“The Jefferson Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library” by S.M. O’Connor

The Jefferson Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library serves four of Chicago’s seventy-seven community areas: Jefferson Park (Community Area #11),[1] Forest Glen (Community Area #12),[2] Norwood Park (Community Area #10),[3] and Portage Park (Community Area #15)[4] on the North Side of Chicago. The Jefferson Park Branch Library opened in its current location in 1970.

It is on the south side of Lawrence Avenue between Long Avenue to the west and London Avenue to the east. The Jefferson Park Branch Library is located one block southeast of the Chicago Park District’s seven-acre Jefferson Park. It is actually just outside Jefferson Park Community Area, and is just inside the Portage Park Community Area, as Lawrence Avenue is the dividing line between Jefferson Park to the north and Portage Park to the south.

The branch has several artworks. These include a collection of photographs of foreign landscapes by Jeannine Krawczyk; a folk art painting; and a book quilt and two framed sample blocks for that quilt that were handmade by Bonnie Vondarche, a member of the Friends of Jefferson Park Branch Library.

A CyberNavigator technology tutor is available from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The CyberNavigator offers help in Spanish as well as English. Call ahead to confirm availability. CyberNavigators offer help both through classes and a one-on-one basis. One-on-one help is available by appointment for up to one hour. CyberNavigators teach about computer basics, e-mail and Internet basics, online job searching and resume writing, Chicago Public Library Website and database resources, and eBooks and other digital content. This program is paid for by grants through the Chicago Public Library Foundation.

The Jefferson Park Meeting Room can hold up to seventy-five people. It has ten tables, seventy-five chairs, and a screen.

The Jefferson Park Branch Library is closed on Sundays. It is open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The address is 5363 West Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60630. The phone number is (312) 744-1918.

ENDNOTES

[1] Jefferson Park is comprised of three neighborhoods: Jefferson Park, Indian Woods, and Gladstone. The suburban village Jefferson Park was named after one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). [Thomas Jefferson was primary author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, Secretary of State (1790-1793), Vice President of the United States of America (1797-1801), and President of the United States of America (1801-1809).] Jefferson Township, a civil township, annexed the village in 1889. Chicago incorporated Jefferson Township in 1872.

[2] Forest Glen is comprised of three neighborhoods: Forest Glen, Edgebrook, and Sauganash.

[3] Norwood Park is comprised of six neighborhoods: Big Oaks, Norwood Park East, Norwood Park West, Old Norwood Park, Oriole Park, and Union Ridge. The Oriole Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library is in the Chicago Park District’s Oriole Park in the neighborhood of Oriole Park in the Community Area of Norwood Park.

[4] Portage Park is comprised of a single neighborhood, also called Portage Park; the Chicago Park District’s thirty-six-acre Portage Park; and the Six Corners shopping district. The Portage-Cragin and Austin-Irving Branches of the Chicago Public Library are also both in Portage Park.

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.