“When is the Giant Anteater Pup on View at the Brookfield Zoo?” by S.M. O’Connor

The giant anteater pup and his mother, Tulum, are on exhibit at the Brookfield Zoo’s Tropic World: South America again through April 13^th, the 18^th through the 21^st of April, and from the 26^th to the 29^th of April. For the schedule, go to https://www.czs.org/AnteaterPup. This is the third pup born to Tulum and her mate, Lupito. His sisters were born in 2015 and 2016. [They currently live at other zoos.] He was born on Saturday, December 15, 2018.

Giant anteater pups are born with a full coat of hair. Pups ride around on the backs of their mothers for the first several months of their lives.

A full-grown giant anteater typically weighs fifty to eighty-six pounds. An adult is three-to-four-feet-long, with the tail extending an additional two-to-three feet. Giant anteaters live in Southern Mexico, Central America, and the northern two-thirds of South America (except the Andes) in grasslands, swamps, and tropical forests. They eat ants and termites. A two-foot-long tongue projects out from a narrow head, which allows them to eat ants and termites in their mounds. At the Brookfield Zoo, giant anteaters eat a canned feline diet, ground dog chow, insects, and oranges.

The Brookfield Zoo has cared for giant anteaters since 1958. It is one of sixty-three accredited zoos in North America that have giant anteaters.

Figure 1 Credit: Jim Schulz, Chicago Zoological Society Caption: A male giant anteater pup was born at the Brookfield Zoo on December 15, 2018.

Figure 2 Credit: Jim Schulz, Chicago Zoological Society Caption: Giant anteater pups ride on the backs of their mothers for the first few months of their lives.

The Chicago Zoological Society is a private, non-profit organization that operates Brookfield Zoo on property that belongs to the Forest Preserves of Cook County (formerly called the Forest Preserve District of Cook County). The Website is www.CZS.org. The Associations of Zoos and Aquariums (A.Z.A.) accredits the Brookfield Zoo (as well as the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Shedd Aquarium).

The Brookfield Zoo is located in west suburban Brookfield, Illinois, approximately fourteen miles west of downtown Chicago. The address of the North Gate Main Entrance is 8400 31^st Street, Brookfield, Illinois 60513. This is on 31^st Street, west of 1^st Avenue (and thus the Des Plaines River).

The address of the South Gate Main Entrance is 3300 Golf Road, Brookfield, Illinois 60513. This is west of Riverside Brookfield High School. It is within walking distance of the Hollywood Stop on the Metra’s B.N.S.F. Railway, which runs between Chicago and Aurora.

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.