Chatham Theaters reopens

 

[VIDEO] I'm sorry to have shared this with you all much later as this is old news. How many of you are glad that our local movie house on 87th is back open. That facility has gone from being ICE Theaters, Chatham 14 Theaters, Studio Movie Grill and now Cinema Chatham powered by Emagine. It has gone through many ownership changes since 2012.

It re-opened this past weekend as Cinema Chatham and this story by Jim Williams shows their first day back in action having been closed over the past year due to the pandemic. We learned this past spring that Studio Movie Grill who owned this venue since 2014 will not be returning to this location.

With the excitement of the Chatham Theaters reopening, it's in the news that they're also looking to bring a restaurant to the theater in the future. This is according to Wendell Hutson at Chicago Business Journal which unfortunately is behind a paywall.

Also they're hiring up there if anyone is looking. There are about 70 employees there and they are looking hire people aged 16 & up.

Also shoutout to Harlan Falcon Bryan who we see is the General Manager for the Cinema Chatham.

CBS Chicago: Drivers who regularly take Dan Ryan say it's dangerous but have no choice

 

[VIDEO] This story from WBBM-TV was uploaded to YouTube on Friday discussing commuters who are concerned about the shooting incidents that often occur on the Dan Ryan Expressway. Noted was a fatal shooting on a Red Line train near Garfield on Thursday which trying to get home then was something of a concern although thankfully after some delays I got home. Also noted was that the State Police are installing license plate reading cameras which hopefully will enable authorities to get a handle on some of these incidents.

Anyone here want to talk about their commutes on the Dan Ryan? Any incidents you've seen that have left you concerned? Let us know.

CapFax: WGN Chicago Poll Mayor and State's Attorney under water crime huge issue

 Get a load of this. I'm not too surprised about this poll regarding Mayor Lightfoot, but State's Attorney Foxx? Really? We just gave her a second term last year and now Chicago voters especially disappove of Kim Foxx's performance?

WGN Chicago poll: Lightfoot and Foxx under water, crime top issue, positive opinion of CPD at 70 percent and rising https://t.co/ppdsdrB5LQ

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) August 17, 2021

And also support for Chicago Police is growing. 70% of Chicago residents have a positive view of the police.

Perhaps someone reading this is among them.

The population of Chicago grew in the last decade

 The city gained 51,000 residents from 2010 to 2020 according to the recent U.S. Census. CapFax shares a number of stories from Chicago area outlets sharing more numbers. Chicago remains America's 3rd largest city, it's not over for us yet! 

Census news: Chicago’s gains https://t.co/1EmrNAWygI

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) August 13, 2021

Now for this remap. The census was controversial for the last ward remap.

Crain's: Dorms in the future for community college students

State Rep Nick Smith

I wonder if this legislation affects the City Colleges of Chicago. Closer to the south side imagine dorms at Olive-Harvey, Kennedy-King, or even Daley Colleges. This is an initiative of 34th District State Representative Nicholas Smith who has a history with two-year colleges.

Now that he’s a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Nick Smith isn’t embarrassed to say he struggled early in college. As he bounced back and forth between classes and his job, he spent little time on campus.

It wasn’t until Smith got a work-study job at Olive-Harvey College, a Far South Side community college, that things changed. “I started to feel immersed in the academic setting. I started to feel focused,” he recalls. After completing the two-year program, Smith went on to get a bachelor’s degree from nearby Chicago State University, and since 2019 he has represented the 34th District in the State Assembly.

With his personal experience in mind, Smith introduced legislation in Springfield this year that allows community colleges to add student housing for the first time. Signed into law July 9 by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the measure allows for residential projects to begin on or near campuses throughout the state starting in January.

The law is an empty vessel at the moment, expressing the ambition to do something new to address housing insecurity for people aiming to lift themselves out of poverty via a community college education. Nontrivial matters—most crucially, how the idea will be paid for—aren’t addressed in a piece of legislation that is only a few paragraphs long.

Here are some things specific to the city colleges:

At City Colleges, a network of seven campuses in Chicago, more than half of all students said they lacked stable housing in the last 12 months, according to a survey conducted in 2018 by the Hope Center for College, Community & Justice at Temple University. About 15 percent of students said they experienced homelessness in the same period. Black students, students identifying as LGBTQ and those who were independent of their parents or guardians in financial aid packages were more likely to experience needs insecurity, the report found. “Housing insecurity and homelessness have a particularly strong, statistically significant relationship with college completion rates, persistence, and credit attainment,” the report said.

City Colleges Chancellor Juan Salgado issued a statement to Crain’s saying the schools are committed to addressing students’ “comprehensive needs,” including housing and food insecurity, so attendees can focus on their schoolwork. The network looks forward to “exploring partnerships that would create affordable housing for our students, in particular the many City Colleges students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity,” the statement said.

For students who are homeless and not connected to their parents, there’s a specific way their academic program is harmed, said Niya Kelly, director of state legislation at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Because of “the presumption in this country that your parents help you until you’re 23 or 25 years old,” Kelly said, colleges generally require a parent’s Social Security and other tax information.

Students who don’t have that “get dinged and have to go through an appeal process,” Kelly said, which results in “getting their packets later, which means registering for classes after other people and dealing with that uncertainty of not knowing whether they’re going to get to go back to school or not.”

Removing any of these obstacles, Smith said, “is adding to our students’ chances of succeeding” and using that college degree to improve their circumstances.

You know how could this affect the surrounding area. With Olive-Harvey and Kennedy-King for example could this be a good thing for the surrounding neighborhoods?