Robert Cross

The Swiss Grand Hotel is often filled with big-spending guests, but it`s a bit removed from the retail hubbub, standing as it does at the east end of Wacker Drive....

Hart Schaffner & Marx University in Des Plaines is an industrial, rather than academic, educational facility. As such, it has more in common with McDonald`s Hamburger U. than it does...

While shuffling through some old correspondence last year, Burton Joseph came upon a 44-year-old letter from Burberrys, the British clothier. Signed ''Your obedient servants,'' the missive acknowledged an order Joseph...

Labels on products currently on the grocery shelves list in descending order, by weight, those ingredients making up 5 percent or more of the product`s weight. The ingredient list usually...

Our world has reached such a high level of sophistication that one can mingle for hours with Chicago`s current herd of foreign tourists and never hear anyone utter the tiresome...

Have you been clicked today? Anyone striding downtown in the past few weeks may have noticed a dozen scattered young people squatting in entryways or sitting in lawn chairs and...

The neighborhoods of Streamwood constitute a history of post-World War II suburbia-from simple, two-bedroom houses built for veterans` families in the 1950s to 1989-model custommade residences on wooded lots. In...

''We ski the world'' is the motto of the Sno-Gophers Ski Club, a primarily black organization now celebrating its 25th anniversary. Founded by radio personality Daddy-O Daylie, the 200-member organization...

The Walkman and Watchman seem laughably primitive when compared with the CAIVman-short for Computer Audio Interactive Video Manipulator. The hand-held, multimedia disc player is still just a brilliant idea and...

''I`m Bob Mackie,'' said the model in the coral-colored strapless evening gown. ''I`m Cookie Stagman,'' said the author in the pink suit. The model, of course, introduced her designer garment,...