As a features writer for the Chicago Tribune, Christopher Borrelli specializes in unearthing stories that exist at the intersection of cultural preservation and urban anthropology. His two-decade career has established him as a leading voice in narrative-driven journalism that treats everyday spaces as historical documents.
“The stories worth telling are often hiding in plain sight – we just stopped seeing them.”
Christopher Borrelli has spent two decades refining a singular journalistic mission: illuminating the extraordinary within the ordinary. His career began at Premiere magazine, where he honed a narrative-driven approach to cultural storytelling. A decade-long tenure at the Toledo Blade as a film critic and features writer allowed him to merge pop culture analysis with grassroots reporting, foreshadowing his later focus on overlooked communities.
Since joining the Chicago Tribune in the late 2000s, Borrelli has become synonymous with what he calls "nooks and crannies journalism" – stories that explode our assumptions about the world beneath our feet. His work operates at the intersection of:
This 2012 profile of a CTA train operator who transformed mundane commutes into moments of connection became the Tribune’s most-read story of the year. Borrelli’s six-month investigation revealed how institutional bureaucracy often clashes with human warmth, tracking the conductor’s journey from workplace oddity to civic folk hero. The piece’s lasting impact is evident in its continued circulation among urban planners discussing public space design.
Borrelli’s 2018 deep dive into Chicago’s Chinatown explored cultural hybridity through the lens of a vanishing culinary tradition. By framing the restaurant as a living museum of immigration history, he demonstrated how foodways document societal change. The article’s publication coincided with renewed academic interest in diasporic identity preservation.
This 2021 feature transformed a suburban storage facility into a philosophical exploration of cultural memory. Borrelli used physical artifacts – from Back to the Future hoverboards to Friends coffee mugs – to examine how societies choose what to preserve. The piece has been cited in museum studies programs as a case study in ephemera valuation.
Borrelli consistently reveals the human dimension of systems we take for granted. Successful pitches might explore:
“The maintenance crew preserving century-old theater marquees” or “Volunteers maintaining abandoned urban gardens”
His CTA conductor story demonstrates how institutional spaces become stages for personal expression when examined through this lens.
He gravitates toward subjects preserving traditions against demographic or economic tides. Effective angles include:
“The final practitioner of a dying craft” or “Neighborhood institutions resisting gentrification”
The Portuguese-Chinese restaurant profile exemplifies how he frames these stories as living historical documents rather than nostalgia pieces.
Borrelli’s work transforms oddities into cultural signposts. Pitch targets might include:
“Unexpected uses of abandoned spaces” or “Communities formed around obsolete technologies”
His Hollywood props warehouse story shows how he locates universal questions in specific eccentricities.
While specific awards aren’t publicly documented, Borrelli’s influence is evident through:
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Culture, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
