Sidewalks: Portraits of Chicago by Rick Kogan (2006)

One of the few times I heard the author speak and was moved to purchase the book. Rick Kogan and just as important, Charles Osgood the photographer, addressed us at the LOEX conference in Chicago early in May. It was a fun, informative session on Chicago. Both men work for the Chicago Tribune and travel around Chicago and surrounding areas looking for interesting things. They don't follow famous people (there are a few musicians and artists, and one not very flattering, but realistic photo of Mayor Daly), but look for ordinary people doing extraordinary things. In our after dinner presentation, they had about a dozen of Osgood's photos blown up to poster size. They asked audience members to choose a photo from a bag, and then they talked about the place, the person, the story behind it. My favorite story was about a barber, who emigrated from Russia in 1990 and now has a shop on the sixth floor of a classy neighborhood and who shaves and cuts the hair of some well known people. There were great stories about the 20 foot cat they found in a deserted parking lot, or the two-story outhouse in southern Illinois, or the man who raised two kids by selling peanuts on a street corner, or how Osgood got a great shot from the top of the dome of the oldest library in Chicago, or about the man who single-handedly reorganized the naming and numbering system on the streets of Chicago. All great stories that became columns in the Sunday paper - along with wonderful photographs by Osgood. What we as librarians appreciated, was how they researched the story. Of course they interviewed the people involved, or asked around to try to find out something about the cat or other object, but often they had to do more research. For instance, they found that the two-story outhouse was not unique, and that five other places in the U.S. claim to have the only two-story outhouse. The book is compiled of over 100 of these stories and photos and is a wonderful mosaic of Chicago. I bought the book and had it signed, thinking I was going to give to someone as a gift, maybe to someone in Latvia, but after reading it, I want to keep it for myself, and look up some of the wonderful places they describe.