City Cast Chicago

The Pullman neighborhood is named after George Pullman, a giant in the railroad industry who built a company town where his employees could live, work, and shop. But the neighborhood’s history is about more than the man. It was the site of a strike that led to the creation of Labor Day and it was home to the country’s first African American union. This history is memorialized at the Pullman Nation...

We’re breaking down the week’s news with Chicago Sun-Times reporter Evan Moore and Chicago’s favorite historian, Shermann “Dilla” Thomas. They talk with City Cast Chicago host Jacoby Cochran about the city’s complicated history with gang and neighborhood divides, and how public officials continue to use it as a scapegoat for violence. Plus, Kanye’s mixed messages at the Donda listening event last...

The Chicago Children’s Choir started in 1956 in Hyde Park by a local Unitarian minister who wanted to give kids something to do, and teach them about serious music history. In its 65 years, more than 50,000 young people have performed with the choir, which has recorded with Chance the Rapper and performed for the Dalai Lama. After a year off the stage, these young singers are coming back to perfor...

Host Jacoby Cochran’s mom lives in the same house his grandparents bought in in 1966. Back then, they were one of the first Black families on the block. Jacoby learns more about the history of the block where he spent so much of his childhood, including why it’s called “Pill Hill.” Plus, in celebration of the first week of school for Chicago Public Schools, Jacoby connects with his favorite teache...

Monday was the first day of school for Chicago Public Schools, marking the third school year during the COVID-19 pandemic. While some things have changed, like vaccinations for teachers and students older than 12, there are still many lingering questions: What’s the process if multiple students contract COVID? And how will the more than 2,000 students who rely on district buses get to school after...

Chicago has been gaining a reputation for being a fairly good place for cyclists as the city adds new bike lanes, expands the Divvy bike share program, and offers free bike lessons. Chicago’s SAFE (Streets Are For Everybody) Ambassadors program held dozens of free lessons across the city throughout the summer. Host Jacoby Cochran headed to West Town for one of the final classes and spoke with prog...

Episode Description: Kanye was at Soldier Field on Thursday in front of more than 30,000 people for a “listening party” that didn’t require proof of vaccination. That had Block Club Chicago’s Jamie Nesbitt Golden asking, “Why, Yeezy, why?” Jamie and her Block Club colleague Mina Bloom join City Cast Chicago to talk about that news, as well as Mina’s continued coverage of those Amazon lockers in Ch...

Filmmaker Ashley O’Shay spent more than four years following Janae Bonsu and Bella BAHHS as they led protests and organized demonstrations following the police killings of Rekia Boyd and Laquan McDonald. Her new documentary “Unapologetic” explores these two women’s activism and the movement for Black lives they helped organize here in Chicago. But it wasn’t just moments behind the megaphone that O...

In June, the U.S. military issued a report saying that out of 144 sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, they were only able to explain one of them. Or put another way: The government has admitted to encountering UFOs that defy explanation. This report may have brought renewed attention toward the sky, but Chicago is home to the nation’s first organization dedicated to the scientific study of...

On Monday, City Cast Chicago host Jacoby Cochran talked to Elly Fishman, author of "Refugee High: Coming of Age in America,” about Sullivan High School. Sullivan has hundreds of refugee students, and more than 40 languages are spoken at the school. Today, Jacoby talks to Sarah Quintenz, aka Ms. Q, who runs the school’s English Language Learner program and is a pillar for the new students who are t...

In 2017, after former President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens and refugees from seven predominately Muslim countries, journalist Elly Fishman started thinking about refugee families who were already in Chicago. She then learned about Sullivan High School in Rogers Park, which is also referred to as “Refugee High.” Hundreds of refugee students attend and more than 40 different languages are...

City Cast Chicago producer Simone Alicea is in the host chair with Lead Producer Carrie Shepherd and City Bureau Deputy Editor Arionne Nettles to talk about the Chicago stories they couldn’t stop thinking about, stories that should have more coverage in the news, and their moments of joy from the week. Follow us on Twitter: @CityCastChicago Sign up for our newsletter: chicago.citycast.fm

Before he became the host of The Late Show and The Colbert Report, and was a correspondent on The Daily Show, Stephen Colbert got his start like so many other comedians, writers, and performers—at The Second City. Colbert went from Northwestern University’s theater department to The Second City, where he now serves on the board of directors. He tells host Jacoby Cochran about his early days with t...

The 2020 census numbers are in, and Chicago remains the country’s third-largest city. But the demographics are shifting. Latinx people are now the city’s second-largest racial or ethnic group, surpassing the city’s Black population. These shifts have big implications for city politics and for Black and brown communities. WBEZ's Alden Loury tells host Jacoby Cochran about how Chicago got here and w...

Chicago students and teachers are set to return to classrooms on Aug. 30, making it the third school year affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. That means CPS and the teachers union are once again negotiating COVID safety protocols. But as cases rise and amid concern over the delta variant, one teacher tells host Jacoby Cochran she’s feeling just as anxious as she did when the pandemic began. Norma N...

James Allen has spent most of the past 52 years behind bars. He’s in prison on three separate murder charges, but he claims he’s innocent. Allen has a chance this month to take a step toward getting one of those convictions overturned. In her Chicago Reader story “Reasonable Doubt,” Maya Dukmasova details Allen’s case. She talks with host Jacoby Cochran about how the stories the state has told abo...

City Cast Chicago producers Carrie Shepherd and Simone Alicea sit down with host Jacoby Cochran to talk through the week’s top stories, under-hyped stories, and of course, their moments of joy. They talk about the Delta variant numbers, new questions about Chicago’s contract with ShotSpotter after City Cast Chicago reported the city had extended their contract with the company that operates gun de...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Wednesday the city is facing a $730 million shortfall in its 2022 budget forecast. The city is expected to spend upwards of $12 billion next year. The news comes as city officials have been hosting public forums on the South, West and North sides to hear how Chicagoans wants the money spent. Thursday's event in Uptown is the last one. WBEZ politics reporter M...

Abby McEnany has been on Chicago’s improv scene for more than 20 years but is new to the TV world. Her show, "Work in Progress" on Showtime, started as part of a storytelling performance at iO. It's loosely based on McEnany’s life, but the star is clear there are many ways she and the character are different (though she won’t tell you how). The second season of "Work in Progress" premieres Aug. 22...

ShotSpotter is a technology that’s meant to detect the sound of gunfire and deploy police to that location. But reports from Northwestern University’s MacArthur Justice Center and Vice found errors in the technology’s reporting. Journalist and author Jamie Kalven also has reported that the location of the technology in the city reveals racial bias. Chicago’s contract with ShotSpotter was scheduled...

Last year, Dion Dawson’s friend asked him what he wanted to do to help his Englewood community. Dion responded that he wanted to feed 100 families. Fast forward a year and Dion’s Chicago Dream is running a community fridge that the organization keeps full of fresh produce, and delivering groceries to families from Maywood to Evanston. Dion tells host Jacoby Cochran it was his own food insecurity g...

Governor JB Pritzker issued a mask mandate for students across the state, and employees at state facilities, which already has some Republicans complaining about this “unilateral” response to an uptick in COVID numbers. City officials promised that Lollapalooza was checking vax status at the gates. How do they know? Public Health Director Allison Arwady went to the fest in disguise to see if they’...

The Chicago Transit Authority has a been working on the $2.1 billion Red-Purple Modernization Project to unclog congestion at the Belmont stop. The plan is to straighten the tracks, and build a flyover for Brown line trains. Part of that project would have included demolishing the Vautravers Building in the landmarked Newport Avenue historic district. When the CTA built the tracks in the early 190...

Too many young people in Chicago see stories about their neighborhoods on the news that don’t reflect the neighborhood THEY know. The headlines aren't about their favorite parks or corner stores, the community gardens, and block parties. Chicago Stories on the Block is changing that. Young people 15-24 years old from Englewood, Back of the Yards, South Shore, and Lawndale gather to tell THEIR stor...

There have been a lot of conversations recently about the importance of speaking up about mental health. Gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Naomi Osaka have both taken steps back from their sports in the last month because they didn’t feel they were in the right head space to perform the sports they dominate. For clinical psychologist and Northwestern University professor Dr. Inger Burnett-Zei...