Geoffrey Baer visits a retro motel in River North, a towering turtle on the Near West Side and a vanishing South Side lake in this week's encore edition of Ask Geoffrey.

Chicago women had a professional baseball league of their own in the 1940s and '50s. Geoffrey Baer has the story of the National Girls Baseball League.

A Catholic church in the Pilsen neighborhood is among 11 sites on this year's list of most endangered historic places in Illinois.

A new book by Natalie Moore about the South Side blends personal history with investigative reporting to tell the story of a segregated city and misunderstood neighborhoods.

For decades, a cocktail called the Downscope was served up at Skipper’s Marina on the Calumet River. Its recipe was a closely guarded secret, until now. Geoffrey Baer tells us what's up with the Downscope and answers other viewer questions on this edition of Ask Geoffrey.

In 1949, a Chicago Tribune reader asked editor and publisher Colonel Robert McCormick a question: If you had only three full days in Chicago, what are the things you would see and do without fail? The Tribune’s Rita Fitzpatrick responded with a brimming list, which made us wonder: If the reader returned to Chicago today, what could she revisit?

Designed by famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, the 61,000-square-foot structure was first a 19th century stable, later housing theatrical costumes and sets in the 1930s. But now it looms, cold and vacant, across the street from its sister, the DuSable Museum of African American History – another Burnham original which has tried unsuccessfully for more than 10 years to bring the empty stable back to life.  

In the 1940s, a theater in the Loop was providing nightly news updates, and a professional cyclist was cleaning up with his Chicago chain of dry cleaning stores. Geoffrey Baer raises the curtain on these local history stories.

Preservation Chicago has released its annual list of the most endangered buildings in Chicago, a list they usually call “the Chicago Seven” – but for the first time in 14 years, the organization has included an eighth structure.

Dionne Warwick stops by to reminisce about a WTTW "Soundstage" recording from 1980 – and what it's like to see an actress portray her on stage.

Geoffrey Baer tackles three questions about Chicago's beloved rapid transit system, including the various spellings of the system, old downtown entrances between elevated stations and Loop stores and a mysterious tunnel a viewer spotted while riding the Blue Line.

Art and science intersect at an historic – and controversial – look at race. Tour the exhibition "Looking at Ourselves: Rethinking the Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman."

An African-American movie studio in Logan Square made silent films that got people talking, but for all the wrong reasons. Geoffrey Baer shares the story of Ebony Films and more from Chicago's past in this week's edition of Ask Geoffrey.

“Buildings can transform. They can change places. They can change the perception of places." That was architect David Adjaye’s message to a group of about 20 community leaders he met with on Tuesday at the DuSable Museum of African American History.

A famous photo taken in 1940s Bronzeville features the faces of five young African-American men, but their identities have remained a mystery for generations. Local history expert Geoffrey Baer is here with the story behind one of Bronzeville's most enduring images in this encore edition of Ask Geoffrey.

From Jean Baptiste DuSable to Black Lives Matter, the new exhibit "Civil War to Civil Rights" traces the history of struggles and triumphs of Chicago's African-American community.