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

The Austin Branch of the Chicago Public Library is a neoclassical library building located on Race Avenue in Austin (Community Area #25) on the West Side of Chicago. It is on the south side of Race Avenue, at the northern end of the Chicago Park District’s Austin Town Hall Park. The Austin Branch Library serves Austin, West Garfield Park (Community Area #26), East Garfield Park (Community Area #27), North Lawndale (Community Area #29), and Near West Side (Community Area #28).

Austin Town Hall Park is a rectangular park that is bounded by Race Avenue to the north, Central Avenue to the east, Lake Street to the south, and Parkside Avenue to the west. Levin Park is one block to the southeast. Lake Street separates Austin Town Hall Park from the Chicago Transit Authority’s Green Line.

In 1927, the City of Chicago transferred Holden Park to the West Park Commission, which later merged in 1934 with twenty-one other park districts to form the Chicago Park District. The West Park Commission agreed since the old Austin Town Hall had long been used as a library to allow the Chicago Public Library to construct a new branch library in what was renamed Austin Town Hall Park.

The Beaux-Arts-style library was designed by Alfred S. Alschuler (1876-1940). [Simultaneously, the West Park Commission built a Georgian Revival-style fieldhouse more than a little reminiscent of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The architects were Michaelsen & Rognstad, who also designed the Garfield Park Gold Dome Building, the Humboldt Park Fieldhouse, the Douglas Park Fieldhouse, and the On Leong Chinese Merchant’s Association Building in Chinatown.] Alschuler designed the Austin Branch Library in the Beaux-Arts style of neoclassical architecture.

Although it is mostly a red brick building, it features a stone pediment and Corinthian order columns. Pairs of columns flank a graceful arched main entrance. The library building was renovated between 1979 and 1981.

The mother house of the Fraternite Notre Dame is across the street, on the north side of Race Avenue in the former Gammon United Methodist Church.[1] Frederick Douglas Academy High School, which is part of the Chicago Public Schools system, is one block to the northwest.[2] St. Martin’s Episcopal Church is two blocks to the northwest. The West Suburban Hospital Medical Center is a few blocks to the northwest in the inner-ring suburb of Oak Park, Illinois.

The community room can hold up to 130 people (100 seated) and cannot be divided. It has three tables, 100 seats, a lectern, a screen, and a sink. 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. Groups that book a room or both rooms combined are responsible for setup and takedown.

The Austin 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 5615 West Race Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60644. The phone number of the Austin Branch Library is (312) 746-5038.

ENDNOTES

[1] This is a novitiate and seminary for priests and friars and a novitiate for nuns of a Traditional Catholic religious order that is canonically irregular and not affiliated with the Archdiocese of Chicago.

[2] It takes up the block bounded by Ohio Street to the north, Parksdie Avenue to the east, Race Avenue to the south, and Waller Avenue to the west.

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.