Brown, Purple and Red line trains stopped running at about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday between the brown line Southport and Belmont stops when a Brown Line train got stuck switching tracks just north of the busy Belmont station on the North Side.
The incident delayed hundreds of commuters at the end of the morning rush hour. CTA buses shuttled commuters away from the scene. Service was restored for Northbound and Southbound trains around 11 a.m. No injuries were reported.
The stuck train between the Southport and Belmont Brown line stops. Photo by Maria Baglien.
After the train was stuck, the power was shut off and announcements were made over the loudspeakers to people waiting at the Belmont stop. At approximately 9:30 a.m., riders were evacuated from the platform and placed on shuttle buses. Shuttle buses are running from Brown line stops Southport to Fullerton and from the Red Line’s Addison to Fullerton.
CTA spokeswoman Wanda Taylor told the Chicago Tribune that there were no injuries. Several fire trucks, police cars and helicopters converged at the Belmont stop.
Police and rescue crews at the Belmont stop after the Brown line train got stuck. Photo by Maria Baglien
One day a group of bike-loving friends decided to come together and create The Recyclery Collective, a nonprofit used bicycle store located just off the Howard Red Line stop.
Although Jesse Miller, 29, is the all that remains of this original group of friends, he continues to keep The Recyclery running in the East Rogers Park Area.
The Recyclery Collective, 7628 N. Paulina Ave., fixes bikes that have been donated then sells or donates the bikes. In addition to having open shop hours, where people can bring in their bikes and volunteers help them with repairs, the Recyclery also offers both youth and adult classes that are normally held on Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings and Sunday afternoons.
Podcast: Jesse Miller, who helped start the Recyclery Collective, talks about the nonprofit used bicycle store. Also featuring volunteers Paris Suggs and Igar Kilomiychenko:
According to Miller, the Recyclery Collective wants to teach kids “how to ride safely, how to maintain their bike, and to talk about ecological sustainability.”
A sign reads “Sticky Tongues for $1.95” over a box filled with at least 25 different varieties of playful, fake tongues.
These choices include a long, skinny charcoal one, a fat rosy one, and a circular tan one. The box sits next to a bucket filled with squeaky mice toys and a facial mask resembling the Egyptian princess Cleopatra.
Not far away, behind the counter is an assortment of different top hats, a donkey’s head, a knight’s mask, an antique dish collection and three clocks, all telling a different time.
“We’ve got the Earth covered in weirdness,” said Charlotte Walters, owner of Lost Eras costume and prop shop, located at 1511 W. Howard St.
Many have already seen some of Lost Eras’ theatre props, costumes, rare items, and antiques. Items from Lost Eras have been used in famous Chicago-based movies such as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Public Enemies,” “The Dark Knight,” “A League of Their Own” and “Home Alone.”
In fact, a poster featuring “Public Enemies” Johnny Depp sporting a button-down vest, pinstripe pants, a polka dotted tie and a long black and white plaid dress coat, all rented from Lost Eras, stands proudly behind the counter near the register.
Walters has owned Lost Eras for nearly 20 years. But store’s building was constructed more than 50 years ago by one of Walters’ relatives. Her mother opened a store in 1969 that sold health food and beauty items. Now the store sells “theatre props, costumes, rare items, and antiques,” said Walters.
While technology may come naturally to many young people, sometimes older people need additional help with learning basic computing skills — and local libraries have stepped in to help.
That is why the Rogers Park Branch is one of the Chicago Public Libraries offering free computer classes. The final class out of the four class series, “Email Basics,” was on March 2.
Rogers Park community members take advantage of the free
computer classes offered at their local library. (Photo by Maria Baglien)
With 96 percent of children in the East Rogers Park area coming from low-income families, violence becomes a pertinent issue within the community as a response to the poverty, community leaders say.
The Howard Area Community Center, located at 7648 N. Paulina St., was created in 1967 to provide food and clothing to those community members who could not afford it. Since then, the center has expanded to provide other programs, such as preventing violence among youth.
According to the Howard Area Community Center website, more than 21 percent of households in Rogers Park obtain an annual income below $15,000. In addition, 25 percent of individuals over the age 25 do not have achieved an education level greater than high school.
Chandra Clark, who works with the Howard Area Community Center’s youth department and is also the program coordinator at Howard Area Gale Academy, said that this lack of education is one of the reasons why there is a high violence rate among adolescents in Rogers Park.
Other motives Clark gives for high youth violence rates in Rogers Park are domestic violence within homes, impoverished areas of the community, and lack of employment for both adults and adolescents.
“We are currently working on several community outreach projects focused on violence prevention,” Clark said. “Howard Area also offers constructive alternatives for youth that keep them engaged in positive ways, such as after school programming and summer camp.”
The Howard Area Community Center, located
at 7648 N. Paulina St. (Photo by Maria Baglien)
Journalism has never had a business model of its own and with the trend towards online journalism, it has become necessary for there to be a new way to pay for the news.
On Jan. 17, Sally Duros, an independent journalist, came to speak to Mike Reilley’s Online Journalism II class about L3C, or LLLC, Newsroom, a new way for journalists to make money electronically.
The most recent news reporting that occurred at the Howard red line stop was on Dec. 28, 2010 when a man fell on the tracks. According to the Chicago Breaking News Center, the power was shut off for approximately 30 minutes as paramedics rescued the man.
Although many Chicago citizens have heard of a person falling on the El tracks before, I plan on finding a different angle to this story. I would travel to the Howard stop and interview CTA workers about the procedure for how to handle a situation such as this. I would also speak to El riders about how they would react if they saw another rider fall on the tracks.
With the digital world being responsible for how most people get their news today, it becomes imperative that journalists cover everything taking place within every community. The Internet has caused an expansion in news coverage, mainly by zeroing in on local news.
Here is an example of an online site from my hometown Wauwatosa, Wis. of how online journalism has created a greater focus on local news. Wauwatosa is a suburb of Milwaukee and in the upper right hand corner the viewer can select other communities to read about within the area. Now, rather than solely relying on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or the monthly Wauwatosa newsletter, community members can know what is going on specifically within their community every day.
Like many online local news sites, MyCommunityNOW has photo galleries, local high school and college sports updates, polls, and a community watch section. While these topics could appear in a printed press, other items such as a welcome video from the mayor could not.
Since people are relying heavily on the Internet to get their information, it seems unnecessarily for print papers to still even exist. Why do they still exist? The answer is advertising, which is how journalists make their money.
Not all print presses publish daily anymore, however. Now, newspapers may come out three or four times a week, encouraging their readers to go to their online site for their news. In order to keep advertisers, the newspaper staff will try to encourage them to place their advertisements in the Sunday paper, where they reel in the most revenue.
Going back to MyCommunityNOW, there is a tab titled “Newspaper Ads” on the top of the page. Viewers can now select which advertisements they want to view by selection a specific category. Overall, online journalism has made the news, and advertisements, more personable and more open to the public’s opinion with comments and blogs.
You’re cruising down Lakeshore Drive singing along to your favorite song on the radio. You are a little off key but you don’t care because it’s summer, classes are out, and the warm breeze from the half opened window is whipping past your cheeks.
Over the loud blast of the music you hear the generic nokia ring tone of your cell phone go off. Afraid to ruin your perfect summer moment, you let it go. Your phone rings a second time, you look at your phone to see that it is your best friend calling. She is always having emergencies and you don’t feel like dealing with one at the moment, so you ignore it.
Your phone rings a third time and you give in and answer it. She tells you in complete hysteria that her boyfriend of four years just broke up with her. In the midst of your moment of complete shock, you see red lights flash in front of you and you realize that the car in front of you has stopped moving.
You try to slam on the breaks, but it is too late and you hit the rear bumper of the green Corolla in front of you. You jerk forward and then there is a sharp pain in your neck but luckily the seatbelt holds you back. That was a close one, a little too close.
With practically everyone owning a mobile device now, the number of people who use their cell phones while driving has increased. Some people find it a necessity to talk on their phones or text while driving, while others find it a great danger.
