After Kankakee was listed as the worst metropolitian area to live by the Places Rated Almanac, talk show host David Letterman picked up the story, airing a "Top Ten List" of sarcastic ways to market Kankakee. Letterman continued the "joke", sending Kankakee two gazebos to "help".
When a group of Kankakee High School students heard the story, they decided the gazebos and the negativity attached to them were not something they wanted to see in their city. The students tore down a gazebo and used the wood to build a rocking chair for David Letterman.
This American Life, a radio show produced by Chicago's Public Radio Station WBEZ, interviewed the students for a story on the program's 554th Episode: Not It!. This American Life Producer Brian Reed spoke with the students in Kankakee, then spent time in Bradley and Bourbonnais, exploring the attitudes toward Kankakee of people in the more surburban towns. It's fascinating to hear an outsider's take on Kankakee, both the more racially diverse city and the less racially diverse county.
You can find the This American Life featuring Kankakee here.
