“When is the Adults-Only Christmas Party at the Museum of Science & Industry?” by S.M. O’Connor

The second annual MSI After Hours: Naughty or Nice event for adults will be at the Museum of Science and Industry (M.S.I.) on Friday, November 16, 2018 from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. This is a chance to sip spiked hot chocolate and snack on candy cane marshmallows while examining over fifty Christmas trees and new decorations for the M.S.I.’s annual Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light festivals; take photographs of handmade Christmas tree ornaments from cultures around the world; and snap selfies near the forty-foot-tall Grand Tree bedecked with 30,000 twinkling lights. Santa Claus and Krampus will be on hand to determine if an adult is naughty or nice.

This event is for adults (twenty-one-years-of-age and over). Tickets are $30. They cover parking in the underground garage, coat check, light bites, a complimentary drink, and exclusive access to the M.S.I.’s exhibits. A cash bar will also be available. Click here to purchase tickets online. Please note that tickets for MSI After Hours events are non-refundable. If one has questions, one may e-mail afterhours@msichicago.org.

For the 2018-2019 Christmas season, Christmas Around the World and Holidays of Light will run from Thursday, November 15, 2018 to Sunday, January 6, 2019. The Museum of Science and Industry’s 75^th annual Christmas festival, Christmas Around the World, and its 23^rd annual companion festival, Holidays of Light, opened for the 2017-2018 Christmas season on Thursday, November 16, 2017, and will run through Sunday, January 7, 2018. As early as 1941, the M.S.I. had a physics demonstration called “The Science Behind Santa,” but the M.S.I. began hanging flags and celebrating Christmas Around the World during the Second Great World War in support of the United Nations (then an alliance against the Axis Powers) in 1942.

Figure 1 Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the Grand Tree as photographed from a darkened Transportation Gallery at night, as seen on Thursday, November 16, 2017.

On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, the M.S.I. reverted to regular hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). 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 M.S.I. 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; Sunday, December 23, 2018; and Wednesday, December 26, 2018 through Sunday, December 30, 2018. There will be longer hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 22, 2018. On Christmas Eve (Monday, December 24, 2018) and New Year’s Eve (Monday, December 31, 2018), the M.S.I. will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. On New Year’s Day (Tuesday, January 1, 2019), the M.S.I. will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. From Wednesday, January 2, 2019 through Friday, January 4, 2019, the M.S.I. will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Regular hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) will resume on Saturday, January 5, 2019. Check this Webpage and the Museum of Science and Industry’s social media for updates.

EXTENDED HOURS AND EXCEPTIONS

9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Saturday, November 17, 2018 Sunday, November 18, 2018
Closed	Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 22, 2018)
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Friday, November 23, 2018 Saturday, November 24, 2018 Sunday, November 25, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Saturday, December 1, 2018 Sunday, December 2, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Saturday, December 8, 2018 Sunday, December 9, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Saturday, December 15, 2018 Sunday, December 16, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.	Saturday, December 22, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Sunday, December 23, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.	Christmas Eve (Monday, December 24, 2018)
Closed	Christmas Day (Tuesday, December 25, 2018)
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Wednesday, December 26, 2018 Thursday, December 27, 2018 Friday, December 28, 2018 Saturday, December 29, 2018 Sunday, December 30, 2018
9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.	New Year’s Eve (Monday, December 31, 2018)
11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.	New Year’s Day (Tuesday, January 1, 2019)
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.	Wednesday, January 2, 2019 Thursday, January 3, 2019 Friday, January 4, 2019

Often stylized as the “Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago” or the “Museum of Science + Industry” the institution is located at the northern end of the Chicago Park District’s 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 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60637. The M.S.I. is open every day of the year with two exceptions: Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. On most days, it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., but during peak periods it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Website is https://www.msichicago.org/ and 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.