Specimen Products is the brainchild of Ian Schneller. He's an artist and musician who makes and repairs stringed instruments and audio equipment. He also runs a school that teaches people to make a variety of instruments and audio equipment; but Schneller's real hope is that his students discover the disappearing art of making things by hand without the aid of a computer.

The Atlantic correspondent and author Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses his thoughts on the students at North Lawndale College Prep, his mea culpa for glossing over the accusations against Bill Cosby in the past, and he explains why The Case for Reparations is unrelated to the black conservatives’ argument.

More Chicagoans than ever are leaving the church. Why is this and can the new archbishop help turn around the trend?

Tony Award-winning writer and longtime theater critic John Lahr has written an authoritative biography on the life and work of playwright Tennessee Williams. Lahr also shares memories of his father, the actor Bert Lahr.

Vape? Bae? Lumbersexual? What do you think the Word of the Year for 2014 should be? Share your nominations in the comments section below. And join us on Wednesday, Dec. 17, when we hear from linguists who tell us what words were on everybody's lips this year and why.

Redmoon's Winter Pageant, The Nutcracker, the Music Box Christmas Show; Chicago Tonight knows what’s going on this weekend.

Chicago is about to get more green space. We preview two long-anticipated new parks slated to open this weekend.

Geoffrey Baer answers your questions about visiting local museums for free, camels in Chicago, and how to get to Remittance Drive in this web exclusive edition of Ask Geoffrey.

We visit the Chicago Cultural Center and the MCA to discover the steel sculptures of Chicago's internationally acclaimed sculptor Richard Hunt.

A Polar Palooza, Chicago Book Expo, and Caroling at Cloud Gate; Chicago Tonight knows what’s going on this weekend.

The Museum of Science and Industry celebrates the pairing of fashion with technology. We take a look inside the one night only installation and hear from the museum's first-ever recipient of the Fashion Inspiration Award, blogger Garance Doré.  

Before CGI visual effects dominated Hollywood movies, filmmakers often used a painting of a landscape or location to create a non-existent environment.

Three Chicago artists are at work on a small-scale replica of the DuSable Museum of African-American History that can tour the city and eventually float up the Chicago River to the moribund site of DuSable Park.

For the next few weeks, Chicago Tonight will broadcast from a temporary studio as the regular set has its lights replaced with new energy-efficient lighting.

National Geographic explorers Mike Libecki and Cory Richards tell us about their trek to a never-before climbed 2,000-foot summit in Antarctica called Bertha's Tower.

Geoffrey Baer’s first-ever quiz show premieres on WTTW11 at 7:30 pm. In Where in Chicago?, Baer and his crew travel the city, quizzing Chicagoans on history and trivia.