CHICAGO NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS - LINCOLN PARK, UPTOWN, LOOP, NORWOOD PARK, NAPERVILLE
LINCOLN
PARK
Animal welfare
activists and state Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago) met Sunday at PAWS Chicago, a
no-kill animal shelter in Lincoln Park.
He announced a proposed legislation that would regulate large-scale dog
breeders and pet stores with the goal of cracking down on abusive puppy
mills.
The bill, backed by the U.S. Humane Society and the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is called Chloe's Bill after a
young female dog that was rescued from a filthy, unlicensed puppy mill."
Opposition to the bill is
likely. Puppy mills take a factory
approach to animal breeding putting out maximum puppy output with minimal cost
and care. The legislation, if passed in
its proposed form, would protect dogs.
Click
here to find out how.
UPTOWN
As
President Obama begins his term, his adopted hometown watched his inaugural
festivities pride.
It carried a sense of shared purpose and powerful
emotions among Chicagoans.
At the Selfhelp Home, a Jewish nonprofit senior center
in Uptown, Felice Dworkin bit her lip and sobbed as Obama took the oath.
"We can live together if we all try," the 81-year-old said. She watched with a dozen others-many of whom
had lived through some of history's darkest hours.
Click
here to read more.
LOOP
In the National Mall,
where Barack
Obama took the oath of office, there was a hint of a historic
landscape that once stood not far from his house on Chicago's South Side: The
World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, called "the White City" for its
spectacular ensemble of temporary, Beaux-Arts buildings.
Chicagoan architect
Daniel
Burnham, drew criticism for blotting out the sky and clogging streets
with traffic in the soot-covered, "Gray City" of skyscrapers that had just
arisen in the Loop.
Click
here to learn more.
NORWWOD
PARK
Taft High School senior
Margaret Nolan had the equivalent of a front-row seat, to see Barack Obama's
inauguration ceremony.
Nolan, a self-admitted
political junkie, flew to Philadelphia on Saturday. From there she traveled to
Washington, D.C. with a group of students who participated in Mikva Challenge
events during the past election season. The organization, named for former White
House Counsel, Judge, and U.S. Rep. Abner Mikva, and his wife Zoe, lifelong
education activists, works to inspire youths to become involved in the political
process.
Click
here to read the entire story.
NAPERVILLE
Judd Hoekstra clears snow
off the ice before a friendly game of ice hockey with his kids and some
neighbors on their backyard ice rink at their Naperville home. Hoekstra's children figure skate and play
hockey. The rink was installed by a company
called Flex Court of Chicago.
Hoekstra: "I grew up in a
town called Edina, Minnesota. We
actually had a lot of (outside) rinks maintained by the city. We'd go three quarters of a mile away, and
there'd be a rink. So a lot of times,
we'd get out of school and go skate right after school, and our parents would
pick us up for dinner at night. We just
played a lot of hockey ..."
"Here, there are not that
many outdoor rinks. So we had to think of some alternatives to get some outdoor
ice ... It actually turned out to be pretty reasonable to get a rink installed.
So I was like, 'This is gonna be great,' 'cause driving 20, 25 minutes away all
the time to get to the rink is always a tough
thing."
To read more, click here.
JENNIFER ARCAND & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
