“When is Rocktoberfest at the Adler Planetarium?” by S.M. O’Connor

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum is kicking off Oktoberfest with the adults-only night event Adler After Dark: Rocktoberfest on Thursday, September 19, 2019 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. This event is for adults (twenty-one-years-of-age-and-over). Pretzels will be served along with brews from Empirical Brewery and Marz Community Brewing Company. The German Oompah band Die Musikmeisters German Band, which is based in Crystal Lake, Illinois and performs in the region from Chicago to Milwaukee, will be on stage.

The Adler Planetarium stated Rocketoberfest will be an opportunity to “do some real rocket science with hands-on programs that will test your engineering mettle.” Panel discussions will address issues including N.A.S.A.’s commercial partners such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic launching rockets into low-Earth orbit and creating the prospect of space tourism while N.A.S.A. “focuses on the future of deep space exploration with the Space Launch System.” Dave Mackay, Chief Pilot of Virgin Galactic, will deliver a talk.

Adler After Dark events occur every third Thursday of the month. During Summer Hours (May-August), these events occur from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. The rest of the year, Adler After Dark events occur from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. There is a different theme every month. Click here to read the Cosplay & Costuming Weapons Policy.

Tickets are $20 for the general public and $10 for Members. Click here to purchase tickets online in advance. If any tickets remain unsold, they will be sold at the door at a cost of $25 for the general public and $15 for Members. For a group of fifteen or more or for corporate booking, e-mail groups@adlerplanetarium.org.

Tours of the Doane Observatory are $8 for the general public and Members alike. Please note that the observatory program may be altered or canceled due to weather conditions at the discretion of observatory staff.

Last month, I wrote about the remaining Illinois Discount Days in 2019 at the Adler Planetarium, and earlier this month I wrote about which days have free general admission (for Illinois residents) there this month. Thursdays and Fridays in September are Illinois Free Days. [As I also wrote about last month, the Adler Planetarium, a Smithsonian Affiliate Museum, is one of thirty-three (now thirty-nine) Illinois institutions participating in Smithsonian Magazine’s 2019 Museum Day® on Saturday, September 21, 2019. Click here to get Museum Day® tickets.] On Illinois Discount Days, Illinois residents receive free General Admission. A valid identification card with an Illinois address is required at the box office. This covers access to all exhibits, but excludes the Atwood Sphere Experience and sky shows. On Illinois Resident Discount Days, Illinois residents may also upgrade to an All Access Pass at a discounted price and thereby gain access to the Atwood Sphere Experience, as well as the Adler Planetarium’s sky shows.

REMAINING SEPTEMBER, 2019 ILLINOIS RESIDENT DISCOUNT DAYS

3^rd Week of September

19^th and 20^th

4^th Week of September

26^th and 27^th

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.

Normally, the Adler Planetarium is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. from Memorial Day (May 27, 2019) through Labor Day (September 2, 2019) and during “Winter Break” from Thursday, December 26, 2019 through Wednesday, January 1, 2020. It will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 28, 2019) and Christmas Day (Wednesday, December 25, 2019).

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.