From Chop Suey Houses To Saloons: What Was Chicago’s Foodie Scene Like In The Early 20th Century?

Curious Citizen Kate Hannigan spends a lot time walking through Chicago’s parks and streets, and there’s something that really bugs her — it’s something that she doesn’t see. So she asked Curious City, “Where are all the statues of women?"

“We don't have an army of cats patrolling for rats,” she clarified, during a recent interview at the humane society’s cat café.

To understand how the confusion started, we have to go back to 2007, when Cook County passed an ordinance that legalized TNR and allowed residents to become “caretakers” of feral cat colonies.

Before the law passed, municipal departments were responsible for responding to calls about feral cats in the area.

An administrator from the Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control told WTTW that before the ordinance passed, the county was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trapping and euthanizing feral cats — with little effect on their population.

“People were struggling with what to do, where to go, [the fact] that the cats just kept reproducing,” Houtz of Cats in Action said. “There weren't a lot of resources for people.”

But after the law passed, the responsibility of dealing with feral cats fell to TNR organizations: nonprofits like Cats in Action and Tree House that trap feral cats, neuter or spay them and return them to their communities. A huge benefit of the ordinance, according to Houtz, was that it reduced the number of feral cats being euthanized — while also reducing the overall feral cat population by sterilizing them.



There was also what TNR advocates call an ancillary benefit: rat control. Chicago was just named the “rattiest” city in the U.S. by Orkin for the ninth consecutive year. Cats, conveniently, love to hunt rats, and help keep them off people’s property. (Though there isn’t any scientific evidence that they reduce rat populations overall.)

Tree House started their “Cats at Work” program in 2012. This program and others like it were efforts by non-profit organizations to place cats that were not a good fit for adoption in areas that could use them, often because they were besieged by rats.

The ordinance made it possible for Tree House to start the Cats at Work program. But colonies that originate through programs like this one today make up just a fraction of Chicago’s feral cat colonies. (Most cat colonies develop "organically" because a group of cats is already hanging out in a certain area.)



Regardless of how a colony originates, according to the county ordinance, all feral cat caretakers must be vetted by non-profit “sponsors.” Caretakers agree to sterilize and vaccinate the cats and provide them with food, water and outdoor shelters, among other responsibilities.

By registering caretakers and providing them with resources, in line with the county ordinance, it aims to manage the number of feral cats through sterilization and ensure the cats that are there will be well looked after — while in some cases alleviating the frustration of residents who don’t want rodents in their yards.

Chicago’s feral cats and their caretakers

When Rob Crowder first moved to the Roscoe Village neighborhood, one of the first things he noticed was the rodent activity, in both his front yard and back. “There were rats everywhere,” he said.

Crowder wasn’t a cat person, but he knew about Tree House’s Cats at Work program and put his name on the waiting list.

Now Crowder has two feral cats, Washington and Drake. Like many colony caretakers, he has a cat shelter in his backyard made out of a large storage bin lined with insulation, and a warming mat inside. “It’s 72 degrees in there, even in the middle of winter,” he said.

The cats have proven to be good hunters, sometimes bringing him dead rats and leaving them on his back stairs. “We sometimes hear some sounds in the alley, and when we do, we know the cats are at work,” he said. “I’ve learned to love these cats.”





While Crowder sought the cats out to help with his rat problem, in Cook County, the vast majority of colonies get started because cats are already congregating in a particular area, according to Houtz and Roewade.

Take Belinda and Agustin Fuentes, who live on the far South Side near the Indiana border. They’ve cared for roughly 50 feral cats over the years, by Belinda’s estimate, and the cats just keep showing up.

Because their zip code is considered a priority area for TNR services, they receive a discount on spay and neuter surgeries through PAWS, the city’s largest no-kill shelter.

Ten cats have stayed with the Fuentes family in the last 10 years, either as indoor cats — if they could be socialized — or as feral cats that live outdoors and winter in their garage. Currently they’ve got five feral cats hanging out under their deck and in their garage, and roaming the neighborhood.

Agustin wakes up at 5:30 every morning to feed them, rain or shine, even on mornings when he just wants to stay in bed. “Our motto is, ‘It’s not their fault,’” he said.

For Emily Edelman, who lives in Tri-Taylor, one of the most surprising things about the feral cats that live in her backyard is how playful they are. Three-year-old Bernard loves to entertain himself with cat toys, and unconfined by walls or furniture, he runs all over. “I didn't expect them to be so much fun to watch,” Edelman said. “It’s like National Geographic.”



Before she got Scout and Bernard, Edelman says the rats in her yard were so big and so bold — scurrying right across her feet at night — that she was considering moving. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said.

Meanwhile, Scout and Bernard were on a euthanasia list because they were considered too feral to be adopted. For Edelman, it was a match made in heaven. When she went through cancer treatment and spent much of her time at home, getting up to feed the cats and watching them from her window was hugely comforting. “It gave me something to look forward to,” she said.



A “birdbath full of blood”

Judy Pollock loves birds. She started birding a few decades ago and has been president of the Chicago Bird Alliance since 2019. Today, there’s nothing she enjoys more than seeing migrating birds fill her backyard in the spring and fall.

But she also has firsthand experience with what she believes were feral cats that made use of her garden.

“I remember waking up one morning with my birdbath full of blood,” Pollock said. “... It's very upsetting to see these cats prowling around trying to [kill] the birds.”



The reality is cats are not native to Chicago — or even to the U.S. — while many birds are.

For the Chicago Bird Alliance and even national organizations like PETA, feral cats are a big deal because of the threat they pose to native wildlife including birds.

Crowder, the Roscoe Village resident with two feral cats, said he occasionally gets complaints from neighbors, but they’re usually from people who are concerned about the cats’ welfare and don’t want to see them outdoors. He sometimes shows them the cat shelter, with its temperature-controlled interior, and explains that in his view this is the best possible life for them.

“I have to remind people that these cats would have been put down if we didn't take them,” he said. “We’re grateful for them every single day.”

Editor’s note: Part of this story was originally reported for an episode of WBEZ’s The Rundown.

Justin Bull is a producer for WBEZ’s The Rundown. Follow him @justybull

Street artist Joos is perhaps best known for works that resemble ribbons of dissolving color, or paint that’s been pressure washed and left blooms of pigment behind.

“It's like, is it a shadow? Is it a silhouette? What is it? I think … he gets a kick out of tricking people, and making people take a second look at something,” said Robert Herguth, who profiled the artist last year.

The distinctive graffiti caught the eye of Curious City listener Judy Glaser, who spotted the sprays of color on utility boxes on Milwaukee Ave. She wanted to know who created them, and why.

Unlike many Chicago street artists, Joos came to the medium later in life, first picking up a spray paint can in his 30s. It wasn’t an easy journey to get where he is today — but it’s one that may have saved his life.





On a recent Friday afternoon, Joos got set up under the CTA Blue Line tracks at Milwaukee Ave. and Wolcott St. His backpack was full of spray paint cans and nozzles, and he also had a phone with a reference design. He was there to meet up with a street artist who goes by Stuck — a longtime friend of his. Each year, the two return to the same spot to collaborate on a piece.

Joos, who’s originally from central Illinois and is in his early 40s, started making street art less than a decade ago. He became a regular at Campus, a streetwear store and art space that served as a members-only supply shop for graffiti artists in Chicago.

There, he connected with other street artists for the first time and could purchase spray paint, which was — and still is — illegal to sell in the city. He also got to practice making large-scale pieces on a CTA train replica created out of plywood specifically for artists to practice on.





Though plenty of people consider graffiti to be an art form, the city considers it vandalism. Joos knows this well, having covertly created works in CTA stations, on utility boxes and across other city-owned infrastructure.

Joos scouts sites well in advance, paying attention to foot traffic and police presence in the area. “The street is unpredictable,” he said. “So you gotta study the street a lot.”

When he works on larger projects, Joos doesn’t have the advantage of working solely under the cover of darkness. In those cases he says the trick, for him, is to act like he’s not doing anything wrong. “You show up, six or seven in the morning, and … act like you're supposed to be there,” he explained.



Normally, paint comes out of a spray can in the shape of a cone. Joos holds his cans to the side, only allowing part of the paint spray to touch the surface. That technique, called “side spraying,” is what he uses to create his signature plumes that adorn utility boxes and wheat paste posters across the city.

“It creates a hard edge and then a fade on the other side,” Joos explained. “... You can use it to make shading. But by itself it looks awesome. And on black surfaces, it looks the best.”

If Chicago is an art museum, the Logan Square neighborhood is Joos’s gallery. His work can be seen all over the city but is particularly concentrated on the Northwest Side.



For Joos, street art was originally an outlet that helped him recover from drug addiction.

“Graffiti is full of broken people, myself included,” Joos said.

“It's like a harm-reduction type of technique for [avoiding] doing drugs,” he explained. “I get that same kind of rush. It's dopamine … a really alive feeling.”

Though he occasionally creates works for galleries or does commissioned pieces, Joos says he never wants graffiti to feel like a job. He needs that adrenaline.

One thing that sets Joos apart is that he’s colorblind. This has created some mix-ups for him in the past — like when he mistakenly ordered dozens of paint cans in the wrong color.



Unsanctioned street art, like Joos creates, is inherently ephemeral. Sometimes, if he creates a piece on an abandoned building or one whose owner couldn’t care less, it might stay up for years. But other times, if the building owner puts in a removal request, it’ll be “buffed” out by the city almost immediately.

“The next-day buff humbles you,” Joos said. “You spend all night working on something that's gone the next day.”

He tries not to let it bother him. “You can either get mad about it,” he said, “or you can go do something else.”

Joe DeCeault is a senior audio producer at WBEZ. Follow him @joedeceault

When you ask the students at Leo Catholic High School in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood what they like most about Black History Month, they’re eager to answer.

“Every year during Black History Month, I find out something new that I never knew,” one student said.

Scott said Woodson folded this week into pre-existing celebrations to show Black people they were a part of something greater. Then, he said, this American story becomes much larger than the individual — bigger than Douglass and bigger than Lincoln.

“This story becomes a story in which Black people can see that they're a part of a big canvas of human history,” Scott said. “So the themes would be not the achievements of Frederick Douglass or the achievements of Sojourner Truth or anyone else. It's about the role of Black people in bringing democracy to America.”

“[Woodson] really believed that if the truth about Black people and their history was told to Black people and the public, it would transform how Black people saw themselves, how other people saw Black people, and how Black people would fit into American democracy and how Black people would fit into world history,” Scott said.



Negro History Week becomes Black History Month

Negro History Week continued to grow and expand in the second half of the 20th century.

Its organizers also made changes, often in response to feedback from young members: The ASALH moved from using “Negro” to “Black,” added links to Africa as part of the Black American past and, in 1976, extended the week to Black History Month.

Erica Griffin-Fabicon is the director of education at the Chicago History Museum, and in her role, she works to help people better understand history connections.

“Chicago at the time, and Chicago today, continues to be that beacon, a hub, an important city,” she said. “This has always been the case for Chicago.”

For example, Jean Baptiste DuSable as the first non-Native Chicagoan or the trailblazing work of journalist Ida B. Wells are just a couple of pieces of Chicago’s history.



Much of the archives of what happened in Chicago is also housed here. That’s thanks to Vivian Harsh, Chicago Public Library’s first Black branch head. She was an active member of the ASALH and created the Special Negro Collection which was a collection of African American history and literature at the George Cleveland Hall Branch in the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Among the first donations to the collection were about 200 books from the private library of Dr. Charles Bentley, a dentist and leader of the local NAACP. Today, it’s the largest collection of its kind in the Midwest and is now housed at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in the Washington Heights neighborhood.

“Vivian Harsh was also collecting images, materials, documents that all spoke about — and for — Black lives in Chicago and beyond,” Griffin-Fabicon said.

At the Hall Branch, famous Black Americans like Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes would gather, but it was also a place for the public. According to the Chicago Public Library, as more Black history clubs were created, teaching materials became high in demand. Harsh made those resources easily available, and she organized many Negro History Week programs at the library before she retired in 1958.



Griffin-Fabicon said Woodson hoped Black history would eventually be better integrated into American history as a whole.

“[Woodson] felt that … if we simply make those stories part of our curriculum, a part of our narrative, then we would not have to have this particular time where we're amplifying Black people within this month, it would be history writ large, 365 days of the year,” she said.

But, Black history is not completely recognized across the country in the way Woodson envisioned. Some state governments continue to debate the value of Black history curriculum. In the past few years, legislation has been introduced in several state legislatures to restrict education on racism and contributions of specific racial groups to U.S. history. Such legislation has been successful in states like Tennessee, Florida and Texas.

In Illinois, lawmakers have considered a bill that would require schools to post learning materials for parental review and another that would give parents the power to oppose material they find objectionable.

Griffin-Fabicon said Woodson’s defense of Black history can be applied to today. Woodson wrote in an editorial in 1932, “This celebration … is to be not so much a Negro history week as a history week,” and, “We have labeled the record of the Race as the history of this particular race because it has been omitted from the general histories.”

Arionne Nettles is a university lecturer, culture reporter, and audio aficionado. She is the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything. Follow her @arionnenettles.

“So Black Americans had to think about, ‘Well, how could we co-op these spaces and use them for our own interest?’” Wilson said. “And that was true in the fair, in Chicago in 1893, with the Haiti Pavilion.”

Dozens of nations participated in the fair with cultural exhibits, including Haiti, an independent country. Its pavilion famously became the home base of activist and former U.S. minister to Haiti Frederick Douglass. He enlisted journalist Ida B. Wells, educator Irvine Garland Penn and attorney Ferdinand Lee Barnett to write and distribute their pamphlet The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition.

In it, Barnett wrote, “Theoretically open to all Americans, the Exposition practically is, literally and figuratively, a ‘White City,’ in the building of which the Colored American was allowed no helping hand, and in its glorious success he has no share.”



In response, the organizers of the fair created a so-called “Colored Day,” at which

Black people could speak. There, Douglass delivered a moving speech criticizing what was often referred to by white people at the time as “the Negro problem.”

“The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution,” he said.

Yet, this unfair treatment continued. In 1933, when the city hosted the Century of Progress Exposition, Black folks were still largely ignored. While there was a replica of Haitian American John Baptiste DuSable’s cabin included in one exhibit, the majority of exhibits that included Black people made fun of them and pushed false and harmful stereotypes.

Real representation

The treatment of Black Americans at the city-hosted world’s fairs directly led to Black folks in Chicago creating their own grand exposition. They envisioned it as something that would draw people from across the country and would center on Black innovation and authentic representation of Black people.

James Washington was a Chicago real estate developer who got the Exposition started. According to the Chicago Defender, he devoted five years and traveled 100,000 miles around the country to promote the project. He lobbied to raise $150,000 in state and federal money to help fund the event.



“What was interesting about this particular exposition is that you start to see the rise of Black popular culture and mass culture,” Wilson said. “And you see this very interesting collaboration between a kind of Black business class, people who are running insurance companies and newspapers, people who had a certain kind of social standing in Black communities, and a group of intellectuals and artists who are much more radical.”

There had been smaller celebrations of Black achievement before, many of which were held in Chicago. But the American Negro Exposition of 1940 was billed as the “first real Negro World’s Fair in all history” to celebrate 75 years since the end of slavery.

Government officials of all levels supported it, from Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly all the way to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt himself pressed a button from his home in New York to turn on the lights at the Chicago Coliseum, where the exposition was located, launching the start of the two-month event.

The American Negro Exposition ran from Independence Day to Labor Day 1940 at the Coliseum, an arena-sized venue that could hold several thousands of people.

The exposition’s guide book said the event would “promote racial understanding and good will; enlighten the world on the contributions of the Negro to civilization and make the Negro conscious of his dramatic progress since emancipation.”

There were performances like the “Tropics After Dark,” a musical revue the Chicago Defender said featured night club favorites and was written by famous Chicago and Harlem Renaissance period writers Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes.



Artists like Archibald Motley, who was known as a jazz age modernist painter, were commissioned to create work that was specific to Black representation. The organizers’ goal was to create the most comprehensive collection of Black art that had ever been presented. And as a representative of Illinois, Motley’s contribution was a painting of Chicago’s Black Belt neighborhood.

A legacy on display

When attendees walked into the exposition at its central entrance, they were met with the Court of Dioramas. Thirty-three dioramas surrounded a replica of the Lincoln Memorial. Artist Charles Dawson designed the space and each individual diorama to “illustrate the Negro's large and valuable contributions to the progress of America and the world.”



The diorama’s themes ranged from significant historical achievements in Africa, such as the building of the Great Sphinx of Giza, to recent Black stories in America — for example, the Harlem Hellfighters in the early 1900s.

“[The dioramas] were really the capstone of that exhibition,” said LaStarsha McGarity, the conservator and co-director of the Legacy Museum at Tuskegee University. “And they represented the first time that Black people had control of their image at that type of event. So they decided to use this opportunity to highlight the global historical contributions of Black people.”

The Legacy Museum now has 20 dioramas on display. Dawson, along with exposition trustee Claude Barnett, were alumni of Tuskegee and gifted them to the university. However, they were in poor condition, and it took much work and care to restore each one. McGarity said it’s likely the remaining 13 are lost or destroyed.

“I think it's really important to know that [these dioramas] were created by an entire group of artists that were working in collaboration and that they were created specifically for that expo,” she said. “And that was very common for things created for an expo to not be kept. They were considered ephemeral. So after an expo, it was very common for them to be destroyed or thrown away.”

Even the beautiful murals, paintings and sculptures that were created by many of the most famous Black artists of the time had no formal place to go after the exposition. Art was given to churches, to schools and even to the homes of the artists’ friends to add to their private collections. Painter William Edouard Scott, for example, created large murals for the event. But much of these installation pieces are now in private homes.



“The Black events aren't as well documented, mostly because they didn't have the infrastructure to do that work,” Wilson, of Columbia, said. “Things that were being exhibited and collected weren't going to go into major museums … And because of that, it can make it very difficult to find the narratives.”

Even without the institutions at the time, Black celebrations through expositions around the country continued to be an important part of documenting Black life. But this would soon start to change. Artist Margaret Burroughs pulled together a collective of Black artists to create the South Side Community Arts Center in 1940 — the same year as the Negro Exposition.

She explained the artists came together because they had no place to exhibit their work. They opened the center’s doors that December, just months after the exposition wrapped, creating a space of their own that would no longer be temporary. Its inaugural exhibition included work from artists like Charles White, Archibald Motley, Jr., Margaret Burroughs herself and so many more.

This work was all part of celebrating and commemorating Black history, and Burroughs continued that mission when she co-founded the DuSable Museum in 1961. Perri Irmer, president and CEO of the DuSable Museum, says that’s something we can’t lose sight of today.

“We have a particular responsibility to advocate for Black history, when we have states in this country who are trying to limit what people can learn, to limit curricula, to censor and ban books about Black history and by Black authors,” Irmer said. “We can't be erased, we just can't be."

Arionne Nettles is a university lecturer, culture reporter, and audio aficionado. She is the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything. Follow her @arionnenettles.

During the early 1900s, as silent film production was growing, Black film companies lined State Street in what would eventually be considered Bronzeville — the first of which was Foster Photoplay Company, owned by William Foster. Foster Photoplay is considered to be the first Black-owned film production company in the U.S. that featured an all-Black cast.

This week, we're revisiting that story.

Drive down Division St. in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, and you’ll pass storefront after storefront with names like “Christ Resurrection Missionary Baptist Church” and “Old Rugged Cross Missionary Baptist Church.”

Storefront churches are defined by their location: They’re houses of worship tucked into strip malls or street-facing buildings that might otherwise serve commercial purposes. These churches are often sandwiched between all sorts of spaces, including barbershops, chicken-and-fish eateries and vacant properties.

This style of church became popular in Chicago in the early 20th century, when African Americans moved to the city to escape the Jim Crow South during the first wave of the Great Migration.

Today, you can still find storefront churches all over the city. But they’re particularly prevalent on the South and West Sides, in neighborhoods like Austin.

Storefront churches are generally closed most of the week, sometimes appearing abandoned. But for some residents, these churches are a lifeline. They can also offer opportunities to pastors without formal theological training to lead a church. When a Curious City listener asked what impact these churches have on communities they’re prevalent in, we talked to Austin pastors, business owners and residents to find out.





A new kind of house of worship

Starting in the 1910s, hundreds of thousands of African Americans came to northern cities like Chicago from the South. They set out to put down roots and get connected with local churches.

In the area surrounding J. Casualwear, where Israel sells hoodies, sweatpants and other loungewear, he’s seen more storefront churches come and go over the years than he can count on one hand.

“That was a church over there, this corner right here was a church,” he said. “You got a church on the corner, that’s three. You got another church three doors down from us, that’s four. The corner spot was a church, that’s five. They had the big church right here, that’s six.”



The proliferation of storefront churches on Division St. bothers Israel. He says it makes it hard for J. Casualwear to feel like part of a thriving business hub when so many buildings surrounding the store are closed most of the week.

“For six days out of the week, we look at this door, closed. It dries up the community,” he said. “It’s nothing generating wealth.”

Israel would love to see other types of businesses take over these spaces. “We don’t have a laundromat in the neighborhood. We don’t have an exercise gym in the neighborhood,” he said. “We don’t even have a lot of businesses in the neighborhood.”



City leaders recently made Austin a priority area for revitalization efforts to address these very concerns. And a few years ago, the Illinois legislature passed an amendment that made it easier for businesses that sell alcohol, like restaurants, to open near churches. But for Israel and other neighborhood business owners, it hasn’t been enough.

On the other hand, Dawn Guerrero, who volunteers at another storefront church on Division St., New Inspirational Missionary Baptist Church, says there’s no such thing as too many churches in one neighborhood.

“In this community, the pastor is the one that’s sitting there giving us the avenues,” she said. “Like, he knows where to reach out to, and how to help us get [what we need] without having to struggle.”



For Guerrero, the fact that storefront churches are physically embedded within their block, their neighborhood, makes it easier for the pastor and volunteers to connect with people who may need support.

Similarly, Ward Miller of Preservation Chicago says when many storefront churches closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, neighborhoods lost out on essential services. “We lose food pantries, we lose counseling services, we lose childcare services, we lose community dinners, we lose celebrations,” Miller said. “And we lose a network of friends and family that come together.”

Other Austin residents are neutral on the presence of storefront churches. Deonte Harris, who works at H-D Visions Barber Shop, says churches are better than what he sees as likely alternatives.

“If they weren’t churches, it’d probably be liquor stores on every corner,” he said.



Miller agrees that with vacant properties taking up large swathes of the South and West Sides, storefront churches would not necessarily be replaced with businesses like laundromats or gyms if they left. Liquor stores — or even vacant buildings — might be more likely possibilities.

Harris’ main complaint is that he’d like to see more local congregation members patronize his barbershop to get their hair cut or styled before church.

“That’d be great,” Harris said. “For the neighborhood, and the [church] services.”

Adora Namigadde is a metro reporter and the morning host of The Rundown for WBEZ. Follow @adorakn.

The podcast episode accompanying this article answers several traffic-related questions, including one about how city traffic lights are timed and another about why construction on I-90/I-94 happens the way it does. Click “listen” at the top of this page to hear the full story.

High school math teacher Connor Cameron cannot be late for work. “If I show up at 8:05 there are 30 students who are unsupervised,” Cameron said, “and I cannot afford to do that.”

Cameron teaches on Chicago’s Southwest Side but lives in the northern suburbs. “My journey starts on the Edens,” he said, “Then I’m on the Kennedy, the Dan Ryan for a split second, and then the Stevenson” before eventually making it to residential streets.

According to the 2020 Census, about 59% of city residents and more than 86% of people living in the surrounding suburbs commute by car. Like hundreds of thousands of his fellow drivers, Cameron relies on the morning traffic reports for his lengthy commute to work. It got him wondering what goes into making those reports he hears on WBEZ or WBBM. Where does the raw data come from? How do they calculate those time estimates for different roadways?

The traffic reports air daily with such frequency that they can feel commonplace. But behind the scenes, it’s chaotic putting together a single report. Often one traffic producer sifts through dozens of sources of information to create that 30-second report drivers hear on the radio.

We spoke with one longtime traffic reporter and producer to learn the ins and outs of putting a report together. He told us how he juggles listening to police scanners and checking live video feeds before sitting down to record a report that will be heard by thousands of drivers — and about some of the most harrowing moments on the job.



Chances are if you’ve heard a Chicago-area traffic report on the radio in the past twenty years, Mike Pries helped put it together.

He works for Total Traffic and Weather Network, which manages a traffic database used by nearly every local news outlet.

He works from a studio downtown, a small room outfitted with a few computer monitors, a mixing console with microphone and several police scanners blaring at once. At any given moment during his shift, Pries is listening to more than 20 police scanner dispatchers, pulling updates from countless state and county agency websites and fielding notifications from databases like Pulse Point, an app that tells him where first responders and other emergency services are headed. He’s also checking live video feeds of some roadways and monitoring hundreds of traffic-related Twitter accounts.

Pries’ day-to-day consists of tracking and translating all this data and turning it into traffic reports that he’ll record or broadcast. For shorter reports, Pries emphasizes only major incidents or slowdowns, while some of his lengthier broadcasts provide a thorough overview of Chicago-area traffic.

He also estimates travel times for navigating expressways and major avenues. Those times are in part based on passive cell phone data that tracks the average speed of drivers moving down an expressway, but also on Pries’ own analysis of how a certain incident may cause a backup for surrounding roads.



“It’s not just, ‘How many minutes is it going to take you to get from O’Hare to downtown?’” Pries said. “If you have a crash outbound on the Dan Ryan at 18th, you know that pretty soon that’s going to start backing up the Kennedy going into downtown. And if it stays there long enough it’s going to affect the Eisenhower, too.”

In addition to his own reports, Pries and his team also maintain a database called Traffic Net, where they input entries for things like crashes, construction and other incidents. Those entries then get pushed out to Total Traffic and Weather’s various clients, which include radio and TV stations that may have their own reporters or anchors who read the broadcast scripts.

It’s this ability to quickly process information that makes Pries’ reports valuable and thorough. In fact, some GPS systems use data from Total Traffic and Weather Network to generate their own travel time estimates. “You need someone to pull it all together, get it all in one place, so that it can go out to everyone as a cohesive product,” Pries explained.



Traffic reporting is generally a fast-paced and stressful job, but there are times when it is harrowing, especially when winter weather hits. Pries recalled a blizzard in 2011 that caused total pandemonium on the roads.

Pries said they were receiving reports of buses jackknifing and cars getting stranded and buried under snow on Lake Shore Drive. “And people are on [Lake Shore Drive], they're calling us. And they're saying there's no one out here,” Pries remembered. “And, you know, we're not emergency responders, we're not trained in that capacity. But people are calling us because it was chaos out there.” Pries did his best to reassure those callers, providing updates as he heard dispatchers being sent to their location.



A big part of the job, Pries said, is navigating the gravity of a serious incident while maintaining the fast-paced turn of the next report. However, despite it being hectic, Pries loves what he does. “Even when it’s incredibly stressful,” Pries said, “I can’t say that it feels much like work. It’s always interesting and keeps me on my toes.”

Andrew Meriwether is a reporter and producer based in Chicago. Keep up with his work at andrewmeriwether.com

Whether it’s your first winter in Chicago or your 40th, there’s no denying the season’s unforgiving weather. From below-freezing temperatures to blustering blizzards, navigating the Windy City in these months can be a challenge. Fortunately for Chicagoans, during a snowstorm, the Department of Streets and Sanitation has 300 city snow plow truck drivers per shift at the ready to keep the roads clear of snow and ice.

In this episode, Curious City’s Maggie Sivit and JP Swenson brave the first snowstorm of the season to try to flag down a snow plow driver. That’s because over the years so many listeners have written in asking us what it takes to keep Chicago’s streets plowed in the winter.

But what starts as a joyful effort goes south as the snow piles up and morale dips down. Especially when not a single driver will stop to talk with them. (They were, as you can imagine, busy plowing the streets.) Luckily, Mark Nichol, a Chicago snow plow driver of 40 years, shares what it’s like to be in his boots on a snowy day.

Plus, we revisit an especially unique winter storm — the Chicago Blizzard of 1967 — when it snowed for 29 hours straight. With nowhere left to dump the snow, the Department of Streets and Sanitation began shoveling the snow into freight trains heading south. Reporter Logan Jaffe welcomes you aboard the superb PR stunt that followed.

Answering these questions took the Curious City team on an epic journey (literally and figuratively) to an indoor doggie pool, the Neiman Marcus building on Michigan Ave. and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Click “listen” at the top of this page to understand why.