Wilmette Life

New Trier remembers Jan Borja

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:41:07 -0600

Relationships. Community. Compassion. Those words were used again and again by friends and relatives of Janet Borja at today’s memorial service to explain why she was so special. It was fitting the service was held at New Trier Township High School in Northfield as the freshman campus was Borja’s legacy. Borja, 65, of Glenview, died Saturday from breast cancer. She began working for New Trier in 1970 as a German and Spanish teacher. She advanced to leadership positions and became the first principal of the Northfield school when it reopened in 2001 for freshmen only. “She was the heart and …

Kirk moved to Chicago rehab center

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:06:02 -0600

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, who suffered a stroke nearly three weeks ago, was transferred Friday to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Snow makes its way back to the area Friday

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:02 -0600

Feeling a chill in the air? Snow will be back as soon as Friday when lake effect snow could hit the city and Northwest Indiana with six inches.

Pizza, semester-exam cramming a tradition at Wilmette Public Library

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:20:04 -0600

When first-semester examinations loomed for Wilmette area New Trier High School students earlier this month, they had a choice to make. They could cram at home, in their bedroom or study, and perhaps panic by themselves at how much they had forgotten to remember. Or they could take their books, laptops, pens, paper and good study habits to the Wilmette Public Library and join dozens of their compatriots, thus making a pleasant evening of what might otherwise have been a rather grim undertaking. As they have for at least the past five years, a healthy cohort of young men and …

Catholic cemeteries offer to bury 300 bodies stacked at morgue

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:28:02 -0600

The Archdiocese of Chicago is offering to pay for up to 300 burials for the bodies being held at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

Officials postpone latest Wilmette hotel hearing

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:18:00 -0600

Village officials agreed Tuesday to postpone for at least a month a Wilmette Plan Commission hearing on the proposed White Lodging hotel development being opposed by neighbors in a west Wilmette neighborhood. The hearing — to review site-plan changes in the planned unit development White Lodging is requesting for the Residence Inn hotel it wants to build at 3201 Old Glenview Road — had been set for Tuesday night. The extra time was requested by Lockerbie Lane neighbor Larry Rogers, Wilmette Community Development Director John Adler said. The next time commissioners could hear the case would be March 6, he …

‘Gang Book’ spotlights threats to the suburbs

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:55:29 -0600

For more than 40 years, street gangs and the illegal drug sales they control have been major drivers of property crime in the suburbs. For most people, though, gangs remain a shadowy phenomenon, visible only in the occasional newspaper or TV clip and usually in Chicago, not the suburbs. The 2011 edition of the Chicago Crime Commission’s “Gang Book” sheds new light on street gangs and provides a clearer picture of the dangers they present to Chicago’s neighboring communities. “This is a very complicated problem,” said Jody Weis, president of the Chicago Crime Commission. “Gangs have been around a very …

Wilmette Police Department up for re-accreditation

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:00:16 -0600

Sometime in March, Wilmette Police Department officials should learn whether the department has once again won accreditation from an international law enforcement agency that sets professionalism standards for its members. Retaining accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies will allow the department to continue a tradition of more than 25 years as one of only a small number of policing agencies nationally to meet the group’s demanding guidelines. “This is a voluntary process, so the departments and department executives who choose to do it are sticking their necks out, in one way, saying they have worked hard …

New this week on video

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:00:37 -0600

Shakespeare turns out to have been a bit of a poser in the historical drama “Anonymous” and Santa Claus turns out to be a bit of a stoner in “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.”

Johannes Gray takes it ‘From the Top’

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:55:12 -0600

Johannes Gray loves the sound of the cello. The Wilmette 14-year-old, a freshman at New Trier High School, describes its tone as deep and rich. It’s a tone he has worked to create — with notable success — since he was a toddler. Now people across the country will get the chance to hear Gray perform with the instrument he loves when he appears on an episode of “From the Top,” the popular National Public Radio program that features young American classical musicians. The episode airs at 7 p.m. Feb. 12 on Chicago’s WFMT-FM 98.7 classical radio station. Gray will …

Organizers deem McKenzie benefit a huge success

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:00:22 -0600

Members of McKenzie Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Association are celebrating having raised as much as $40,000 at its “Going Places” benefit, held Feb. 4 at the DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton in Skokie. Money from the gala, organized once every two years by the PTA, will go toward school enrichment programs and to pay for field trips and other student services, Emily Zivin said Monday. “It was an awesome event,” Zivin said. “We had a fantastic turnout; we had been hoping for 300 people and we actually had close to 370. We were able to reach our goal, which we’re very …

Crystal Cave in Wilmette transforms itself in move to Glenview

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:55:21 -0600

After almost 44 years, artist, craftsman and businessman Josef Puehringer is bidding a bittersweet good-bye to downtown Wilmette. Puehringer, who owns The Crystal Cave store at 1141 Central Ave., has long presided over a well-loved local source for hand-crafted crystal art pieces, glass and crystal giftware and specialized glass and crystal repair. But he will be closing his retail doors at the end of February. Wilmette’s loss will be Glenview’s gain, however; Puehringer is moving his workshop operation to a new and spacious center at 3600 Lehigh Ave. in that community. Once renovations on the space are complete, he expects …

Wilmette Junior High celebrates new source of sound and vision

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:54:32 -0600

Music makers and audiophiles the world over know what it means to say, “We can fix it in the mix.” Now, thanks to a $15,000 grant from the District 39 Educational Foundation, students at Wilmette Junior High School will have the chance to fix their own mixes, in the new Paul Tilley recording studio. Teacher and students who will benefit from the studio, built and named to honor the memory of District 39 parent Paul Tilley, checked out its capabilities last week during its official Feb. 3 dedication. The foundation financed the studio through its Paul Tilley Music Fund, established …

Wilmette and Kenilworth police blotter for Jan. 30 through Feb. 6, 2012

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:55:39 -0600

Wilmette police reported making two arrests on drunk-driving charges during the period between Jan. 30 and Feb. 6.

Winnetka Children’s Hour presents “House Haunters!”

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:01:11 -0600

The Winnetka Children’s Hour is pleased to present its original hour-long comedy musical, “House Haunters!”, performed by local children ages 5-14 on Thursday, Feb. 9 and Friday, February 10 at 7 p.m., and Saturday, Feb. 11 at 10:30 a.m. at Matz Hall, Winnetka Community House, 620 Lincoln Ave in Winnetka. Individual tickets are $8 and can be purchased by calling LeeAnn Rechtin at (312)337-4767 or erechtin@me.com. “House Haunters” is an original musical production performed by kids for kids. When the last heir to a mysterious English Manor house dies, he leaves his six ghostly relatives lurking up in the attic. …

Evanston panel backs cultural arts, Piven Theatre Workshop improvement plan

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:18:48 -0600

The nationally recognized Piven Theatre Workshop would play a leading role in the revitalization of the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, occupying renovated space and a state-of-the-art theater in the building under a plan that received backing Monday from a city committee. Members of the City Council’s Human Services Committee signaled approval of City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz’s continuing negotiations with the theater company. With past efforts to change things at the city owned building “not going as smoothly, as easily as we wanted,” the new plan seems to heading the city in the right direction, said Alderman Judy Fiske, in whose …