Hyde Park Herald

The University of Chicago Medicine’s new cancer center is on track to open next spring, officials told South Side residents Tuesday, marking the final stretch of a yearslong project to bring comprehensive cancer care to a community where death rates from the disease are nearly twice the national rate.

Here's what's going on in and around Hyde Park this week. July 16 Hyde Park Summer Sidewalk Sale: Local businesses, including Barnes & Noble, Mahari Restaurant, Rosin Eyecare, La Boulangerie & Co., Play Toys and Wesley's Shoes, offer special discounts during this neighborhood shopping event. Thursday, July 16, 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Hyde Park Shopping Center Courtyard, 55th Street and S. Lake Park Avenue. Free. hydeparkchicago.org.

CHICAGO — A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld Illinois’ 2023 assault weapons ban pushed by Democrats in the wake of the July 4, 2022, mass shooting during an Independence Day parade in Chicago’s northern suburb of Highland Park. Thursday’s 2-1 decision overturns a lower court ruling that found the law unconstitutional in late 2024 after a weeklong bench trial.

Jackson Park has hosted the Chosen Few Picnic and Festival almost every summer since 1990, and this year’s edition showed why the gathering has endured while other South Side music festivals have folded or left the neighborhood. On Saturday, tens of thousands of house music fans filled the park for the picnic, which has grown from a backyard reunion held behind the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry into one of the largest single-day house music festivals in the country.

Friday afternoon felt like a homecoming of sorts as family, friends and admirers of Oscar Brown Jr. gathered under sunny skies at Harper Court to celebrate the artist during what would have been his 100th birthday year. Hosted by his daughters, Maggie and Africa Brown, the event honored the singer, songwriter, playwright and poet through stories and live music. Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun recalled meeting Brown while walking near the Harper Theater early in her political career.

Three years after mounting debts forced him to pause his summer block party, Silver Room founder Eric Williams is bringing the event back this weekend with a new business model designed to keep it alive. “People keep asking me for it. It’s a question I get almost daily,” Williams said. This year's event moves from the South Side to the Salt Shed on Goose Island, trading its longtime free, outdoor format for a ticketed, 12-hour music festival.

There's a lot to be said for theatrical silliness, especially in the summer of a difficult year. So the world premiere of “Iceboy! Or The Completely Untrue Story of How Eugene O’Neill Came to Write 'The Iceman Cometh'” at the Goodman Albert Theatre is a welcome finale to the theater's centennial season.

Summer in Hyde Park means that Sunday afternoons are filled with the sound of bells. Carillonneurs from around the world visit our neighborhood and perform on the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon in Rockefeller Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave., on Sundays at 5 p.m., offering free concerts that can be heard from a considerable distance around the chapel. This year’s “The Bells of Summer” series runs from June 28 to Aug. 16.

Patrick Leo Mayers was raised in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, the youngest son of two academics, Freddie and Ben. Pat was a true Renaissance man with a brilliant mind, playful spirit, broad smile, and a gleam in his eyes. He loved his family and friends (although he had no patience with bullies and did not suffer fools gladly). Pat greeted life, always in the moment, with a rare mindfulness, and yet he was intense about all he did and deliberate about the choices he made.

A. Patricia Scott, “Pat”, 81, of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, passed away June 20, 2026. Aljalane Patricia Scott was born to parents who met at boarding school in South Carolina. The young couple moved to New York City prior to WWII then to Chicago, where they raised their only daughter in Roseland. The family owned several businesses, including corner stores on the city’s South and West sides and also held several taxi medallions.