Weisberg seemed to know everybody — the comic Lenny Bruce once lived with her — and that attribute was perfectly captured in the now-famous “Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg” by author Malcolm Gladwell in a 1999 article for The New Yorker, later expanded on for a chapter in his first best-selling book, “The Tipping Point.”
“Lois is far from being the most important or the most powerful person in Chicago,” Gladwell wrote. “But if you connect all the dots that constitute the vast apparatus of government and influence and interest groups in the city of Chicago you'll end up coming back to Lois again and again.”
She was a champion of all things Chicago as the cultural affairs commissioner, and in her 90 years she did a great job promoting the arts. Talk about a life well-lived. Chicago will miss her.
