“Father’s Day BBQ Brunch at the Museum of Science & Industry” by S.M. O’Connor

Does your father love the U-505? The Coal Mine? Model Ships? Pixar? Treat him to Father’s Day Barbecue Brunch at the Museum of Science and Industry (M.S.I.).

Choose one of three reserved seating times for a covered brunch on the plaza in front of the M.S.I.’s historic South Portico overlooking Columbia Basin. The menu includes hand-carved barbecue (smoked beef brisket or turkey breast), chicken and Belgian waffles, smoke corned beef hash, side dishes, and salads, as well as pies and other desserts.

Carving Board options include grilled vegetables; pepper jack macaroni cheese; carved smoked beef brisket; carved smoked turkey breast; and corn bread; with an assortment of barbecue sauces and chimichurri. Breakfast Buffet options will include smoked corned beef & hash with poached egg with chipotle hollandaise; scrambled eggs; sausage; bacon; chicken & Belgian waffles with blueberry butter and maple syrup; and oven-roasted potatoes. Chilled dish options will include smoke salmon, pickled onions, capers, and eggs; spring garden salad with Green Goddess or balsamic vinaigrette dressings; watermelon and feta salad; fresh fruit salad; and Carolina coleslaw. Danishes and Sweets options will include assorted Danishes, mini-muffins, and mini-bagels with jelly, cream cheese, and assorted spreads; donut holes; cherry pie and apple pie; banana bread pudding with crème anglaise; and ice cream novelties. Drink options will include soft drinks, coffee, tea, milk, juice, and water. Menu selections are subject to change.

No handyman skills are required for Dad when he takes his complimentary trip to the Build Your Own Bloody Mary bar. [Dad must, of course, be at least twenty-one-years-of-age.] There will also be a cash bar. Enter Dad for a chance to win his own backyard smoker in an onsite raffle.

There will be three seating times: the first at 10:00 a.m., the second at 12:00 p.m., and the third at 2:00 p.m. This will be all-ages, Museum-wide event will be on the Main Level of the Central Pavilion. Ticket purchases will be required for entry.

This event requires an additional timed-entry ticket. Purchase tickets through Eventbrite on this Webpage. Tickets are $40 for adults (which in practice means adults and teenagers ages twelve-and-over), and $23 for children (ages three-to-eleven). For M.S.I. Members, tickets are $35 for adults (twelve-and-over) and $18 for children (ages three-to-eleven). Children three and under are free. Tickets cover Museum Entry (general admission), brunch, one free trip for Dad to the Build Your Own Bloody Mary Bar, and exhibits covered by Museum Entry. They do not cover parking, special exhibits, and raffle tickets.

Figure 1 Credit: J.B. Spector Caption: This is a picture from the 2017 Father’s Day BBQ Brunch Mr. Spector took on June 18, 2018.

Figure 2 Credit: J.B. Spector Caption: This is the tent under which the 2017 Father’s Day BBQ Brunch was held.

Figure 3 Credit: J.B. Spector Caption: This is a picture of the Columbia Basin with the tent from the 2017 Father’s Day BBQ Brunch visible in the background in front of the South Portico of the Museum of Science and Industry.

Now through September 3^rd, the M.S.I. is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day except Thursday, July 19, 2018. On September 4^th, the M.S.I. will revert to regular hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). On Sunday, September 23, 2018, the M.S.I. will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; and on Saturday, October 6, 2018, will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; and on the weekend of Saturday, November 17, 2018 and Sunday, November 18, 2018, the M.S.I. will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Museum of Science and Industry will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 22, 2018) and the First Day of Christmas (Tuesday, December 25, 2018). Extended hours (9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) will be in play again from Friday, November 23, 2018 to Sunday, November 25, 2018; Saturday, December 1, 2018 and Sunday, December 2, 2018; Saturday, December 8, 2018 and Sunday, December 9, 2018; Saturday, December 15, 2018 and Sunday, December 2016; Saturday, December 22, 2018 and Sunday, December 23, 2018; and Wednesday, December 26, 2018 through Sunday, December 30, 2018. Check this Webpage and the Museum of Science and Industry’s social media for updates.

The Museum of Science and Industry is located at the northern end of Jackson Park, on the south side of 57^th Street, between Lake Shore Drive to the east and Cornell Drive to the west, in the East Hyde Park neighborhood of the Hyde Park Community Area (Community Area #41) on the South Side of Chicago. The address is 5700 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60637. The Website is https://www.msichicago.org. The phone number is (773) 684-1414.

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.