What is it about softball? “What is it not about softball?” replies Megan Faramio, a star pitcher for the Talons in the all-new Athletes Unlimited Softball League, or AUSL. “I can literally talk about softball for days.” The AUSL is about to wrap up its first season with a three-game playoff series in Alabama between Faraimo’s Talons and the Bandits, a team name that Chicago softball fans know well. The Chicago Bandits were based mainly in Rosemont and played in the National Pro Fastpitch league...
Jul 24, 2025•20 min
There was the Rockford Peaches, women’s pro baseball team of the 1940s that was celebrated in the movie "A League of Their Own." But there was also a pro softball league at the time that had Chicago fans going wild.
Jul 23, 2025•7 min
What would win in a race between a car, bike and the Chicago Transit Authority? Over the past few years, Chicago has been abuzz with road construction projects . There are more protected bike lanes, pedestrian refuge islands and curb bump-outs across the city. As we learned in our last episode , that also includes the installation of miniature traffic circles in residential areas. It’s all in service to make the roads safer by slowing cars down. Safer streets is a win, but it doesn’t necessarily...
Jul 17, 2025•22 min
Mini traffic circles at the intersections of residential streets might annoy drivers because they force cars to slow down. But their safety features outweigh the inconvenience.
Jul 16, 2025•7 min
Swami Vivekananda is credited with introducing Hinduism to the West. His work earned him an honorary street sign on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, but it went missing.
Jul 02, 2025•21 min
Early LGBTQ+ history can be hard to find. Photos, letters, literature and other artifacts have been destroyed or hidden away, in acts of homophobia, out of a fear of repercussions, and even by witting and unwitting family members. “I think a lot of LGBTQ people, when they were passing away, their materials were being destroyed by family members that didn't understand them,” said Jen Dentel, the community outreach and strategic partnerships manager at Gerber/Hart, a large LGBTQ+ library and archi...
Jun 26, 2025•17 min
It’s not hard to find the LGBTQ+ hangouts in Chicago these days, but at one point it was. There’s a history of lesbian nightlife that goes back more than 100 years.
Jun 25, 2025•7 min
One Curious City listener was skeptical about whether real people actually win WBEZ’s pledge drive giveaways. They do. But there’s a little more to that answer. Plus, an economist who studies fundraising explains why people give money during pledge drives in the first place. This episode was originally published on March 3, 2022.
Jun 19, 2025•6 min
An on-air spot soliciting car donations is a fixture of public radio, but do people actually donate? Yes, about 50 cars are donated a month.
Jun 18, 2025•5 min
“Forest bathing” is the exceptionally simple Japanese practice of taking a walk — or a seat — in the woods. Why? For your health, of course! In our last episode, we learned about Chicago’s urban forest — including the $416 million in benefits all those trees provide, in terms of energy cost savings, stormwater mitigation and air purification. Today, we’re taking advantage of that urban forest by taking a bath in it. (And no, there is no soap or water required.) Our guide is the co-founder of The...
Jun 12, 2025•15 min
Some Chicagoans have noticed city workers cutting down seemingly healthy trees. Who is responsible, and why are they cutting down these trees?
Jun 11, 2025•7 min
Tammy Gibson wants you to visit the gravesites of your deceased relatives. “Have you checked on your ancestors?” said Gibson, the founder of Sankofa TravelHer , an organization dedicated to honoring the legacy of African-Americans who were often denied dignity in death. As we learned last episode , Chicago’s long history of segregation affected both the living and the dead, as many area cemeteries once offered burial space “for the exclusive use of the Caucasian race.” So where did African-Ameri...
Jun 05, 2025•15 min
Mayor Harold Washington is buried in a cemetery that was once for “whites only.” Protests and legislative fights desegregated area cemeteries.
Jun 04, 2025•7 min
Lakeview once had a thriving Japanese community, but it fell victim to a push for assimilation. As one Japanese-American puts it: “You had to basically be unseen.”
May 28, 2025•7 min
If you’ve had your car towed in Chicago, there’s a decent chance you had to journey down to Lower Lower Wacker Drive — likely not in the best of moods — to open your wallet and recollect your vehicle. “It's supposed to be a happy process,” said Michael Lacoco, the deputy commissioner of the city’s bureau of traffic services. In our last episode, we answered some of your many questions about Lower Wacker Drive, a.k.a. Chicago’s basement. Today, we try to demystify a notorious Chicago landmark wit...
May 22, 2025•10 min
Curious City has gotten several questions about Wacker Drive over the years. We head down to the lower levels in search of some answers.
May 21, 2025•7 min
Nuclear fallout shelters are still among us, though they are not exactly ready for the apocalypse. These remnants of Cold War-era infrastructure do exist across Chicago, often in places you might not expect. This episode originally aired in 2015.
May 15, 2025•11 min
Tucked in the city’s municipal code is a law that prohibits the production, storage and launching of nuclear weapons in Chicago. We find out why the city decided this law was necessary.
May 14, 2025•7 min
It’s typical to see moving trucks winding through streets and alleys of Chicago on the first day of any month. The act of moving hardly sounds like a luxury, but as we heard in the last episode, it could be worse. About a century ago, Chicagoans only moved on May 1 and sometimes Oct. 1. That meant thousands of moving wagons clogging the streets, price gouging and exploitation. Today, people move any time of the year and there are more protections for tenants. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use s...
May 08, 2025•18 min
You think moving is hard work? For about 100 years, Chicagoans used to move at the same time. Moving Day: May 1.
May 07, 2025•7 min
Samuel Gompers fought for the eight-hour work day and helped create child labor laws. But for all he achieved, he was also fiercely anti-immigrant. We explore Gompers’ life, legacy and the statue built to this complicated man.
Apr 30, 2025•4 min
In our last episode, Curious City question-asker Emily Porter sent us on a quest exploring the world of local fashion designers , all after she found a thrift shop sweater with a tag that reads: “Maria Rodriguez Chicago.” Who is Maria Rodriguez? How did she get into the industry? And what is it like to be a fashion designer in Chicago? To answer those questions, we take a trip to the basement of the Chicago History Museum, where collection manager Jessica Pushor has archived several Maria Rodrig...
Apr 24, 2025•13 min
A question about a sweater in a thrift store turns into a search for a prominent Chicago designer of the 1980s. Along the way, we discover the city’s golden age of fashion designers.
Apr 23, 2025•7 min
Folk music surged in popularity across America in the late 1950s through the ‘70s, including here in the Chicago area. Last episode , we looked at how a few area coffeehouses catered to many patrons in their teens and early twenties. These were alcohol-free spaces where people could listen to live music and hangout for hours. Curious City host Erin Allen looks at one of those beloved coffeeshops of the 1970s: Amazingrace, which was born out of Vietnam War protests on the campus of Northwestern U...
Apr 17, 2025•12 min
In the 1960s and 70s, Chicago coffeehouses were popular spots for young people. These were alcohol-free establishments where people in their teens and 20s could listen to live music or just hangout for hours.
Apr 16, 2025•8 min
Introducing WBEZ's latest podcast series, Making: Stories Without End. Host Natalie Moore takes you on a journey to learn about daytime soap operas and their broad reach on television. From the early radio days in the 1930s through the invention of TV to streaming, this way of telling immersive stories has endured. There are intergenerational family stories, discussions about divorce and abortion, groundbreaking storylines dealing with queer representation. And all these threads go back to one C...
Apr 13, 2025•22 min
Extremism in America has been on the rise . Last episode , we looked at extremist groups in Chicago and how they terrorized select groups of people and influenced housing policy in the city during the 1950s. But what does extremism look like today? Curious City host Erin Allen talks with Odette Yousef, a national security correspondent focusing on extremism at NPR, about why it’s less about fringe groups and more about ideology that has permeated our culture. “January 6 was a good example of how...
Apr 10, 2025•20 min
Extremist groups of the 1950s played a violent part, alongside real estate and neighborhood organizations, in keeping Chicago segregated.
Apr 09, 2025•7 min
Chicago is home to thousands of feral cats, and some people are looking after them.
Apr 02, 2025•5 min
Jun Fujita is the Japanese-American photographer behind some of the most recognizable photographs taken in Chicago in the 20th century, including his shots of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, the Eastland passenger boat disaster of 1915, and the 1919 Chicago race riots . Fujita was also a published poet and something of a regional celebrity, known for socializing with William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Fujita’s foreign identity also made him the subject of government inquiry and sus...
Mar 27, 2025•18 min
