Newcity Summer celebrates 15 years on May 21

Perhaps not the first, but maybe the second or third day on the job Tennessee Williams walked into “my pool.” Forty years of heavy drinking and drug use had ravaged his body and his mind. This was reflected in his swimming, as he would regularly disappear under water for long periods at a time. As a teenaged lifeguard I was petrified. What if America’s greatest playwright was to drown while I was guarding the pool?
—From “Mendacity and Mayhem: Tennessee Williams goes for a dip” by David Witter

Fifteen years ago this month, Newcity launched Chicago’s first Summer Guide, a fusion of three things we consider vital to summer in Chicago: a calendar of all of the fairs, festivals, outdoor concerts and blockbuster movies coming our way from Memorial Day to Labor Day; a series of handy if sometimes offbeat guides to doing summer things in the city, whether swimming the lake shore or shopping the farmers markets; and, our signature essays that offer the season the level of discourse that it and this city deserve.

He started making kites in the 1970s after friends asked him to help them build miniatures to fly at a local festival. Sotich acquiesced and made a few out of paper napkins, usually no bigger than a postage stamp, rigged with strips of bamboo split out of a wok brush. Miniatures are still his specialty. “If I come out with a kite that’s bigger than 10 inches,” says Sotich, laughing.”
—From “Blowing in the Wind: Michael Workman goes and flies a kite”

Fifteen years later, many others have imitated our guide to summer events, but none can lay claim to matching our singular ability to give voice to a season. If summer is a season important to your business or institution, you cannot afford to miss Chicago’s original Summer Guide.

Publication date: May 21
Ad  space deadline: May 15

Email [email protected] for rates and details. To celebrate #15, we’ll be launching a special web site dedicated to summer in Chicago. (You can sneak an in-progress preview here.) As an added bonus, all Summer Guide print advertisers will get three months of web leaderboards in general rotation on Newcity Summer.

See you at the beach.

Cubby Bear: Out of their common territory, the Cubby Bear ventures onto the Magnificent Mile unperturbed, as if walking through a slow third inning. The men wear cargo shorts and jerseys of players that most resemble their inner animal and the women wear cutesy girl-boy Cubs shirts and denim shorts. They display the gamut of fitted Cubs hats and even visors during particularly hot days. Their escapades typically end by the river as they circle in front of the Wrigley and Tribune buildings, reminiscing about Andre Dawson, while asking people where the Billy Goat Tavern is.
—From “The Parade of Summer: Field Guide to the Magnificent Mile (Abridged)” by Fred Sasaki