Gage Park

We sped south on Cicero Avenue. Through Oak Lawn, Alsip, Crestwood, a flat, aging strip-malled landscape of crumbling pizza joints and ancient tanning parlors, fast-food chains, tile-supply stores and — "Wow!" I shouted, "Look! The Brazen Head!"...

The 15 employees of the Southwest Organizing Project, a nonprofit community group on Chicago's Southwest Side, are housed in a small, shared office space when they aren't out in the community. They are out a lot in the neighborhoods, ones particularly...

The good news: All events at the 14th annual World Music Festival will be free. The bad: The event is smaller than last year's, with 49 shows, compared to last year's 63. "Obviously, in a transition year, you're not working under ideal circumstances,"...

A Southwest Side man has been charged in the 2009 death of a 16-year-old boy ejected from an SUV when it was rammed by a van during a chase, prosecutors said. Hugo “Juicy” Ocon, 30, has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying...

This summer's Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks program will feature "The Comedy of Errors" in a series of free, outdoor performances July 25 to Aug. 25 in various Chicago parks. Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday that the program, in its second year,...

Just days after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by climbing a wall, a Chicago priest says what he did was wrong and urged parishioners in his Southwest Side church to apologize if they had done the same. "And by recognizing you did something wrong,...

As Chicago Public Schools embarks on closing dozens of schools, a third-grader from Garvey Elementary School on Wednesday summed up how many parents, educators and other students feel about the shutdowns. Speaking at the monthly Board of Education...

Age: 77 Residence: Oak Lawn Writing letters since: Wrote her first letter to the editor in 1973, and has had pieces published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald and other local newspapers. Life story in 100 words or less: Raised in...

A 22-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy were wounded in separate shootings late Saturday and early today in the Chatham and Gage Park neighborhoods on the South Side. At 3:05 a.m. the 17-year-old was walking on a sidewalk in the 5200 block of South...

A wrap-up of news from the Tribune's breaking news desk. • A Chicago man is facing multiple charges in connection with a Thursday night hit-and-run accident that killed a Southwest Side woman. Read more • A 30-year-old man was shot in the head...

One firefighter suffered minor injuries at a fire in the South Chicago neighborhood early Sunday morning, and fires destroyed two other homes in the Gage Park and Brighton Park neighborhoods. The firefighter hurt in the South Chicago neighborhood, in...

A wrap-up of news from the Tribune's breaking news desk. • A 16-year-old boy was killed in Gage Park on Saturday afternoon, one of four people shot between about 1:30 and 9:15 p.m. Read more. • A truck ran into a train in the Hegewisch...