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Chicago
Bronzeville was once America's most vibrant Black community--next to Harlem. Nightclubs, dance halls, rialtos, and jazz and blues joints lined the streets of Chicago's South Side. Not much is left. A few sound recordings, memories passed down from generation to generation, and--until now--only a handful of photographs.
Bronzeville Nights brings it back, with dozens of photos and mementos recently found in a cache gathered by Lonnie Simmons, a jazzman of renown who played these clubs and also roamed Bronzeville with a camera.
Simmons snapped Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horn and Billie Holiday. He photographed Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr. and Redd Foxx.
And he captured images of astonishing acrobats, howling entertainers, stunning dancers--and drag queens. His never-before published pictures tell an unknown story of lavish life during the segregated 1940s and 50s when African Americans frequented these vibrant clubs.
Bronzeville Nights is a treasure box. Souvenir photo folders from the Rhumboogie Club, postcards from the Palm Tavern and matchbook covers from the Grand Terrace. And it's the story of Lonnie Simmons himself, who ran away from his South Carolina home at age 16 so he could play saxophone for Fats Waller and Ella Fitzgerald before making Bronzeville his home.
Simmons' photos--seen for the first time--exude glamour, swagger and coolness. His images record a time and place that was destroyed more than half a century ago. A place that has never before been reconstructed in pictures. These photos revive this extraordinary social and cultural arena.
It's a world that Steven C. Dubin, author of six books including New York Times Notable Book Arresting Images, and Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Margo Jefferson reexamine, explore and explain in exhilarating text.
Leary was a diligent, hardworking Irish woman, no more responsible for the fire than anyone else in the city at that time. But the conflagration that spread from her property quickly overtook the neighborhood, and before too long the floating embers had spread to the far reaches of the city. Families took to the streets with everything they could carry. Grain towers threatened to blow. The Chicago River boiled. Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, Chicago saw the biggest and most destructive disaster the United States had ever endured, and Leary would be its scapegoat.
Out of the ashes rose not just new skyscrapers, tenements, and homes, but also a new political order. The city's elite saw an opportunity to rebuild on their terms, cracking down on crime and licentiousness and fortifying a business-friendly environment. But the city's working class recognized a naked power grab that would challenge their traditions, hurt their chances of rebuilding, and move power out of elected officials' hands and into private interests. As quickly as the firefight ended, another battle for the future of the city began between the town's business elites and the poor and immigrant working class.
An enrapturing account of the fire's devastating path and an eye-opening look at its aftermath, The Burning of the World tells the story of one of the most infamous calamities in history and the powerful transformation that followed.
Chicago Avant-Garde tells the story of five women who took radical risks in their lives and in their art: artist Gertrude Abercrombie, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, choreographers Katherine Dunham and Ruth Page, and dealer-curator Katharine Kuh. Inspired and challenged by Chicago, they helped transform the city into a hub of avant-garde experimentation.
Illustrated with more than 140 photographs, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 tells the fascinating stories of the people, ideas, negotiations, decision-making, compromises, and strategies that changed the history of architecture and one of its showcase cities.
*signed copies available*