Friday 5/16 – Thursday 5/22
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When the city’s weekend-long Great Chicago Places and Spaces architecture festival was launched five years ago it featured just under 50 tours. This time around there are 155, many of which will be led by architects and designers; they range from tomorrow’s tour of the new UBS Tower at One North Wacker with project designer and developer Drew Nieman (May 17 at 2 PM) to a look at the legacy of Burnham and Bennett’s 1909 Plan of Chicago (May 18 at 9:30 AM). The festival kicks off tonight at 6 with a free keynote discussion about the city with TV journalist Bill Kurtis and historian Donald Miller, author of City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (which inspired the PBS documentary). It’s at the Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark. The free tours start tomorrow at 9 AM and continue through Sunday afternoon; a ticket or advance registration is required. For a complete schedule call 312-744-3315 or see www.cityofchicago.org/specialevents.
17 SATURDAY In 1998, Windy City Hemp Development Board founder Caren Thomas took over a lawsuit filed by late activist Robert MacDonald against the Chicago Park District. MacDonald was denied a permit to stage a march in Grant Park against the war on drugs; his suit claimed the CPD’s permit process could prevent citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights in public places. In December 2001 Thomas took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court–and lost. But, she says, “in the Park District briefs to the Supreme Court, they represented a system for granting permits that they now abide by. The effect of losing the case is that we won–we’re treated a lot better.” In other words, this year’s free Windy City Hemp Fest should go off without a hitch. It features speakers, displays, food, and bands and runs from noon to 9 today and tomorrow, May 18, at Montrose and the lake, east of Cricket Hill. For more information call 773-381-9330 or E-mail windycityhemp420@hotmail.com.
21 WEDNESDAY “The technique of police interrogation probably hasn’t changed in centuries,” says William Martin, the former assistant state’s attorney who helped convict mass murderer Richard Speck in 1967. What has changed over the past few decades, though, is forensic technology. “There’s been a quantum leap in progress in certain areas–particularly the role of DNA,” says Martin, who will chair tonight’s free panel discussion, Science, Crime Detection, and the Law From Sherlock Holmes to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Participants include former assistant state’s attorney Celeste Stack, forensic microscopist Skip Palenik, assistant state’s attorney Robert Egan, and Holmes expert Thomas Joyce. It starts at 6 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, and is presented in conjunction with the library’s exhibit “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Beyond Sherlock Holmes,” which runs through July 12. Call 312-255-3700 for more information.
