“The Austin-Irving Branch of the Chicago Public Library” by S.M. O’Connor

The Austin-Irving Branch of the Chicago Public Library is located on Irving Park Road, between North Meade and North Moody Avenues in the Dunning (Community Area #17) on the North Side of Chicago. It is one block east of Saint Pascal Catholic Church a few blocks east of the Chicago Park District’s Merrimac Park at 6343 West Irving Park Road and Mount Olive Cemetery & Mausoleum at 3800 North Narragansett Avenue. Also, it is two blocks west of the Patio Theater movie house.

This 15,500-square-foot, two-story branch library is a $6,500,000 purpose-built library building that opened on Saturday, December 8, 2001. It is the second iteration of the Austin-Irving Branch Library. The first iteration was a smaller facility, a 1,254-square-foot storefront library located at 6110 West Irving Park Road. In April of 1970, the Austin-Irving Branch Library became the sixty-fifth branch of the Chicago Public Library (C.P.L.). Previously, the C.P.L. serviced the area with a mobile unit.

It was the forty-first library newly built or renovated since Richard M. Daley (Daley the Younger), Mayor of Chicago (1989-2011) was elected in 1989. “Chicago is the nation’s leader when it comes to building and renovating libraries,” Mayor Daley stated at the dedication ceremony. “This new branch library will be a wonderful addition to the community, a place where people of all ages can gather knowledge in all its forms – from books, magazines, and videotapes or by using a computer and surfing the Internet.”

“Parents have to remember that they share the responsibility of educating their children,” Mr. Daley stated. “They have to make their children have library cards, and then pull them away from the television set and bring them to this wonderful new library.”

“With 78 locations across the City, the Chicago Public Library is one of the best free resources Chicagoans have to access information of all types,” stated Mary Dempsey, Chicago Public Library Commissioner (1994-2012). “Many people worked hard to ensure the Austin-Irving Branch would open today and it is a rich resource that will serve this neighborhood for generations.”

The Public Building Commission of Chicago oversaw the design and construction of this branch library for the C.P.L. The Architect of Record was Antunovich & Associates. The general contractor was The Lombard Company.

When the building opened, it had approximately 50,000 books for juveniles, young adults, and adults; books-on-tape; and newspapers and other periodicals. The whole building is accessible in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990).

The Austin-Irving Branch Library has two featured collections: Polish Language Materials and Spanish Language Materials. It features artworks acquired with funding through the Percent for Art Ordinance administered by the City of Chicago Public Art Program: tile murals by Jason Messinger and paintings by Gail Simpson Wolf.

The Large Meeting Room can accommodate 100 people, and has twelve tables, 100 chairs, a lectern, a screen, and a sink. By contrast, the Small Meeting Room can accommodate twelve people. Groups that book these meetings rooms are responsible for setup and takedown. One can apply to book the room up to three months before the event, but not less than seven days before the event. The branch manager must approve the event. An applicant will be notified whether or not his or her application has been approved within three days.

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

The address is 6100 West Irving Park Road, Chicago, Illinois 60634. The phone number there is (312) 744-6222.

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.