With his first child on the way in 1975, Carlos Tortolero took a summer job as a doorman at 3500 N. Lake Shore Drive to supplement his $9,100 teacher’s salary.
“The tips I was making that summer, they were more than my teaching salary. It goes to show you how we care about education in America. I worked all the shifts: morning, afternoon, swing shift.” Many of the residents were seniors, and after 11:30 p.m. there wasn’t much to do, he recalls. It was just “me and the couch.”
One resident was the late Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.). “He was an icon in the cultural world in Chicago. I thought it was so ironic when the [Mexican Fine Arts] museum won the Illinois Arts Alliance Foundation Sidney R. Yates Arts Advocacy Award in 1995. There I was, opening doors for him 20 years before. Who knew?”
![Four years into cannabis legalization in Illinois, celebrations of the April 20 informal weed holiday known as 420 are getting bigger and more widespread. Named for the time of day a group of friends met to get high, 420 has become a chance for marijuana users to publicly share a previously illegal drug and the counter-cultural atmosphere surrounding it. The main event in downtown Chicago likely will be the second annual 420 Sesh Fest, at Green Rose Dispensary. The party will include live music, a magic show, carnival games, food trucks, pop ups, and product discounts. It also will feature Grammy-nominated […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ctc-l-Illinois-marijuana_175925141.jpg?w=546 "Four years into cannabis legalization in Illinois, celebrations of the April 20 informal weed holiday known as 420 are getting bigger and more widespread. Named for the time of day a group of friends met to get high, 420 has become a chance for marijuana users to publicly share a previously illegal drug and the counter-cultural atmosphere surrounding it. The main event in downtown Chicago likely will be the second annual 420 Sesh Fest, at Green Rose Dispensary. The party will include live music, a magic show, carnival games, food trucks, pop ups, and product discounts. It also will feature Grammy-nominated […]")