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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 12h

Name entry in Gertrude Abercrombie's address book for holiday cards, 1950s. cc @rogersparkman.bsky.social

McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Side note: when northeast Woodlawn saw a big influx of people arriving from Puerto Rico in the early 50s, this was one of two neighborhood theaters (there had been nine) to show Spanish- language movies exclusively.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Ca. 1960 my old man struck up a conversation w Dave Lambert while he, Hendricks, & Ross were on set break. Dave was taking photos of rainy Rush Street. I often wonder what those ended up looking like.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

AND there's an ongoing strike at the Whiting refinery which has locked out 800 workers.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Play some Diz mark this milestone. Here's Gertrude at McKie's Disc Jockey Lounge with (l-r) husband Frank Sandiford, McKie Fitzhugh, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sonny Stitt.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Update: the painting sold for $1mil today at auction.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The line to get in the Uptown will look like this once again (context for readers who don't know - the Uptown is a massive movie palace, closed in 1982 and not toured by too many since then)

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Gertrude Abercrombie's list of musicians whom she hosted at her house, including some who lived in the house. The list: John Lewis, Percy Heath, Milt Jackson, Ernst Krenek, Ted Friedman, Cy Touff, Bob Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, George Treadwell...ctd

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

More context: Merriam lived next door to Gertrude, ran against Daley in '55 and lost, and was succeeded that year as alderman by Leon Despres.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Hyde Park's own. Maybe time for an honorary street sign.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

If you're on the Southeast Side and want a beer and pretty good fried chicken, stop by Loncar's on 92nd/Brandon. They could use the biz, as someone drove through their front wall to make off with the ATM over the weekend.

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Vernon Reid @vurnt22.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yesterday, one of the world’s greatest singer songwriters, the undisputed King 👑 of Calypso, & pioneer of Soca, The Mighty Sparrow of Trinidad & Tobago 🇹🇹, has gone on. Everyone with a Caribbean background knows his name, and many more besides. Rest In Power to the GOAT 🐐.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Pour some out for the steamers Philip R Clarke & Arthur M Anderson, some of the oldest freighters on the Great Lakes, now in long-term layup in Toledo, neither expected to sail again. The Anderson was the last ship in contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald. Photos by Lou Gerard & Altafest.

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Joseph S. Pete @nwi-jsp.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The United Steelworkers union has presented U.S. Steel with a counterproposal for healthcare, a main sticking point in negotiations. nwitimes.com/news/local/a...

nwitimes.com

United Steelworkers union presents U.S. Steel with healthcare proposal

The United Steelworkers union has presented U.S. Steel with a counterproposal for healthcare, a main sticking point in negotiations.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My local mail carrier's choice of in-vehicle music, apt for #coltrane100 yesterday

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Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 23/09/2026

The musical, based on the music of Duke Ellington that borrows its scaffolding from Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night,” shines with an exceptional cast that deliver show-stopping performances.

chicago.suntimes.com

Review: If music is the food of love, then Chicago Shakes’ buoyant ‘Play On’ is a feast

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Bad news out of Indiana, thanks @ericallixrogers.com for the tip. They produced the glass used in the leaded window that once hung in the Schlitz tied house on Ewing (& probably their others)

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

location notes: steeple in center far background is St. George Church, 96th & Ewing. Steel mill was Iroquois Steel before they moved to 92nd/river. Bridge at right is the one you see raised on Blues Bros. album. Dump truck at foreground looks like Mack c-cab with solid rubber tires & chain drive

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

There's a whole bunch of social media clips of people playing incredibly fast drum rudiments, but IMO this of the late Wayne Oien from 15 years ago is still Thee Best. At times sounds like an idling dragster, or distant small-arms fire. Plus stick tricks: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vba...

youtube.com

The best snare drummer you will ever see.

YouTube video by Navberkami2

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Reposted by McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge

Patrick Monaghan @pkmonaghan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The crazy wonderful people at Presspop in Tokyo have made an excellent Sun Ra figurine! 😻 www.presspop.toys/products/456...

Celebrating 110 years of Sun Ra

Figurine in blue robe with Saturn on it, a synthesizer on stand, and an Egyptian headdress

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I'm gonna bandy this about the way Pabst does about the blue ribbon they won in 1893.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Cannonball Adderley and the crew on Jazz Scene USA, introduced by Oscar Brown Jr, playing 'Jive Samba' before it was officially recorded and before it had that title. youtu.be/lsHLwDtkbFQ?...

youtu.be

Cannonball Adderley Sextet, performing Bossa Nova Nemo, on Jazz Scene USA,

YouTube video by Oscar Brown Jr.

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Bowiesongs (C. O'Leary) @bowiesongs.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

100 years ago on this date: the first Jelly Roll Morton & Red Hot Peppers session for Victor Records, in the ballroom of the Webster Hotel in Chicago. Released takes: "The Chant," "Smoke House Blues" and, greatest of all, "Black Bottom Stomp" www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnFU...

youtube.com

Black Bottom Stomp - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers (1926)

YouTube video by Atticus Jazz

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Well goddamn. After my childhood bud got hit by a cab, his wake was here. Haven't thought of that in years. Anyway, pour one out for Frankie if you visit. Now on to less depresssing s**t

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Yesterday was the Mexican Independence Day parade in South Chicago, the oldest in the city (desde 1939). Vanessa Bly took some great photos you can see here: vanessablyphotography.pixieset.com/mos2026mexic...

vanessablyphotography.pixieset.com

MOS 2026 + Mexican Independence Day Parade

Photo collection by Vanessa Bly Photography

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Elm St. & Cleveland, 1952, Mildred Mead photo. My old man's stomping grounds around the same time as the photo. He described this area, his pals/compadres & their exploits to me so thoroughly over the years that I could see this in my mind before I ever saw an actual photo. (1/2)

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Post-fire debris of a building (hotel for 1893 fair), 61st & Blackstone, where the 61st Street Farmers Market is now. The road curves here b/c ICRR used to have a spur that left the main line & went west to the race track @ Cottage. Tracks are still vis under pavement.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Wow, Edge of the Looking Glass. 13th & State, when the South Loop was a much different place.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

WVON AM 1450 had a sister station in Milwaukee, WNOV AM 860. They both released an album of soul tunes (unrelated to the holidays - same track listing for both), but for some reason the NOV disc jockeys are pictured while the VON djs are not.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Looks great. Now move it south to the site of the old Comiskey with the scoreboard at the NE corner as nature intended, bring all this other development along, and if you still have a boner for a stadium at 78, put the Bears there assuming you can hear over their whining.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Holy s**t. I have not heard this song in decades but remember exactly where I first heard it - buddy's older brother had this on a tape he played constantly. He had musical/cultural tastes way different than most of the suburb. Wherever you are Sher Singh, thank you! www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3-7...

youtube.com

Minus-One - Nick Of Time

YouTube video by xiamjs73x

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

My friend, who had been a disc jockey in the '60s, said when he first played 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling', he thought he played it on the wrong speed at the very beginning.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Asinine headline. Heat is not a reason to not open a bridge. All the bridges on the Calumet River must open multiple times a day and are subject to the same ambient temps as downtown. Sometimes they get stuck too, and never a headline like this, if it even makes the news at all

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Context: the span in the foreground is the one that's stuck. The span in the background that's raised is an abandoned railroad line.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Imagine pulling up to the local playground advertising your Dairy Queen in a BMW Isetta painted like this. You'd be so tazed.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The gates around Parkway Gardens make it looks like a prison (incuding a sallyport entrance) but the residents have better ideas.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This building had been the Diplomat Hotel along the stretch of Melton Rd known as the Miracle Mile. By 1975 it was the Roberts Motel (owned by impresario Herman Roberts) & here where Cannonball Adderley suffered his fatal stroke in July of that year. It became assisted living in 1990.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The buildings in the background were demolished after this and never replaced. It has been vacant land since then.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Probably a good thing I wasn't in here when this happened...

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

What a farce. Meanwhile, these ATVs, which are not nor will ever be street legal, are all over the streets, bike/ped paths, grass in the parks, etc, and nobody does f**kall.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Niche South Side music post: 1970 self-produced LP by Orlando Murden, vocalist and harpist who lived at 64th & St. Lawrence, co-wrote 'For Once In My Life', and had Gertrude Abercrombie design the cover. This one has Rufus Reid (!!), bass and Marshall Thompson (!!), percussion

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

'36 Harley fuel tank and shift knob made from a beer tap handle that's equally as old.

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