Four Reasons Chicago Is GQ’s City of the Year
1. politics
For decades, Chicago has been a proving ground for any left-leaning midwesterner hoping to make the leap to D.C. But this year, the city made its mark as the seat of political power—and not just because the two top Democratic presidential candidates have roots there. Here are the six Windy City Democrats who are changing the way Chicago—and the rest of the country—does politics.
Richard M. Daley
mayor
As civic leader Valerie Jarrett puts it, “All roads lead to Mayor Daley.” Daley was an early proponent of the green city, overhauled public housing, and put together a multiracial coalition of business and civic leaders. He’s even working to get Chicago onto the world stage with a bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. If there’s any question as to whether Chicago residents want someone new, one need only look at last year’s election, where he won all fifty wards in the city.
David Axelrod
chief strategist for Obama
Better than anyone in or outside the Beltway, Axelrod knows how to frame a candidate for a skeptical public. In 2004 he helped a little-known state senator win a race for U.S. Senate, and he’s seen as being largely responsible for the no-drama ethos of the Obama presidential campaign. Forget James Carville and Joe Trippi; come January, Axelrod will be the party’s most sought-after consultant.
J. B. and Penny Pritzker
fund-raisers
These ultrarich siblings are the leading liberal moneymen in the city. He shilled for Hillary, and she broke fund-raising records for Obama. They wield more financial power for the Democrats than anyone else in the Midwest.
Jesse Jackson Jr. and Sandi Jackson
U.S. congressman and Chicago alderwoman
This husband and wife are a match in every way. The son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, he’s moved from under his father’s shadow as a widely respected congressman; she beat out an entrenched machine pol for her seat in Chicago’s Seventh Ward. Odds are that one (or both) makes a play for higher office. Watching their rise, one can’t help but be reminded of another famous Democratic power couple.—sarah goldstein
2. film
The Dark Knight may end up being remembered as the final glimpse of Heath Ledger’s genius, but there was another mesmerizing presence in the year’s highest-grossing film: the city of Chicago. It was on Chicago’s expansive streets—and just as often above them—that the action unfolded. Emma Thomas, one of the film’s producers and the wife of director Christopher Nolan, explains the decision to bring Gotham to the Midwest.
“Chris had always wanted to ground Gotham in a real place and do as much on-location shooting as he could. He was looking for a city that could be larger than life. One of the amazing things about Chicago is that it’s built on different levels, and that was perfect for the action in The Dark Knight. There are so many different styles of architecture, and it all works together fantastically. Bruce Wayne’s bedroom was shot in a hotel downtown, and the party scene was in the lobby of another building. Plus, we got to do some really crazy stuff. We blew up a building; we flipped over an eighteen-wheeler. And it’s not like we were doing it on some out-of-the-way deserted street. We were doing it in the financial center of the city. All the scenes where people are evacuating—we really did that. They let us close down their streets for weeks at a time. I think one of the reasons the film feels so big is that we were able to use every inch of Chicago and make the movie feel like a complete world.”—as told to sarah goldstein
3. literature
Bellow, Sandburg, Mamet. These are some of the heavyweights who carved out Chicago’s reputation as a writer’s town. But the first two are long gone, and Mamet is living near the beach in L.A. Luckily for readers everywhere, a new crop have emerged with their own stories to tell. Jonathan Messigner, co-founder of Chicago’s independent Featherproof Books, takes us through an exceptional year in the city’s literary tradition.—sarah goldstein
The Lazarus Project
by Aleksandar Hemon
Hemon, a Bosnian native, wound up living in Chicago when Sarajevo came under siege in 1992, and by 2004 he’d mastered the English language enough to make the MacArthur Foundation come knocking with a “genius” grant. Hemon used the grant to write this year’s Lazarus Project, a brilliant novel about a Bosnian journalist in Chicago who becomes obsessed with a Jewish immigrant. The author of the year’s best book is not technically from around these parts, but we’re happy to embrace him as our own.
Demons in the Spring
by Joe Meno
Prolific South Sider Meno is the closest thing we’ve got to a literary ambassador. Demons explores the darker side of damaged adolescence and is sure to be handed to every 16-year-old Chicagoan with a learner’s permit. No one has captured the odd blend of grit and fantasy, community and danger, that comes with an urban upbringing quite like Meno.
Stop Smiling
The most literary magazine that isn’t actually a literary magazine, SS is cut from the mold of ’60s countercultural mags and dedicated to the idiosyncratic enthusiasms of its editors, who have set about reviving the old-school, Playboy-style long-form interview. With issues devoted to boxing, cult heroes, and outlaws, you’re not going to find anything like it on the rack.
4. architecture
The next American landmark isn’t just another impossibly tall megastructure; it’s a skyscraper doing a pirouette. Designed by starchitect Santiago Calatrava, the Chicago Spire, when completed (developers are predicting 2012), will be the world’s tallest residential tower—giving man the chance to live, at last, with his head in the clouds.—michael hsu
• Each of its 150 stories will be, on average, 2.44 degrees askew from the one below it. The entire building will corkscrew 360 degrees upward.
• At 2,000 feet high, the Spire will have the world’s longest elevator run. A trip to the top will cover the length of more than five football fields. Once you get there, you’ll be able to see the curvature of the earth.
• Because of its unusual shape, the 1,194 apartments in the seven-sided building will all be unique, right down to the doorknobs. Each will be designed by Calatrava, and some will bear his handprint.
• The Spire will be the thinnest supertall building ever built—about half the width of the nearby Sears Tower.
• The shape of the building will help direct wind upward, preventing gusts near the ground.
• The top floor will have a 10,000-square-foot duplex penthouse with wraparound views. On clear days, you will see four states.
• The building will have a (very long) garbage chute that automatically separates trash from recycling.