hotels and Hot Spas in 2010, The Elysian recently received two prestigious stars in Michelin’s Chicago Guide 2011. It was also the site of Grammy and Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson’s “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” special performance on ABC in December 2009, where the talented actress-singer strolled through the Elysian courtyard before performing a duet with Michael Buble in the hotel’s ballroom.
Elysian Hotel, MCT / Newscom
Careening toward bankruptcy after 22 years with Daley as mayor, the city has lost 200,000 inhabitants in the past decade. But for all his cronyism and budgetary denial, Daley put a shine on a great but gray town. He built so many parks that Midwestern nurseries ran out of trees. His triumph, Millennium Park, is the dazzling emblem of a period that brought Chicago social harmony—along with booming tourism, e-commerce, and new kinds of culture. Now, from a music scene powered by the underground footwork energy of juke to adventurous three-star restaurants, high-stepping fashion, and hot artists, Chicago is not only “the city that works,” in Mayor Daley’s slogan, but also an exciting, excited city in which all these glittery worlds shine.
M. Spencer Green / AP Photo
