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Articles by Grant Pick
Rewind: Speed Wash
Grant Pick had a knack for the unusual. During his time as a Reader contributor, he documented residents of a north-side hotel as they fought against displacement, interviewed a local hypnotist who once loaned his services to Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, and profiled a stranger clad with dozens of keys (“the keys to my broken heart”) who stopped to fix his collar. I first read Pick’s work in The People Are The News, a collection of his writings compiled and published posthumously by his son.
The Power of the Keys
Lugging around that mass of cold, shiny metal helps Doug Jennings bear his more existential burdens. By Grant Pick Sloppiness is a trait that rubs Doug Jennings the wrong way, so he stopped me one morning near the corner of 80th and Ashland. "Your jacket collar is tucked into your shirt," he said. I fixed myself up, thanked the stranger for his thoughtfulness, and watched him amble off.
Now comes Miller's time: An island of integration and natural beauty in Gary, Indiana
"Come look," said Jack Jaffe, a retired businessman and photography buff. Through the large windows of his lakefront home in Indiana, through the trees and past the dunes, a fiery orange sun could be seen sliding into Lake Michigan. "Do you see such things in Chicago?" he asked. "Before dinner this evening," his wife, Bobby, said, "we drove out to the west beach and spent 45 minutes bird-watching.
Grant Pick’s People
Grant Pick had been writing for the Reader for about a quarter of a century when, at the age of 57, he died of a heart attack walking home from lunch. That was three years ago last week. In many ways, Grant was the writer who best defined this paper. As he liked telling journalism students who read his pieces and asked where the news pegs were, "There is no news peg.
Chi Lives: a good hat man
Before Ray Panice goes out and about, he makes sure to don a hat, usually a gray or brown fedora. "A hat makes you look like something," he says. "It has style and character, and it identifies you. People can see you from a mile away, and they know it's you. My wife always knows that it's me across the way. "Hats were once a popular item," he laments, "but now people walk around in T-shirts and jeans and caps on their heads, if that.
Uday's Hypnotist
February 03, 2005 News & Politics | Our Town A Chicagoan fondly remembers his time in the service of Saddam's son. By Grant Pick In the spring of 2001 the National Guild of Hypnotists, an organization based in New Hampshire, got an e-mail from government officials in Iraq who were looking for someone to treat an unnamed patient in Baghdad. Dwight Damon, the guild president, immediately thought of Larry Garrett, a practitioner in Chicago.
Is This Man a Monster?
The voice booming through the phone line belongs to Tom Smith, a commander at the Palatine Police Department. Thirteen summers ago, he answered a call reporting a "problem" at Robin's ranch house and stepped into the most gruesome scene he's ever witnessed. Robin, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, was sitting on the steps leading to his living room. His legs and feet were splattered with blood.
Bigot for Hire
On the third weekend of April, Art Jones went to Washington. Jones, a southwest-side salesman who is chairman of a group called the America First Committee, drove to the capital to observe the first anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. One year before, President Clinton had joined Ted Koppel, author Elie Wiesel, and Israeli president Chaim Herzog in dedicating the austere brick structure.
Street preacher Steve the Rebuker calls for Cubs fans to repent | Bleader
The crowd started gathering around Wrigley Field mid-afternoon on Sunday, approximately four hours before the Cubs were scheduled to face off against the Dodgers in game two of the National League Championship Series.
Fanning the Flames
By Grant Pick At eight o’ clock on the morning of July 10, 1994, two cars full of old men pulled up at Mikro Kodesh Anshe Tiktin, an orthodox synagogue in the northwest-side Budlong Woods neighborhood. Jewish law requires that a minimum of ten adult males–a minyan–be present in order for services to proceed, and on Sunday mornings at Mikro Kodesh ten men are occasionally hard to come by. There were eight already on this cool and sunny Sunday, and with half an hour to go, they were hopeful.
Speed Wash
The first arrivals push through the door of the Davis Speed Wash on Roosevelt Road just past five o'clock on a frigid February morning. They walk to the rear counter, where owner Hughzell Davis is dispensing cups of thin coffee for 50 cents. They settle comfortably into what seem to be their regular spots. Some sit on a row of colored plastic chairs, a couple slide onto folding tables, and others stand.
He Survived Operation Greylord
Susan Dineff, a brown-haired woman of 28, was changing her son's diaper when the doorbell rang at her split-level house in Hickory Hills. It was about 4 PM on a Wednesday in June of 1987, and Susie wasn't expecting a caller. Full diaper in hand, she trooped to the door and opened it, and found a strange man standing on the far side of the screen. A companion was a step back. The man in front identified himself as Douglas W. Lenhart, an agent of the FBI, and he proceeded to do most of the talking.
Where the Action Isn't | Feature | Chicago Reader
When people talk about real estate in Chicago, they're usually talking about the game as it is played on the north side. You have state-of-the-art realty firms there, headquartered in offices with brightly colored awnings and computer work stations and designer logos on the door. These realtors concentrate on selling properties, period. The salespeople have MBAs and lots of savvy.
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