Nine Miles West

This Rose will forever be Chicago Red.

An anti-littering public service announcement from the Chicago Park District

In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, chaos erupted on Chicago’s West Side. Grief turned into anger as protests, riots, looting, and fires consumed some neighborhoods. Audio-narrated descriptions of key visual elements are available.

Chicago mayor Richard J. “Boss” Daley had a lofty vision for Chicago’s downtown. Over the course of his 21 years in office, Daley’s ambitious urban renewal initiatives were the foundation of the city’s infrastructure and at the same time displaced the poor and people of color while perpetuating racial segregation. Audio-narrated descriptions are available.

Chicago Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC) introduces tenant management into Chicago Public Housing at Cabrini Green, Ida B Wells developments. Bertha Gilkey worked with tenets. Seen nationally on PBS.

In an age before online commerce and Amazon, the catalog was king – and two Chicago mail order giants were responsible for making goods and services accessible to the masses. Chicago Stories traces the histories of Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward and the rivalry between the two bold innovators who founded them and forever changed the way we shop. Audio-narrated descriptions are available.

A looking at the famous cemetery

A documentary film about the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois music scene, from the sixties through the oughts. Features exclusive, on-camera interviews with REO Speedwagon, Head East's John Schlitt, Adrian Belew (with a great Robert Fripp story), Slink Rand, Mark Rubel, Elsinore's Ryan Groff, and more. Includes exclusive and rare performance video.

Documentary traces the history of Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Covers the earliest days of football at the university, to early concepts for a stadium, World War I, honoring the true Fighting Illini and the first games at the arena built in the early 1920's. Historical film and photographs are mixed with interviews from noted Illinois football players, architects, historians, contractors, veterans and their families, college marching band directors, newspaper reporters and broadcasters.

Amidst the ivy-draped remnants of once-notorious public housing projects, FOR THOSE THAT LIVED THERE weaves a visual tapestry, navigating the poignant impacts of gentrification, the displacement of Black legacies, and the emergent migrant narratives. Against Chicago's ever-evolving skyline, this evocative exploration immerses audiences into the soul of a neighborhood transformed.

House music is a genre that connects, uplifts, and unites people. It resonates globally and is prevalent on the world’s biggest music stages. Born in Chicago, this sound developed during the turbulent 1970s when a group of predominantly gay Black artists, who faced constant harassment, pioneered a new type of dance music at underground venues. House music became the anthem of safe spaces, free from the racism and homophobia of the outside world, ultimately igniting a cultural and musical revolution.

Stars, director and producers of Chicago (2002) are interviewed about the film with a decade of hindsight.