#curiouscitizens

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Who makes Curious City stories happen? Questioners, of course, but also a cadre of producers, like journalist and documentary filmmaker Liz Stanton.

You might remember Liz’s answers to our question about whether the crosswalk buttons really work (bit.ly/2dvMIfC) and the painters behind Chicago’s produce signs (bit.ly/2dNW4hQ).

When Liz isn’t hunting down answers for Curious City, she’s journalist and documentary filmmaker who loves telling stories about individuals and connecting these micro stories to macro issues.

Her work has taken her around the world -- from places like Costa Rica, where she worked for the Tico Times, to the Chicago bureau of The New York Times and the mountains of Ecuador. She's worked on projects that require skills as diverse as talking the Bolivian military into renting her one of their only high altitude helicopters to taking a deep dive into data for a six hour series about low wage workers with Kartemquin Films. Her love of sharing stories and sports spurred her to start a non-profit called The Through Her Eyes Project, which aims to support and tell the stories of how girls and women in the developing world are empowered through sports.

When she's not reporting on a story or planning her next adventure, you can find Liz running or biking along the lake, most often with a camera in hand.

Follow her on Twitter: @ElizAnnStan and on Instagram: @lizstantoni

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Curious Citizen Jef Johnson 

“Jef-with-one-F” Johnson prompted Curious City's first (and only!) investigation of all things airship. The gist of his question was whether or not Zeppelin or dirigible travel was ever popular in Chicago and whether buildings in the city were ever outfitted for airships. 

(Answer: http://wbez.is/2aMCx0B ) 

His curiosity about flying machines began when he’d heard friends speculate that the architecture atop some downtown Chicago buildings was inspired by the prospect of commercial, passenger airship travel.

“I just had visions of airships taking off … and landing …. And taking off again. It just seems so civilized!” he says.

Jef accompanied us to the top of Chicago's Intercontinental Hotel to assess whether that building ever had Zeppelin-docking infrastructure. Spoiler alert: It *did* have an impressive-looking airship mast, but, alas, there's no evidence it was actually used. The presence of this poseur infrastructure, though, reveals an interesting story about how the city was caught up in Zeppelin fever, but abandoned it in favor of air *plane* infrastructure. 

It's not the romantic tale of lighter-than-air flight that Jef was expecting, but his penchant for the romantic is preserved, nonetheless: He’s a wedding minister employed by the city of Chicago!

By the way, if you wonder if “Jef-with-one-F” sounds familiar to you, it’s because this Kenwood neighborhood resident happens to be a veteran Curious City questioner! (See “Why ban pickups from Lakeshore Drive?” at http://wbez.is/2aLZ9CE and “Campus Police: Real Deal or Rent-a-Cops?” at http://wbez.is/2bfwVwq ).

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Curious Citizen Erin Pavlich 

Erin came forward with a question that a lot of folks who grew up in the Chicago area may ask themselves during some summer or another — or at least during a lightning bug season that comes and goes with no glow: What happened to all the lightning bugs? 

(Answer: http://wbez.is/2a1t4S9 )

A compliance officer at a financial services firm, Erin grew up catching fireflies in suburban Western Springs, but doesn’t seem to be netting as many in her new home in Glen Ellyn. Her two kids aren’t quite to lightning-bug-catching age yet (they’re ages 1 and 3) but she wants to make sure they can have as many long nights with a mason jar full of lightning bugs as she did.

After learning the factors that make firefly populations vary from year to year and even neighborhood to neighborhood, Erin’s considering some changes that have a chance to bring back some summer evening light shows. 

“I think I might take a look at my landscaping to see if there’s some areas we can encourage some more natural environments,” she says. “Maybe we can incorporate something that’s more conducive to lightning bugs.”

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Curious Citizen Will Bouman 

Will asked our latest geography-based puzzler, the gist of which is: Where, exactly, is the center point of Chicago? 

(Answer: http://wbez.is/2aah4ll)

A close follow-up consideration was whether that literal center point happened to be in a spot that somehow represented the character of the city. 

“It’d be interesting to find that it's not like River North or the Loop and it's not the Board of Trade, but a neighborhood that's maybe more middle of the road for Chicago,” he said.

We won’t totally spoil the fun of finding out where the center point actually is and how that compared with Will's expectations. But we'll tease you with this: Will had to wrap his head around the fact that the city has designated the wrong intersection as the "official center point." 

Will is a native of Oak Park but now lives in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood, which is not anywhere near the center of the city.

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Curious City Contributor John Fecile

John Fecile (smooshed between a pierogi and leafy greens) is a writer, a filmmaker, and all-around creative person, currently editing the feature film Rogers Park. His past endeavors for Curious City include such colorful titles as Escape from Chicago! (http://wbez.is/1OKW11x) and Mold-a-rama-rama! (exclamation points added). (http://wbez.is/28Prvuq) Curious City’s recent story about the murder of Chicago Negro League baseball manager Fred Goree by police (http://wbez.is/24g4yRa) is, according to John, one of the team’s best: “It’s both incredibly relevant and features enough historical info about 1920s baseball to make any Chicago sports-nerd swoon.”

John has been chipping away at an investigation of a Curious City question about missing movie star footprints from the floor of the now-demolished Rhodes Theatre in the Chatham neighborhood in Chicago (http://wbez.is/28NBInB). If anybody has any information, please contact Curious City! ([email protected]!)

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Curious Citizen RC Jones 

RC posed our latest transportation-related question:  What determines the route of CTA ‘L’ train lines? Some of them seem to zigzag for no apparent reason.

(Answer: http://wbez.is/1U3YrdT ) 

RC Jones is an advertising copywriter who lives in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood. You may be familiar with some of his work; he’s the twisted mind behind Slightly Insulting Chicago Posters. (http://slightlyinsultingchicagoposters.tumblr.com/).

RC is happy to know that there’s a reason behind his kinked-up commute, and it’s not just train operators trying to make sure he always arrives at work with a little coffee spilled on his shirt. “I can give the Brown Line more credit now that I know its twists and turns are not completely arbitrary,” he says.

He plans on passing on this knowledge. “I can’t wait to ride the train with my 7-year-old and tell him all about these,” he says. “Man, he’s gonna be so bored with these. ‘Please, no more train facts, dad!’”

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Curious City contributor Laura Pavin

Reporter Laura Pavin worked to answer Amanda Jensen's question: Why doesn't Cook County have a county fair? Could we bring it back again?

(Story :  http://wbez.is/212XsP8 )

Laura grew up around Lake Zurich, Illinois, which was fine until she returned from college and had to start sharing a car with three siblings. While her Italian family would have been okay with her living in their basement forever, Laura yearned for city life, and wanted to write about city things. She read “The Devil in the White City” once, and believed she knew everything about Chicago. She moved to the city in 2014, and now doesn’t know how she lived anywhere else.

She still loves the suburbs, though, which is why she continues to write, edit, shoot photographs and manage some social media for the suburban Pioneer Press newspaper. Past work has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Make It Better and 365Barrington.com, among other publications. She also curates newsletter content for Crain’s National.

Like Amanda, Laura was surprised when she found out Cook County didn’t have a fair, but wasn’t sure it needed one, either. That is, until she started digging in and learned that Cook County has a potential opportunity on its hands: To reinvent the idea of a county fair and highlight urban — as opposed to traditional — agriculture.

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Curious Citizen Amanda Jensen.

Amanda (middle, with husband Chris Jensen and reporter Laura Pavin) posed one of our latest “Huh, why didn’t I think of that?” kind of questions when she asked Curious City: Why doesn't Cook County have a county fair? Could we bring it back again?

(Answer: http://wbez.is/1PiTn3j )

Amanda is a professional genealogist who planted roots in Chicago nearly five years ago after living many places (Northern Virginia, New York, California and Utah), and has since become somewhat of a city history buff. She also happens to make a pret-ty great chocolate chip cookie — the reason she started thinking about Cook County’s nonexistent fair in the first place. Basically, she’d wondered where she would win the blue ribbon. Plus, nearly every county in Illinois has a fair, so why not Cook?

Amanda was encouraged to know that a county fair could return if an enthusiastic, thick-skinned individual came forward to plan it all, find a way to secure all the funding, and understand a thing or two about urban agriculture.

She’s not volunteering herself for the job or anything, but she would be curious to know who might be interested in trying to pull a fair off. If that’s you, feel free to drop Amanda a line at [email protected]