Leigh Giangreco

I wrote about why Joe Biden is dominating online dating profiles for The Washington Post’s Style section. My piece went viral and got picked up by Sirius XM, People Magazine and Good Morning America

Credit: The Washington Post illustration

For The Washington Post’s travel section, we tried to fit Ferris’ busy itinerary into one day.

I spoke with CBC Radio and City Cast Chicago about my story.

For The Washington Post’s By the Way travel section, I wrote about how the McCallister’s fictional home has become a real tourist attraction in the Chicago suburbs.

Photo credit: Youngrae Kim for The Washington Post

Shermann “Dilla” Thomas has gone viral as Chicago’s TikTok historian. As a Black man who has spun his online success into a real-life tour business, Thomas stands out in a travel industry that predominantly centers the White experience.

For Washington Post Magazine, I wrote about a dinner series that’s trying to restore civil, cross-party dialogue.

Illustration credit: Egle Kazdailyte/For The Washington Post

For Washington Post Magazine, I wrote about how candidates are grappling with the repercussions of losing physical contact with voters in the face of coronavirus.

Photo Credit: AP Photo

For Washington Post Magazine’s “Date Lab,” I wrote about two LA residents who courted each other during the coronavirus pandemic. Photo credit Amy Kaufman.

I profiled Howard University’s band director for Washington Post Magazine. Photo credit: André Chung/For The Washington Post

I reviewed Ryan Swanson’s book, “The Strenuous Life: Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of the American Athlete,” for The Washington Post. I’ve read several books about T.R. as part of a Teddy Roosevelt book club that I started in Washington, D.C.

Credit: AP Photo

I interviewed transgender activist Sarah McBride about her book, “Tomorrow Will Be Different,” for The Washington Post’s Outlook section.

For The Washington Post, I wrote about why I believe D.C. is the most romantic city in America.

Jackie Birov, a first-generation Ukrainian American and Wicker Park resident, has helped people flee Ukraine amid the Russian invasion. She's also raising money for body armor for Ukrainians.

Photo credit: Leigh Giangreco

St. Clement’s, a Catholic church near Chicago’s gay neighborhood of Boystown, has long supported the local queer community. During the height of the AIDS crisis, its parishioners would volunteer to help patients who were otherwise isolated. Today, St. Clement’s is still building bridges between Catholics and the LGBTQ community in Chicago.

Chicago’s mayoral election could serve as a bellwether for how voters think about public safety as they choose between duelling approaches

I profiled the progressive candidate for Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson.

Comfort foods, like tacos and pizzas, were supposedly immune to the effects of the pandemic as they’re carryout-friendly. Many new taquerias popped up across Chicago and the country as investors felt more confident in America’s appetite for tacos.

But the rising costs of meat show no restaurant is safe.

Do the Jean Banchet awards have the same impact on Chicago’s culinary scene as they did when they were introduced 20 years ago? I spoke with chefs, food writers and industry insiders for Eater Chicago.

For Politico Magazine, I wrote about an indicted congressman from western New York who labeled his hometown paper as “the fake Buffalo News.”

For Politico Magazine, I went to Charleston to talk to West Virginia coal miners as they lobbied for a state black lung fund that would pay as much as $5,000 per year to miners who suffer from the crippling illness.

Photos by Roger May.

For Politico Magazine’s “What Works” section, I explored how Chicago’s plastic bag tax has changed shoppers’ habits.

Google is set to give architect Helmut Jahn’s dazzling but troubled Thompson Center a corporate makeover. The building’s fans want its postmodern soul preserved, too.

Climate and geography mean that Western New York gets routinely buried in intense lake effect snow. Here’s how residents and city officials have learned to live with it.

Photo credit: Leigh Giangreco

The Lollapalooza festival is back, but many venue owners remain cautious about reopening because of relief funding delays and Covid-19 delta variant fears.

Featured in The Atlantic’s Citylab: Washington, D.C., is home to a huge concentration of reporters. Why do they miss the stories happening in their own city?

Featured in The Atlantic’s Citylab: Why did George Washington’s house leave the current president so unimpressed? Maybe because this practical-minded mansion was made to convey humility.

Lifeguarding had already become a less popular summer job option for teens. After the pandemic, shortages are enough to keep public pools closed in many U.S. cities.

Despite lockdown orders and economic uncertainty, people are still selling and buying homes, thanks to virtual house showings and no-contact contract signings.

Thanks in part to efforts in Washington and California, other states are working on legislation to ban workplace nondisclosure agreement.

I shot photos and covered election night in D.C.

I investigated allegations of racial discrimination at a local dance company in D.C.

For first-time mothers, pregnancy is already a strange, unprecedented event that ushers in bizarre physical changes, mental stress, and social isolation. Many of the lifelines that physicians and therapists recommend, like regular exercise or gathering with other new moms, have disappeared in the new era of social distancing.

Novice Bakers Are Clearing Out Local Bakeries’ Supplies Of Flour, Yeast, And Sourdough Starter

Is the Eaton Hotel truly a unique space for local art and social good to thrive in D.C., or is it just another trendy hotel?

I shot photos and wrote about the 32nd annual 17th street High Heel Race in Washington for DCist.

I spoke with two men who bring their music to Columbia Heights and have become local legends in the Northwest D.C. neighborhood.

Photo credit: Leigh Giangreco

A report by NPR’s Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union found that network management has fallen short of meeting a majority of the union’s demands for measures to address diversity, equity and inclusion at the network.

In September 2020, the union’s DEI committee gave management a list of over a dozen demands focused on issues faced by employees of color. During NPR’s February board meeting, union members shared with management a progress report on those demands. Among their findings, a January survey of the union’s 500-plus members revealed that they see supporting and retaining employees of color as a crucial challenge for management.

From their first day on the job, "it was just glaringly evident to me that personal bias clouds judgment in this workplace,” Kline said about SDPB.

Public radio jazz stations have been catering to the traditional tastes of loyal listeners for many years, says Carol Handley of KNKX. The three-year grant program gives them room, and resources, to pivot toward what's happening in jazz right now.

For Washingtonian, I spoke with experts about panda diplomacy and whether the Smithsonian National Zoo’s pandas will leave as a result of the trade war with China.

Photo courtesy Smithsonian National Zoo

For Postindustrial Magazine, I wrote about the new hope that Afghan refugees find in Buffalo and how the influx of new immigrants has buoyed the beleaguered, Rust Belt city.

Photos by Libby March

For The Buffalo News, I profiled Western New York expat and Georgetown butcher, Jamie Stachowski, about his Soup Nazi-esque corner market in Washington, D.C.

I host the Humanities Matter Podcast by Brill Publishing. We interview experts in the field of humanities and social sciences.

I went on Press Pool with Julie Mason to talk about why Joe Biden is all over Tinder.

I spoke with KPBS about my dot.LA profile of California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and her fight against Big Tech. Listen at the 10 minute mark.

Growing up Catholic in Buffalo, New York, I often visited the Carmelite monastery after school. As a child, I wondered how the cloistered nuns lived in total isolation. As an adult living under the stay-at-home order during the coronavirus pandemic, I found myself looking to the Carmelites once again for advice. Read more in my interview with two Carmelite nuns for Medium’s GEN Magazine.

Illustration by Daniel Zender

For Medium’s Gen Mag, I talked to the vice commander of the U.S. military’s newest branch about satellites, space junk and whether those new uniforms will include capes.

When Dwight Eisenhower was president, he traveled in style. Now a team is restoring his airplane to presidential perfection.

I visited the Columbine II in Virginia and wrote about its restoration for Air & Space Magazine.

Photo credit Ramón C Purcell / Boneyard Safari

For Smithsonian Magazine, I wrote about a mysterious, Nazi aircraft: the Horten Ho 229 V3.

Photo credit: Tobias Hutzler

For Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine, I wrote about restorer Tom Reilly’s latest undertaking: a North American XP-82, the U.S. Army Air Corps’ Twin Mustang. Invented by Edgar Schmued and greenlit by General Hap Arnold in 1943, the Twin Mustang is unique: It mates two North American P-51 fuselages. Reilly’s is one of five remaining and the only surviving prototype.