April 19, 2003 - 9:00am to 5:30pm
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Ballroom
112 S. Michigan Avenue
Panelists including architects, urban planners, economists, policy analysts and activists discussed questions of landmarks policy and key Chicago cases including Soldier Field and South Michigan Avenue historic district.
The program was put together in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. Conference co-chairs were Richard Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, and Vince Michael, Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This conference was made possible by a generous grant from the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, and additional support from the University of Chicago Law School and the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.
Papers
The Politics of Preservation: Where the Public Meets the Private
David Bahlman, President, Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
Why Preserve? Public Memory and Heritage Preservation
Daniel Bluestone, Associate Professor of Architectural History and Director, Historic Preservation Program, University of Virginia
They don't build 'em like they used to
Ned Cramer, Curator, Chicago Architecture Foundation
The Government in Heritage Preservation
Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
I Was Trained as a Historian
Vince Michael, Director, Historic Preservation Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The Politics of Preservation: Where the Public Meets the Private
Bradford J. White, Senior Vice President, LR Development Company LLC / Chair, Preservation Action
Agenda
REGISTRATION AND COFFEE SERVICE
8:30 a.m.
OPENING REMARKS
9:00 - 9:30 a.m.
Carroll Joynes, Executive Director, Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago
Lawrence Rothfield, Faculty Director, Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago
PANEL 1: WHY PRESERVE? PUBLIC MEMORY AND HERITAGE PRESERVATION
9:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Moderator: Neil Harris, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor of American History, University of Chicago
This panel examined what it means to designate something as a landmark. Soldier Field, the "streetwall" on South Michigan Avenue, Maxwell Street and other cases raise unique questions about what is worthy of preservation, who decides, and how. How is the public interest represented - and how should it be - when deciding to grant special status to some but not other sites or edifices? What is the difference between preserving a site with cultural or political significance and designating a building or neighborhood with historical or architectural value?
Speakers:
Daniel Bluestone, Associate Professor of Architectural History and Director, Historic Preservation Program, University of Virginia
Ned Cramer, Curator, Chicago Architecture Foundation
Vince Michael, Director, Historic Preservation Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
PANEL 2: PRESERVATION POLICY FRAMEWORKS AND TOOLS
11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
Moderator: J. Mark Schuster, Professor of Urban Cultural Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This panel considered cases in which public and private interests have diverged over the development of historic property. The struggle to determine whose interests will prevail is played out in courts, regulatory agencies, appropriations committees, and urban planning meetings. Within these governmental frameworks, what legal tools, enforcement mechanisms, and procedural maneuvers are available to preservationists and developers? What arguments and forms of evidence are used to justify preservation policies and decisions? Are the existing policy frameworks effective?
Speakers:
Alicia Mazur Berg, Commissioner, Chicago Department of Planning and Development
Joan Brierton, Historic Preservation Specialist, General Services Administration
Reading: "Held in Public Trust"
Reading: "Preserve America EXECUTIVE ORDER" (PDF)
Reading: "Integrating GSA's Portfolio Strategy and Stewardship Responsibility"(PDF)
Richard Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
Linda Searl, President, Searl & Associates Architects / Vice Chairman, Chicago Plan Commission
LUNCH BREAK
12:45 - 2:00 p.m.
PANEL 3: THE POLITICS OF PRESERVATION
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Moderator: John Brehm, Professor and Chairman, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago
This panel took a broader view of the political aspects of the preservation process. How do advocates, opponents, and the public at large make their voices heard? What strategies have been most effective in forming, mobilizing, directing, or suppressing public opinion? What roles do the media, private business interests, and other institutions play in educating or influencing the public? What difference does such public pressure make on the policymaking process?
Speakers:
David Bahlman, President, Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois
Douglas Garofalo, FAIA, President, Garofalo Architects, Inc. / Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture
Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune architecture critic
Readings: "A Squandered Heritage," A three-part series in the Chicago Tribune, January 13 - 16, 2003
Brad White, Senior Vice President, LR Development Company LLC / Chair, Preservation Action
FINAL ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Moderator: John Callaway, Host and Senior Editor, Chicago Stories, WTTW Chicago
For this session, John Callaway took a large panel of participants from the day through a few cases and probe for answers to remaining questions.
Panelists:
- Daniel Bluestone, Associate Professor of Architectural History and Director, Historic Preservation Program, University of Virginia
- Joan Brierton, Historic Preservation Specialist, General Services Administration
- Ned Cramer, Curator, Chicago Architecture Foundation
- Richard Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago
- Jonathan Fine, President, Preservation Chicago
- Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune architecture critic
- J. Mark Schuster, Professor of Urban Cultural Policy, MIT
- Brad White, Senior Vice President, LR Development Company LLC / Chair, Preservation Action
Speakers
PANEL 1: WHY PRESERVE? PUBLIC MEMORY AND HERITAGE PRESERVATION
Moderator: Neil Harris
Panelists:
- Daniel Bluestone
- Ned Cramer
- Vince Michael
Neil Harris studies the evolution of American culture, high and popular, and the formation of its supporting institutions. He has written on the history of American art and artists, technology, architecture, and design; on American entertainment; on the development of American museums, libraries, and learned societies; and on a range of other subjects from photography and collecting to world's fairs and advertising. His many books include The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years, 1790-1860 (1966); Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (1973); Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites and Cultural Tastes in Modern America (1990); Chicago's Dream, a World's Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1893-1993 (1993) and Building Lives: Structural Rites and Passages (1999). Harris has lectured at universities and museums in the U.S. and in Europe, and has held visiting positions or invited lectureships at Yale, Columbia, Stanford, and Princeton Universities. In 1965 he gained his Ph.D. from Harvard University. After teaching at Harvard he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1969, where he is now Preston and Sterling Morton Professor in the Department of History.
Daniel Bluestone is a specialist in nineteenth-century American architecture and urbanism. His book, Constructing Chicago (1991) was awarded the American Institute of Architects International Book Award and the National Historic Preservation book prize. In 1998 Mr. Bluestone was invited to participate in the Getty Conservation Institute's Agora project, a small international panel charged with formulating new approaches to cultural heritage preservation, education, and economics to complement international programs in material conservation. Mr. Bluestone has published important essays that survey the history and politics of historic preservation in the United States. Essays dealing specifically with Chicago preservation include: "Preservation and Renewal in Post-World War II Chicago," Journal of Architectural Education, (May 1994); and "Chicago's Mecca Flat Blues," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, (December 1998). Bluestone's essay "Academics In Tennis Shoes, Historic Preservation and the Academy" appeared in the special end of the century issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Mr. Bluestone teaches American architecture, the theory of historic preservation, and courses that survey the methods of site-specific architectural and landscape history and preservation. A highly regarded advocate of community preservation and public history, Mr. Bluestone has worked on numerous building and community preservation projects. During the 2001-2002 academic year, students in Mr. Bluestone's community history, planning and design workshop undertook a major preservation project on the site of the Blue Ridge Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Virginia's premier tuberculosis sanatorium from 1920 until 1978. Currently University of Virginia real estate foundation envisions the development of a research park. The community history workshop has developed a guidebook, a website, oral history accounts, an exhibition, a secondary school curriculum as well as proposals for adaptively re-using the site's historic buildings and landscape. Mr. Bluestone directs the School's historic preservation program that offers courses encouraging both specialized work in a student's field of study and scrutinize the general principles and ethics of historic preservation. The interdisciplinary program involves students and faculty from architectural history, architecture, landscape architecture, and planning.
Ned Cramer is the curator of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, responsible for exhibitions and for overall creative and intellectual direction. For eight years he worked as an editor at Architecture magazine, most recently as executive editor. He has also worked at the Menil Collection in Houston and at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Cramer attended the Rice University School of Architecture and is the recipient of an Arts Administration Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.
Vincent L. Michael is Associate Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has been Director of the Historic Preservation Program since 1996 and a teacher since 1994. Since 1983, he has been involved in the historic preservation field as a planner and advocate, working on the creation and interpretation of the Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor, advocating preservation for the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, and assisting programmatic and legislative initiatives at the local, state and national levels. He has led tours of architecture, art, geography, literature, natural and industrial history since 1983, including study trips to Ireland and Southeast Asia. He has lectured on historic preservation, architecture, geography, art and history throughout the United States and has served as an expert witness six times before the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
Vince Michael is Chair of the National Council for Preservation Education, and President of the Site Council for the Gaylord Building, a National Trust property and National Historic Landmark. He has also served on the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council and the Oak Park Historic Preservation Commission. He has authored two videos on Chicago architecture and has been a writer for Michelin Travel Publications since 1993. Most recently published in Design Issues, Vincent is a doctoral student in architectural history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is working on a publication detailing the career of Prairie School architect Francis Barry Byrne.
PANEL 2: PRESERVATION POLICY FRAMEWORKS AND TOOLS
Moderator: J. Mark Schuster
Panelists:
- Alicia Mazur Berg
- Joan Brierton
- Richard Epstein
- Linda Searl
J. Mark Schuster, Professor of Urban Cultural Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a public policy analyst who specializes in the analysis of government policies and programs with respect to the arts, culture, and urban design. Mark's most recent research projects include "Mapping State Cultural Policy," an application of the Council of Europe's Program of Reviews of National Cultural Policies to the State of Washington; and "The Information Infrastructure for Cultural Policy," documenting the structure of cultural policy research, information, and communication in a number of countries. He was a member of the joint MIT/ Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya project, "The Cultural Landscape and Regional Development," which developed conceptual plans for regional development based on the cultural heritage of the Llobregat River Valley.
He is the author of Informing Cultural Policy: The Research and Information Infrastructure; The Geography of Participation in the Arts and Culture; The Audience for American Art Museums; Preserving the Built Heritage-Tools for Implementation (with John de Monchaux); Patrons Despite Themselves: Taxpayers and Arts Policy (with Alan Feld and Michael O'Hare); and Who's to Pay for the Arts? The International Search for Models of Support (with Milton Cummings). He has served as a consultant to the Council of Europe, UNESCO, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission, the Canada Council, Canadian Heritage, the British American Arts Association, the London Arts Board, the British Museum, and National Public Radio, among many others.
Professor Schuster is Joint Editor of the Journal of Cultural Economics and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Cultural Policy. He is also a member of the board of the International Alliance of First Night Celebrations. He and John de Monchaux served as co-chairmen of the Salzburg Seminar's session on "Preserving the National Heritage: Policies, Partnerships, and Actions," and he has served as Director of the Northeast Mayors' Institute on City Design. He has been a Visiting Professor at both the University of Chicago (2001-2002) and the Universitat de Barcelona, Centre d'Estudis de Planificació (1992-1993).
Alicia Berg: As Chicago's top planning and economic development official, Alicia Berg oversees citywide development activities involving industrial attraction and retention, neighborhood revitalization, business assistance, open space planning, brownfield redevelopment, design review, historic preservation and zoning.
Since her appointment as commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development by Mayor Richard M. Daley in January 2001, Ms. Berg has been instrumental in the introduction of the city's first new zoning code in 45 years, the issuance of a new Central Area Plan, the designation of 25 Tax Increment Financing districts citywide, the landmark protection of more than 450 buildings, and a 90-day delay for demolition permits involving unprotected historic structures. Business assistance efforts under her supervision have helped create and retain approximately 33,000 jobs and resulted in the sale of more than $4.5 million in city owned property for 27 housing and retail projects.
Previously, Ms. Berg was a deputy commissioner in charge of planning for Chicago's central area, where she was instrumental in the re-creation of the Randolph Street Theater District and the revitalization of the State Street shopping district. She was also instrumental in the adaptive re-use of several historic buildings, having joined the department in 1990 as a downtown market analyst.
Ms. Berg graduated with highest honors from Tufts University. She has a Master of Science degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she received an Urban Land Institute fellowship.
Joan M. Brierton is an historic preservation specialist with the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Center for Historic Buildings. In this role, Ms. Brierton serves as agency liaison to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National Park Service and other related federal agencies and non-federal organizations. Ms. Brierton's responsibilities include, but are not limited to, oversight of Section 106 review and agency compliance for projects nationwide, management of GSA's Central Office First Impressions Team, and guidance on public preservation outreach and education initiatives.
In 1999, Ms. Brierton was detailed to the White House Millennium Council where she managed the federal "Save America's Treasures" program - a nationwide preservation initiative focused on "protecting America's threatened cultural treasures." Ms. Brierton began her career in preservation as Assistant Director for the D.C. Preservation League, Washington's nonprofit preservation organization, and then worked for a private architectural history and historic preservation consulting firm for four years prior to joining the federal government. Her experience in the nonprofit, private and public sectors has demanded numerous speaking engagements and required the presentation of testimony before historic preservation review agencies and organizations.
Ms. Brierton received her Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, and published her first book, American Restoration Style: Victorian, in 1999.
Richard Epstein joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1973. He was named James Parker Hall Professor in 1982 and Distinguished Service Professor in 1988. Mr. Epstein has written extensively in many legal areas. His books include: Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (1998); Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Right to Health Care? (1997); Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995); Bargaining with the State (1993); Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws (1992); and Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (1985). Mr. Epstein is also the editor of Cases and Materials in the Law of Torts (7th ed.) and has written a one-volume treatise, Torts (1999). He has also written many scholarly articles on a broad range of common law, constitutional, economic, historical, and philosophical subjects. Among the subjects that he has taught are contracts, property, torts, and criminal law in the first year curriculum, and conflicts of law, health law, workers' compensation, real estate development and finance, and political theory in the upper years.
Since 1991, Mr. Epstein has been an editor of the Journal of Law & Economics. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. He served as Interim Dean of the Law School from February to June of 2001. Epstein is a member of the Board of Directors of the Landmark Preservation Council of Illinois, and worked on the legal effort to save Soldier Field that was rebuffed by the Illinois Supreme Court.
Linda Searl has designed numerous projects of varied building types. Examples include university dormitories and gymnasiums, churches, townhouses and apartments, a theater, manufacturing plant additions and renovations, and office buildings. Ms. Searl has developed a reputation for producing quality projects even in limited budgets. Her firm was established in 1985. Prior to becoming Principal of her own firm she was an Associate Architect at Nagle Hartray and Associates. Her experience has given her the ingredients necessary to work with various clients and programs, and to develop a project that fits the clients needs and creatively solves the given problem. She was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley as a member of the Chicago Plan Commission in 1997, and became Vice Chair in 1999.
Linda Searl began her career as a Professor of Architecture at two universities teaching design and materials courses, and she has been a visiting lecturer at universities. She has participated on juries for AIA Distinguished Building Awards in a number of other cities, served as Chair of the Design Committee of AIA Chicago, as a past president of Chicago Women in Architecture, and is the recent Past-President of the Chicago Chapter AIA. She was a member of the National AIA EVP/CEO Search Committee and served as a regional director on the National AIA Board of Directors and as a Vice President in 1999. Her abilities as a leader carry through in her work with clients and in community efforts.
Ms. Searle received her Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Arts in Architecture from the University of Florida, in Gainesville. She is a registered Architect in Illinois, Florida and Michigan. NCARB Registration.
PANEL 3: THE POLITICS OF PRESERVATION
Moderator: John Brehm
Panelists:
- David Bahlman
- Douglas Garofalo
- Blair Kamin
- Bradford J. White
John Brehm (Michigan Ph.D. 1990) is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Brehm is a specialist in the study of American political behavior, with an emphasis on public opinion and political organizations. His most recent book, Hard Choices, Easy Answers: Values, Information, and American Public Opinion (Princeton University Press, in press), written with R. Michael Alvarez, develops a new model of public opinion based on the idea that survey respondents use their values and beliefs in order to answer the questions posed to them.
David A. Bahlman has been the Executive Director of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois since 1999, where he is a member of the Pullman Task Force and the Elawa Farm Steering Committee. Prior to his position at the Landmarks Preservation Council, Bahlman held executive positions at The Foundation for San Francisco's Architectural Heritage and The Society of Architectural Historians in Philadelphia, The New York Philharmonic. He has also worked in the performing arts for The New York Philharmonic and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Bahlman is a member of the Board of the Lake Forest Preservation Foundation and a member of The Cliff Dwellers, The Philadelphia Athenaeum, and Lambda Alpha Honorary Fraternity. From 1980 - 1990 he served as President of The Mozart Society of Philadelphia. He received his B.A. in Art History and Music History in 1967 and M.A. in Art History in 1970 from The Ohio State University. Bahlman completed Ph.D. coursework in Architectural History at the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 - 1981.
Douglas Garofalo has established an internationally renowned practice in Chicago that produces architectural work through buildings, projects, research and teaching. The work of Garofalo Architects has been widely recognized, through commissions, awards, publications, and lectures for innovative and creative approaches to the art of building. With projects that vary in scale and location, Garofalo has actively pursued architectural design to include forms of collaboration that cross both geographic boundaries and professional disciplines, extending conventional design practice by taking full advantage of the capacity of electronic media. The firm is currently working with the Hyde Park Art Center, Redmoon Theater, and completing work on a temporary structure for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
In 2001 Garofalo was selected for the "Emerging Voices" program at the Architectural League of New York, was featured as "The New Vanguard" for Architectural Record, and had speculative work included in the "Folds, Blobs and Boxes" exhibit at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. In 1999 Garofalo was commissioned to fabricate a full-scale prototype newsstand at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Garofalo Architects, in an electronic collaboration with Greg Lynn Form (Hoboken) and McInturf Architects (Cincinnati), won a Progressive Architecture Citation for the Korean Presbyterian Church of New York. This adaptive reuse project represents a collective step at redefining conventional design practice by taking full advantage of the capacity of electronic networks to transfer information: the project gained international notoriety as the first building truly conceived and executed with digital media, and because it represents an alternative solution to adaptive reuse. In 1995 Garofalo won the AIA Chicago Young Architect Award, and in 1991 was the recipient of a Young Architect Award given by The Architectural League of New York based on the theme of "Practice."
Garofalo is a Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Architecture, where he served as Acting Director from 2001-2003. He is currently a member of the City of Chicago's Design Initiative group, and has also been a facilitator at Archeworks Design Lab. Garofalo received a Master's degree from Yale University in 1987, and was awarded the prestigious Skidmore Owings & Merrill Foundation Traveling Fellowship. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame In 1981 with a Bachelor of Architecture degree.
Blair Kamin is the architecture critic of the Midwest's largest newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, and a recipient of journalism's highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize. Kamin graduated from Amherst College in 1979, receiving a Bachelor of Arts, and from the Yale University School of Architecture in 1984, obtaining a Master of Environmental Design. In 1999, he was a visiting fellow at the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago.
After working as a reporter for The Des Moines Register from 1984 to 1987, Kamin joined the Tribune as a reporter in 1987. He became the newspaper's architecture critic in 1992. Kamin has lectured widely and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, including ABC's "Nightline" and "NBC Nightly News." Kamin has received more than 20 professional awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (1999), the George Polk Award for Criticism (1996), and the Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement from the American Institute of Architects (1999). He has twice served as Pulitzer Prize juror. Kamin is the author of Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago, a critically-acclaimed collection of his Chicago Tribune columns published by the University of Chicago Press.
Bradford J. White joined LR Development Company in early 2001. Since joining the firm he has been responsible for the acquisition, financing and development of affordable housing projects in the Chicago area. The most recent project that he is involved in is the $650 million redevelopment of ABLA Homes, located on Chicago's West Side. Upon completion, the development will be comprised of more that 2,400 units of mixed income housing, retail, and other commercial uses.
Mr. White has been involved in real estate consulting and development for more than 15 years including market and feasibility analysis, urban planning, and development economics. Prior to joining LR, he provided a variety of development management services including directing development of an 11-unit, $2.2 million condominium building in Washington, D.C., guiding a not-for-profit institution through the local government regulatory review process, directing planning and implementation of an $8.3 million rehabilitation project to convert a 45,000 square foot building into an assisted living facility and an 85,000 square foot building to office and education uses, and managing a $3.2 million rehabilitation and new construction project to upgrade offices and classrooms, improve fire and life safety systems, and improve accessibility for an Evanston religious institution. In addition to his development expertise, Mr. White has facilitated negotiations between local government agencies and private real estate developers relating to municipal financing incentives and the Rehabilitation Investment Tax Credit, devised development programs and business plans, developed planning and economic strategies for downtown revitalization, and prepared public policy analyses requiring working knowledge of Low Income Housing Tax Credit.
Brad White currently serves as Chair of Preservation Action, the national grassroots lobbying organization for historic preservation. He serves on the Historic Preservation and Affordable Housing Task Force for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Mr. White is Secretary of the Ely Chapter of Lambda Alpha International. He served as a member of the board of the Metro Chicago Council-American Youth Hostels from 1997 through 2002 and was a founding board member of Inspired Partnerships. From 1994 through 1997, Mr. White served as President of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. He has also served in various roles for the State and Local Government Law Section of the American Bar Association, including Co-Chair of the Historic Preservation and Architectural Controls Subcommittee and Chair of the Land Use, Planning, and Zoning Law Committee.
Mr. White graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and received a law degree from the DePaul University College of Law.
FINAL ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Moderator: John D. Callaway
Panelists: TBA
John D. Callaway is a journalist for all seasons. In his more than 46 years of professional journalism, he has excelled as a broadcast executive, radio and television program interviewer and host, news anchor, reporter and analyst, documentary producer and narrator, magazine writer, print columnist, book author, university teacher and fellowship program administrator, national lecturer and moderator and, most recently, stage performer and writer.
Callaway is perhaps best known for his work as moderator of WTTW's Chicago Tonight news interview and analysis program which he hosted from its inception in l984 to June, l999. After stepping back from that full-time position, he is now Host and Senior Editor of WTTW's Chicago Stories program, the critically acclaimed documentary and interview series that won six Emmy awards in its first two seasons.
In the latest chapter of his career, Callaway starred in "John Callaway Tonight", an autobiographical one-man show he wrote and performed which was given its world premier by the Pegasus Players Theater in Chicago in March-April, 2001. The Chicago Tribune described the show as "smooth, skillful and surprisingly touching." The show was presented again in April/May at the Metropolis Performing Arts Center in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
Callaway's broadcast journalism work has been honored with more than one hundred awards, including the coveted Peabody Award and fourteen Emmys. A drop-out from Ohio Wesleyan University who hitchhiked to Chicago with 71 cents in his pocket in l956, he is the recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees, including those from Northwestern University, Loyola University and the John Marshall College of Law.
John Callaway began his career as a police reporter for the famed City News Bureau of Chicago. He then joined CBS in Chicago in 1957 as a reporter/documentary producer for WBBM Radio and WBBM TV. At CBS he distinguished himself with his coverage of the American civil rights movement, winning seven national awards for his 13-part radio documentary series entitled, "The House Divided." In l968, as News Director at WBBM, he helped develop that station's all-news format and later that year was appointed Vice President of CBS Radio in New York to implement the development of all-news formats at CBS stations across the nation. In l973 he returned to Chicago to serve as the lead reporter for the new WBBM-TV newsroom and mini-cam approach to local television news. In l974, he joined WTTW where he began his 29-year career in public television as the host of the station's first nightly news program. His national PBS series have included "John Callaway Interviews," "Dilemmas of Disarmament," and "Campaigning on Cue."
In addition to his work at WTTW, John Callaway was also the founding Director of the William Benton Fellowships in Broadcast Journalism Program at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the best selling book of essays, The Thing of It Is. He singing stints have included benefits for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Callaway and his wife, Sandy, live in Chicago.