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If you’re not doing anything Thursday evening, swing by the park for a bit of Shakespeare, a signature cocktail and an interesting bite or two from a selection of food trucks. What park? Why, Cantigny Park, in DuPage County, of course. Where else would anyone go for a hip summer evening out in the Chicago area?
Long overshadowed by Cook County when it comes to cool stuff to see and do, DuPage County is starting to change its image as a boring suburban haven for people intimidated by life in the big city.
DuPage might still be boring in some ways, but its very steadiness gives it an advantage these days, as Cook continues to attract attention for its problems.
Downtown Chicago, the beating heart of Cook, has struggled to emerge from a pandemic that devastated its retail and restaurant trade, sent street crime soaring and, as more people have started to skip the commute and work mostly or entirely at home, left behind acres of empty office space. DuPage, meantime, has lots of attractive green space, is relatively safe and also is home to a city that just got named — again — as one of America’s best cities to live in.
Naperville is known for its coffee shops, parks and restaurants, including a huge new eatery by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. The Niche news site that publishes the “Best Cities” ranking awarded the city an A-plus for its public schools and named it the No. 1 place in the United States to raise a family. (Naperville spills over into Will County as well).
And while Chicagoans might feel like they’re halfway to Iowa by the time they drive out to this top-ranked hot spot, they might need to get used to the ride: The Chicago Bears, anxious to manipulate a property-tax standoff in Cook County’s Arlington Heights, have flirted with building a new stadium in — that’s right — Naperville.
With all due respect to Napervillians, past accolades directed at their city have made it sound uber-suburban. To be cool, DuPage needed more: something edgy and a little uncomfortable; something that tempers the small-town charm with urban sophistication.
Something like a blowout Andy Warhol exhibition?
Sure enough, in a sign of the times, the glitzy pop artist has made the scene in DuPage.
And, perhaps surprisingly, given the stereotypes the county is striving to live down, Andy looks like he belongs.
“Warhol” unfolds across nearly 11,000 square feet of exhibition space at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art on the manicured campus of the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. The Bank of America-backed exhibit highlights Warhol’s life and career through an impressive collection of his art, plus embellishments created for the show. We recognize that it’s not on a par with The Modern Wing of Chicago’s famed Art Institute, but it is still fun — and cool.
Visitors can check out the dance floor in a re-creation of New York’s legendary Studio 54 disco, beside life-size figures of Mick and Bianca Jagger, Cher, Andy and other regulars, decked out in their 1970s finest. A vintage map of Manhattan pinpoints the various lairs that Warhol used during his lifetime. An outdoor cafe has been fitted with a Central Park skyline and oversize balloons float in a “Silver Clouds” installation that enables adults to interact with the art.
This summer’s Warhol theme carries on across the county in pop-up exhibits at various community locations. The latest effort follows 2021′s similarly immersive nod to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, also at the on-campus museum.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Coolness sometimes comes with a whiff of scandal and, late last year, College of DuPage trustees agreed to pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by an ex-president their predecessors had accused of extravagant spending and mismanagement. The school’s insurer spent an astonishing $9 million-plus litigating the matter, which ended with the administrator getting five times more than the original severance payment he’d been denied.
The occasional scandal aside, we think of DuPage as being a haven for good government compared with the rest of the state, owing in no small part to the 12-year tenure of Dan Cronin as chair of the DuPage County Board. Cronin, a native of Elmhurst, set a singular example for reducing the size and cost of county government and we were sorry to see him step down.
Democrats have turned the tables in this longtime GOP bastion, holding a majority on the board for the first time in decades. In November, voters elected the county’s first woman as board chair to replace Cronin. After her election, longtime Illinois state Rep. Deb Conroy noted that her predecessors on the board had been white men. “And today that is not the face of DuPage County,” she said. “DuPage County today is richly diverse.”
As chair, Conroy should aim to extend Cronin’s proud legacy of efficient government, while ensuring this important part of the state is inclusive and equitable.
DuPage County is on a roll. Keep it going.
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