“Remaining 2018 Illinois Resident Free Days at the Adler Planetarium” by S.M. O’Connor

The remaining 2018 Illinois Resident Free Days at the Adler Planetarium and Planetarium Museum are Sunday, September 9, 2018 through Sunday, September 16, 2018; Monday, October 8, 2018; Sunday, October 21, 2018; Monday, October 24, 2018; Tuesday, October 25, 2018; Sunday, November 11, 2018; Monday, November 12, 2018; Wednesday, November 14, 2018; Thursday, November 15, 2018; Saturday, December 1, 2018; Monday, December 3, 2018 through Friday, December 7, 2018; and Monday, December 10, 2018.

Remaining 2018 Illinois Free Days at the Adler Planetarium

September	9^th through 16^th
October	8^th, 21^st, 24^th, and 25^th
November	11^th 12^th, 14^th, and 15^th
December	1^st, 3^rd through 7^th, and 10^th

To take advantage of this offer, one must furnish identification with an address in Illinois. Please note that on Illinois Resident Free Days, state residents may also upgrade to an All Access Pass at a discounted price to gain access to the Atwood Sphere Experience and the Adler Planetarium sky shows. Check this Webpage and Adler Planetarium social media for updates about free days and other special offers.

Illinois teachers (Preschool through 12^th Grade) and active-duty military personnel receive free general admission, which can be applied to any admission pass, every day. One must furnish proper identification at the box office. Students can senior citizens receive $2 off admission. Chicago residents, with proof of residency, receive discounts on all admission passes in recognition of financial support from the City of Chicago as a corporate body.

The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum participates in the Museums For All program. Any family who qualifies for state food assistance and is in possession of an EBT card (known in Illinois as a Link card) or a WICID card, is eligible to participate. Eligible participants may receive a Basic Pass (which includes one show) for up to eight people at a cost of $1 per guest. Any guest who wishes to upgrade to an All Access Pass (unlimited shows) may do so for $5 per guest. Cards or IDs must be presented at the Adler Planetarium box office on-site to enjoy this special low rate.

Normally, the Adler Planetarium is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. However, it will close early, at 2:00 p.m., on Saturday, September 8, 2018 for the Celestial Ball, which is the Adler Planetarium’s annual gala fundraiser. The Adler Planetarium will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Monday, October 8, 2018; Friday, November 23, 2018; Saturday, November 24, 2018; Sunday, November 25, 2018; and from Wednesday, December 26, 2018 through Tuesday, January 1, 2019. It will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 22, 2018) and Christmas Day (Tuesday, December 25, 2018).

Late last month, on Friday, August 24, 2018, the Adler Planetarium announced that N.A.S.A. Administrator James F. Bridenstine had named Dr. Michelle B. Larson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, to the N.A.S.A. Advisory Council (N.A.C.) Science Committee. It is a standing committee of the N.A.S.A. Advisory Council. On the fifteen-member N.A.C. Science Committee, she will hold the Public Communications seats.

“Communicating scientific ideas to broad audiences has been a cornerstone of my life’s work – to promote science literacy and to engage people of all ages and backgrounds in the joy to discovery,” stated Dr. Larson. “I am delighted to continue this work with the Science Committee.”

The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum is located at the northeastern corner of Northerly Island, which is really a peninsula. It is the only island from a chain of artificial islands Daniel Hudson Burnham, Senior (1846-1912) and Edward H. Bennett (1874-1954) called for in the Plan of Chicago. Northerly Island is part of the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park. The Field Museum of Natural History, the John G. Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum comprise the Museum Campus at the northern end of Burnham Park, east of Grant Park in downtown Chicago. Soldier Field and the Lakeside Center of McCormick Place are immediately south of the Museum Campus. The Arie Crown Theater is inside the Lakeside Center.

The address is 1300 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605. The phone number is (312) 922-7827. The Website U.R.L. is https://www.adlerplanetarium.org.

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.