If you’ve had your car towed in Chicago, there’s a decent chance you had to journey down to Lower Lower Wacker Drive — likely not in the best of moods — to open your wallet and recollect your vehicle.

“It's supposed to be a happy process,” said Michael Lacoco, the deputy commissioner of the city’s bureau of traffic services.

In our last episode, we answered some of your many questions about Lower Wacker Drive, a.k.a. Chicago’s basement. Today, we try to demystify a notorious Chicago landmark within: the Central Auto Pound.

Lacoco is a 33-year veteran of this department, the perfect person to help us on this journey. He explains why you shouldn’t try to steal your own car from the lot, why that white inventory number they draw on your window is so hard to wash off, and what you can do if you think you were wrongfully towed.

Nuclear fallout shelters are still among us, though they are not exactly ready for the apocalypse. These remnants of Cold War-era infrastructure do exist across Chicago, often in places you might not expect.

This episode originally aired in 2015.

In our last episode, Curious City question-asker Emily Porter sent us on a quest exploring the world of local fashion designers, all after she found a thrift shop sweater with a tag that reads: “Maria Rodriguez Chicago.”

Who is Maria Rodriguez? How did she get into the industry? And what is it like to be a fashion designer in Chicago?

To answer those questions, we take a trip to the basement of the Chicago History Museum, where collection manager Jessica Pushor has archived several Maria Rodriguez ensembles and a case file of news clippings, photos and look books. We also stopped by El Nuevo Mexicano, a Mexican restaurant in Lakeview that Rodriguez now owns and operates, to get the story from the fashion designer herself.

Folk music surged in popularity across America in the late 1950s through the ‘70s, including here in the Chicago area. Last episode, we looked at how a few area coffeehouses catered to many patrons in their teens and early twenties. These were alcohol-free spaces where people could listen to live music and hangout for hours.

Curious City host Erin Allen looks at one of those beloved coffeeshops of the 1970s: Amazingrace, which was born out of Vietnam War protests on the campus of Northwestern University and later moved to the heart of downtown Evanston. She was joined by a panel of Amazingrace founders, performers and patrons at last year’s Evanston Folk Festival.

WBEZ is a programming partner of the Evanston Folk Festival, which is taking place this year Sept. 6-7, 2025. A pre-sale is happening now through April 22. Enter the code EFFWBEZ to access the sale.