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FROM THE HEART, September 2017
Winner of
Consecutive
APEX Awards For Publication Excellence
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Dear Neighbors:
Each year, September brings to the close our gardening season in
Fire Station Park & Gardens, even as some vegetables continue to ripen and remain available for harvest. September also brings
Evening in the Garden, a season ending celebration of the neighborhood held in the Park. At
Evening in the Garden, we bring the neighborhood together to celebrate our neighborhood, our volunteers, our residents and even our heritage. We enjoy the fruits of those who, not only
pioneered close-up magic just two blocks away from the Park, but also inspired a new generation of accomplished magicians who entertain the neighborhood today at LCA events.
As one season closes, however,
we turn to another. This year is no different. While the gardens are coming to a close, many LCA initiatives continue year round and exciting new programs are at their onset, including our soon to launch
Values from the Heart™ program. In this program, select neighborhood
Businesses With Heart ™ will express their appreciation to those who support LCA through membership by providing substantial and unique values reserved exclusively for them. So join the celebration at
Evening in the Garden on
Thursday, September 14th
from
6-8 pm
at Fire Station Park and at
Lincoln Central Then & Now: A Photographic History.
Members and non-members are welcome to join us at the above events. We encourage you to attend, wherever you reside. . If you are not already a member, please consider joining.
You can do so online via a secure credit card or PayPal transaction or by downloading and mailing in a membership form.
Meanwhile, we look forward to seeing you soon!
From the Heart,
Kenneth Dotson, LCA President
P. S. Regardless of whether or not you are an LCA member, feel free to call or email at any time to learn more about LCA or if you have neighborhood concerns.
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773.531.5515
| kenneth@chicago.com
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4th ANNUAL EVENING IN THE GARDEN
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THIS THURSDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 14th
6:00 - 8:00 PM AT FIRE STATION PARK & GARDENS
Please join us this Thursday evening, September 14th, as we
bring the neighborhood together for another
magical evening in
Fire Station Park & Gardens
at the 4th annual Evening i
n the Garden,
a
reception style event celebrating our wonderful neighborhood and saluting our volunteers.
Evening in the Garden
,
one of LCA's most popular
events, will be held from 6:00 PM TO 8:00 PM (but, we'll stay as long as you're having a good time.)
This year's event will
feature hors d'oeuvres  & wine from popular neighborhood food and beverage establishments i
ncluding Geja's
Cafe
,
Gemini
,
J9 Wine Bar
, Tobacco Road,
Tea Gschwender
, more.
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| Bringing Neighbors Together |
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Returning to the event for the third consecutive year will be prominent Chicago magician, the amazing
Benjamin Barnes
who will stroll through the event performing close-up magic and unbelievable illusions. Earlier this year, Barnes performed
at LCA's 3rd
Annual
Sunday Summer Sipper.
Evening in the Garden
is a great opportunity to visit with old friends and neighbors and meet new ones and get to know business with heart who support LCA.
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 LCA MEMBERS HAVE VALUES
Announcing
Values From the Heart™
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Values from the
Heart™
is
a
new benefit soon being made available exclusively to Lincoln Central
Association (LCA) members current
on their dues and otherwise in good
standing with the organization's bylaws
.
Values from the Heart™ will
offer on-going discounts
and other meaningful values from a
select number of businesses
in or near our neighborhood. Participating businesses, all LCA members, are offering these values as an expression of their appreciation for LCA's contributions to the community and to acknowledge those who support LCA through their memberships.
In addition to on-going special values, members of LCA will also begin receiving other benefits including invitations to private "member-only" events, including a wine tasting at at J9 Wine Bar scheduled for Thursday, November 9th. (Learn more about this event.)
Values from the Heart™ is scheduled to launch on or about October 1, 2017. LCA members in good standing will be receiving personalized membership cards in the coming weeks.
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LINCOLN CENTRAL THEN & NOW: A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
LCA To Host Encore Presentation on Wednesday September 27th
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Lincoln Central Association is proud to host a special presentation featuring Lincoln Park photographer and historian Bob Segal to be held at Floating World Gallery (1925 N. Halsted). The evening begins with a 6:30 PM reception featuring complimentary wine and light appetizers made possible by the generosity of event sponsors,
J9 Wine Bar
(1961 N. Halsted) and
Bridgeview Bank
(1970 N. Halsted), followed by Segal's 7:00 PM presentation.
The evening's presentation is a remarkable look at Lincoln Central dating from
 the late 1800's to present day with jaw-dropping transitions between "now and then" captured through the precision photography eye of Bob Segal. Bob has organized this photo essay by category including transportation, churches, hospitals, schools, public utilitie
s
and more to transport the viewer and deepen their understanding of the neighborhood's heritage
. Segal's photography was featured in Bridgeview Bank's Art in the Park. This program was originally presented by Bob to a capacity crowd as part of DePaul University's Lincoln Park Community Research Initiative.
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FIRE STATION PARK FINALIST FOR GARDENING AWARD
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 Fire Station Park & Gardens has been nominated by the University of Illinois for the 2017 Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards. This Lincoln Central initiative is led by Sally Drucker. Congratulations, Sally!
Help LCA continue to support parks and gardens in the neighborhood by downloading our
park donation form or donating
online. All contributions are tax deductible.
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Tuesday, September 12th, 2017
LCA Zoning Committee Mtg.
Zoning Committee meetings are held the second
Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM
in the back room of the Marquee Lounge (Halsted & Armitage). Zoning Committee meetings are open to the public.
4th Annual Evening in the Garden
Lincoln Central Then & Now: A Photographic History
Thursday, September 28th
LCA Monthly Board Meeting
LCA Board meetings are normally held the fourth
Thursday of each month at
6:30 PM
in the back room of the
Marquee Lounge
(Halsted & Armitage). Board meetings are open to the public.
September
2017, Various Dates
Tour Wintrust Arena
Several dates remain in September to tour Wintrust Arena, the new home of DePaul Blue Demon basketball.
Learn more.
Thursday, October 5th
Lincoln Park Uncorked: A Lincoln Avenue Wine Stroll
Lincoln Park Uncorked: A Lincoln Avenue Wine Stroll returns on October 5th from 6 to 9 PM. Enjoy red and white wine curated by Bodega Ramos paired with delicious bites from some of your favorite Lincoln Park restaurants.
Tickets are $40 and group tickets for 5 or more are available for $34. Reserve your tickets now.
Tuesday, October 10th, 2017
LCA Zoning Committee Mtg.
Zoning Committee meetings are held the second
Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM
in the back room of the Marquee Lounge (Halsted & Armitage). Zoning Committee meetings are open to the public.
LCA Monthly Board Meeting
LCA Board meetings are normally held the fourth
Thursday of each month at
6:30 PM
in the back room of the Marquee Lounge (Halsted & Armitage). Board meetings are open to the public.
Saturday, October 28th
10th Annual Howler at Bauler
The 10th annual Howler at Bauler will be held at Bauler Park on
Saturday, October 28th from 3:00 to 5 PM. Stay tuned for additional details.
Read about
last year's Howler which was attended by 1,100+. Back by popular demand for the 3rd consecutive year will be America's leading family magician,
Danny Orleans.
Wine Tasting Reception at J9 Wine Bar*
LCA member and sponsor
J9 Wine Bar (1961 N. Halsted) will host a complimentary private wine tasting reception for LCA members, featuring a selection of
Burgundy wines and h
ors' d'oeuvres, on the evening of November 9th from 6 to 8 PM. A representatives from either the vineyard or importer will be on hand to share pairing tips and other information about the wines.
*There is no charge for this event but it will be limited to those LCA members in good standing as determined by LCA's bylaws.
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WIN FREE TICKETS TO LINCOLN PARK UNCORKED
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| Win Free Tickets |
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Our friends at the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce will be at Evening in the Garden this Thursday evening giving away some tickets to Lincoln Park Uncorked: A Lincoln Avenue Wine Stroll.
Learn more about Lincoln Park Uncorked.
We appreciate the Chamber of Commerce's sponsorship of LCA's events and their support of our neighborhood businesses.
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If you use Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo mail or other another webmail program, and in some cases on Android devices, you will either need to click on the "Having trouble viewing this email? Click here" link at the very top of the email, or the "message clipped" link at the bottom left of the page. Otherwise you will not see the full email and some of the links will not work. In some instances when using Outlook, only the link at the very top will be available.
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IT'S MAGIC IN THE HEART
Magically Keeping Neighborhood History Alive
By Kathleen Jordan
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Schulien's, now home of The Willow Room |
Magic has been part of Lincoln Central Association events beginning with the first Evening in the Garden in 2014. But magic has been part of the neighborhood since 1916 when Joe Schulien opened his eponymous restaurant at Willow and Halsted where son Matt performed close-up magic at a round table surrounded by guests. And it's where Chicago Style magic was born. (Learn about LCA's role in saving the former home of Schulien's. Read even more.)
From the Heart
interviewed the three magicians who perform regularly at LCA events:
Benjamin Barnes
(Summer Sipper and Evening in the Garden),
Sean Masterson
(Spring Zing), and Danny Orleans (Howler at Bauler) to learn how the history of magic in Chicago has shaped their performances today. Their comments, starting with the Schulien's role in Chicago magic, are below.
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Matt Schulien performing for customers
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"When the Schuliens opened the bar at Willow & Halsted, it gave magicians a place to work," said Benjamin Barnes. "The magic spread in the city. There was still vaudeville in those days, and magic flourished in bars and restaurants." At Schulien's, it continued when the restaurant moved to Irving Park Road. Today, Bob Schulien, Joe's great grandson, still works at the Magic Lounge," a theatre/bar in Uptown that is made of magic.
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originators of close-up magic, the Chicago Style of Magic. Magicians were a perfect fit for the taverns, bars and restaurants after Prohibition was repealed because their interactive style of magic, close-up and impossible, celebrated the fact that 'it's fun to be fooled'." Orleans adds that "Close-up magic is generally performed for audiences who are literally inches away from the magician. This is a fun, highly interactive style of magic."
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Masterson.
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Is history important to these magicians? "Yes, very much so," said Barnes. Sean Masterson adds, "History gives a wider perspective. What's happening now contrasts with ways of old. Some parts are different. Some are the same. But there's nothing new in magic. Only the ways of doing it differ."
Masterson's idol is Max Malini, who performed all over the world. "He did close-up," Masterson said. "It was based on misdirection. His personality was so big he could get away with.....continued
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THE HAUNT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The 10th Annual Howler at Bauler Returns For 10th Year
October 28th | 3:00 to 5 PM | Bauler Park
Mark your calendars now for Howler at Bauler, LCA's largest
event to be held Saturday afternoon, October 28th at 3:00 PM.
Attended by more than 1,100 in 2016,
Howler is an annual neighborhood tradition bringing together families, food and fun each year on the last Saturday in October.
The event's featured entertainment will once again be Danny Orleans,the country's top family magician returning to Howler for the third consecutive year. Stay tuned to this newsletter and LCA's Facebook page for complete details on this year's events.
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LCA SUPPORTS MORE OPEN SPACE IN NORTH BRANCH
Signs Joint Statement
The Board of Directors of Lincoln Central Association Lincoln Central Association voted earlier this year to take a position in favor additional open and recreational space in the North Branch Industrial Corridor Framework Plan and, along with 28 other organizations and individuals, was a signatory to a joint statement advocating for more open space.
Read the joint statement.
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AN ANNIVERSARY IN THE HEART
LCA Member Aquitaine Celebrates 7 Years
Congratulations to LCA member,
Aquitaine (2221 N. Lincoln Avenue) who recently celebrated their 7th Anniversary. Read the profile of Aquitaine in the
April 2017 issue of
From the Heart.
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ART IN THE HEART
Arts & Culture Committee Adopts Committee Mission Statement
LCA's new Arts & Culture Committee, Chaired by Patty O'Neil Harris, recently adopted a mission statement to guide the Committee's activities. The statement adopted reads as follows:
To serve as an advocate for arts and culture in the Lincoln Park community highlighting the neighborhood's vibrant and diverse cultural assets.
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Special Note: If you use Gmail, Yahoo mail or other another webmail program, and in some cases on Android devices, you will either need to click on the "Having trouble viewing this email? Click here" link at the very top of the email, or the "message clipped" link at the bottom left of the page. Otherwise you will not see the full email and some of the links will not work. In some instances when using Outlook, only the link at the very top will be available.
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| Magic, continued
.....
many things."
"A lot of magicians, especially in Chicago, get material, information,
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Legendary Chicago magician, the late Eugene Burger
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and inspiration from history," said Barnes. "
Dai Vernon, who was born in 1894 and lived to be 98, was one of my inspirations. He revolutionized close-up magic." Another was
Eugene Burger, "the last of the great close-up artists, who taught me to do magic."
Burger was "my mentor," said Orleans. "He was a Chicago magician, philosopher and teacher who wrote many books on the performance of magic and the professional style of magic that has eschewed the trivialization of magic. He taught magicians around the world how to make magic-especially close-up magic-meaningful to spectators and treated magic as an important art form."
All three of these magicians are professional, full-time practitioners of the art who got started at an early age. For Barnes, it was a magic set given to him when he was young that turned into a way to support himself in college. "I've been doing it professionally since 1998."
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| Danny Orleans in action |
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Orleans said he "was fascinated by magic as a child and started doing magic shows in my neighborhood in New Jersey as a young teenager. After graduating from Northwestern University and teaching math at private schools, I performed at kids' birthday parties, libraries and schools."
For Masterson, it began when he was 7 years old. "
Marshall Brodien ran TV commercials pitching his TV Magic Card. He was instantly successful, at least with me," Masterson writes on his blog. "I saw the commercial in November '69 and by Christmas, I had a deck. When I was 12 years old, I was getting paid to do shows at libraries."
Wherever they perform, each does some form of sleight of hand.
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Barnes is a hot performer. |
Barnes says, "Sleight of hand is my specialty; I don't use many props. Eugene Burger, who grew up in the '50s, also did sleight of hand. He taught me the same way, the tradition of magic in Chicago."
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Sleight of Hand is true magic," said Masterson. "It's more of a method in which the audience makes assumptions. That's the magic."
Masterson's most recent show centers on a trick that was popular in the '20s and that took him a year to put together. It involves a coin that disappears, and a box which contains a ball of wool, which gradually gets unwound to reveal a surprise. "I thought that unraveling the wool would be too slow for a modern audience. But I found that people liked the unraveling. Everything is quick today. Maybe people want to slow down."
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Orleans performing at Howler
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According to Orleans, there are several magic performing styles. "The magic community categorizes them according to how far the magician is from the audience. Why? Because the distance from the audience is often a factor on what type of trick you can perform. The magician must take into consideration practical considerations such as the size of the prop, the angles from which it's being viewed. 'Will the prop fit in my pocket? Do I have to reset the prop after every time I do the trick? How long does that take'?"
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LCA is grateful to the neighborhood businesses who support our volunteer non-profit, including those below who have already signed on to sponsor our Fall event series. We call them Businesses With Heart.™ We hope you will think of them that way too.
If you would like to become a sponsor of LCA's Fall event series, please
email us or call 773.531.5515.
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TOUR WINTRUST ARENA
The New Home of DePaul Blue Demon Basketball
Registration is now open for September site visits at Wintrust Arena - the new home of DePaul Basketball. With
construction near completion, don't miss the chance to check out the site and see what all of the hype is about
regarding Chicago's newest sports and entertainment venue in the South Loop. Immediately following each site
visit, we will also host a gathering with complimentary pizza and soft drinks at Pizano's (across the street from
Wintrust Arena). Space is limited, so please don't delay. Make your reservations now.
WINTRUST ARENA CONSTRUCTION SITE VISITS
200 East Cermak Road, Chicago
Saturday, September 16
Saturday, September 23
Saturday, September 30
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A GIFT OF THE HEART
 Did you know you can gift an LCA membership to a friend, neighbor or relative? In the last month alone, three LCA memberships have been gifted by friends and relatives. Simply fill out a
membership form with the correct information for the recipient of the gifted membership and send along with a check to the address listed on the membership form and we'll notify the recipient and add them to our membership and newsletter list.
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From the Heart
is an award winning newsletter published monthly by Lincoln Central Association, c
o-editors. Kenneth Dotson and Kathy Jordan. Please email any story ideas.
From the Heart
r
eceived a 2016 and 2017
Additionally, From the Heart was named a
Constant Contact All-Star in both 2016 and 2017
based on the open
rates and other metrics associated with this
newsletter in comparison to other Constant Contact clients. Visit our archive to catch up on past issues.
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