Author Ayn Rand always loved New York. But it was her family in Chicago who "literally saved her life," says Rand's biographer, Barbara Branden, in town to promote The Passion of Ayn Rand.

"If they had not written to her, she would not have gotten out of Russia in 1926," says Branden, who hunted down Rand's real name - Alice Rosenbaum - after the author's death.

Branden began her research here by trying to call everyone in the Chicago phonebook named Portnoy, the name of some of Rand's relations.