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Chicago Magazine Celebrates 40 Years

CHICAGO (CBS) - In 1970, the Chicago Guide was founded as a programming guide for classical-fine arts radio station WFMT-98.7 FM.

On Thursday, the 40th anniversary edition of the publication that became Chicago Magazine hits newsstands.

Chicago Magazine managing editor Shane Tritsch joined the CBS 2 Morning News team Thursday morning. As he explained, the magazine is celebrating its milestone by listing 40 reasons to love Chicago.

"We sort of looked for things that really got at the essence of what Chicago is really about," he said. For example, the magazine asked Roger Ebert to name his pick for who would write the ideal movie about Chicago.

Ebert's answer? Andrew Davis of "Above the Law" and "Chain Reaction" fame for director, and David Mamet for screenwriter, among other picks.

Some, but not all, of the 40 reasons to love Chicago were listed on the magazine's website as of early Thursday morning. The list features everything from chefs that can make anything "even rutabagas" to the City Hall watchdog journalism of Chicago Reader reporter Ben Joravsky, and from the dramatic skills of the Neo-Futurists to the devotion of Chicago sports fans.

There's even an entry on the grit of "rugged thoroughfares" such as Elston Avenue.

Tristsch said the process of picking the top 40 list wasn't easy.

"It was difficult, because there's so much to the city; there's so much texture to the city. But it was a matter of getting at the idea of what makes Chicago special and vital and finding a way to sort of get at the essence of that," Tritsch said.

The magazine also lists the top 40 Chicago pioneers and visionaries from 1970 to 2010, which range from the legendary – Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, Studs Terkel and Jerry Reinsdorf – to the more obscure – Chicago International Film Festival founder Michael Kutza; Noble laureate and Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy founder Leon Lederman.

The city has changed dramatically since the magazine put out its 20th anniversary edition in 1990.

That collector's edition listed the biggest headlines in Chicago history for every year the magazine had been in publication, and an exploration of how the theatre scene in Chicago had only recently evolved from an anemic culture dominated by dinner theatre. The 20th anniversary edition also excerpted some past articles, including, as it happens, a story about the atmosphere in the CBS 2 newsroom as Bill Kurtis and his team covered the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1976.

While the 1990 collector's edition is not available on the magazine's website, several other back issues are.

Chicago Magazine was operated by WFMT and its parent company, the Chicago Educational Television Association (now known as Window to the World Communications), until it was sold to Detroit-based Metropolitan Communications for $17 million in 1986.

The magazine was in turn sold to Landmark Communications in 1990, and to Primedia Group in 1995. Finally, the Tribune Company bought the magazine from Primedia in 2002.

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