“What is the ‘Apollo 11 Celebration: Moon Bash’ at the Adler Planetarium?” by S.M. O’Connor

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum will hold Apollo 11 Celebration: Moon Bash on July 19^th & 20^th. The Moon Bash will include hands-on programs, talks, performances, and one-day-only theater shows. Take the family and learn how the Apollo 11 mission can inspire our next Moonshot. “Moon Bash” is part of the Adler Planetarium’s APOLLO 11 CELEBRATION | JULY 18-20 (“CHOOSE THE MOON WITH THE ADLER”).

Moon Bash July 19^th

On Friday, July 19, 2019, highlights will include “Exploration Stations;” “To the Moon, with I Play Games;” “Sketch the Moon;” and “Small Steps, Giant Leaps – Voices of Apollo.” At “Exploration Stations,” visitors can launch a rocket, train like an astronaut, and learn about the Moon with hands-on activities. One can relive the Apollo 11 mission using virtual reality with “To the Moon, with I Play Games.” Visitors can explore the artworks of Chesley Bonestell and imagine a future lunar mission with “Sketch the Moon.” At “Small Steps, Giant Leaps – Voices of Apollo,” One can explore a series of personal stories inspire by the Apollo 11 mission in a temporary exhibition and share his or her story with the Adler Planetarium. Afterwards, check out the online exhibition “Voices of Apollo.”

Moon Bash July 20^th

On Saturday, July 20, 2019, highlights will include The Day We Walked on the Moon; “Exploration Stations;” “Performances & Talks;” “Chicago’s Moonshot Mural;” and “Small Steps, Giant Leaps – Voices of Apollo.” The Day We Walked on the Moon is a documentary from the Smithsonian Channel that relates the story of how humanity reached the Moon through awesome footage and interviews with key figures in the Apollo 11 mission. This documentary is covered with admission. The “Performances & Talks” include puppet shows, museum theater performances, and special talks from astronomers and other experts, some of whom worked on the Apollo program. Visitors can help create a “community mural” about the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. On Saturday, “Small Steps, Giant Leaps – Voices of Apollo” will be from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Click here to purchase tickets. Please note that a Museum Entry pass only grants one access to the Adler Planetarium for one day and do not cover the Moon Bash both days.

Normally, the Adler Planetarium is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Adler Planetarium began observing extended Summer Hours (9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) on Memorial Day (May 27, 2019) and will continue to do so through Labor Day (September 2, 2019). However, the Adler Planetarium closed early, at 4:00 p.m. on May 30^th and on June 18^th and also closed early, at 5:00 p.m., on June 20^th. It will close especially early, at 2:00 p.m., on Saturday, September 7, 2019. The Adler Planetarium will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 28, 2019) and Christmas Day (Wednesday, December 25, 2019). It will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. from Thursday, December 26, 2019 to Wednesday, January 1, 2020.

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum is located on the Museum Campus at the northern end of the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park. The address is 1300 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605.

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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.