“The Adler Planetarium’s ‘Aliens Vs. Monsters’ Adults-Only Event is Tonight,” by S.M. O’Connor

“Aliens Versus Monsters” is the theme of the adults-only Adler After Dark event tonight, Thursday, October 17, 2019 from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum. This is an event for adults (twenty-one-years-of-age-and-over).

This event will feature live entertainment in the Samuel C. Johnson Family Star Theater on Level 1. The retro-futuristic dance band Terrible Spaceship will play songs from their albums Zontar, The Thing from Venus, and Invaders: 1938. This is called “Incoming!: A Three-Album Monster Mashup.” There will be two performances: the first at 8:00 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Each set will last about thirty-five minutes. The improv (improvisational) comedy group It Came From Space! will perform skits inspired by clips from classic sci-fi (science fiction) and horror films from the 1950s. There will be two performances: the first at 7:15 p.m. and the second at 8:45 p.m. Each set will last about twenty minutes.

There will be two Sky Shows in the Grainger Sky Theater on Level 4. “Imagine the Moon” will be at 6:30 p.m., 8:00 p.m., and 9:30 p.m. “Skywatch Live” will be at 7:15 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.

The E.T.C.S.I. (Extra-Terrestrial Crime Scene Investigation) activity will take place in Planet Explorers on Level 4 between 6:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Attendees can also participate in the “Creatures Features Scavenger Hunt” and “Mask Making Workshop.” Both activities will be inspired by real exoplanets and alien environments astronomers have discovered.

Note that the scavenger hunt is called the “Creatures Features Scavenger Hunt” on the Webpage dedicated to the event and the e-mail newsletter, but “Creature Quest” in the event schedule. Check in at Planet Explorers for the scavenger hunt.

At the “Mask Making Workshop” in the Community Design Lab on Level 2, one can make a mask or headpiece. This workshop will be ongoing from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Once you have completed making your mask, don it and get photographed wearing it in an alien environment in the “Green Screen Photo Booth.”

The “Green Screen Photo Booth” will be located in the exhibit Our Solar System. The “Aliens Vs. Monsters Dance Party” will also be held in Our Solar System, from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. “Thriller” and other seasonally-appropriate songs will be played on the dance floor thanks to MDM Entertainment.

One can purchase dinner in the Galileo Café on Level 4 between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. There will be bars open from 6:00 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. on Levels 2 and 4. There are vending machines on Level 3. Coat and Bag Check is also on Level 3. The Adler Store will be open from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Click here to see the Event Schedule (and map). The schedule is subject to change.

Costumes are encouraged. Please consult the Cosplay and Costuming Weapons Policy.

General Admission Tickets purchased online in advance are $20 ($10 for Adler Planetarium Members). Click here to purchase tickets for Adler After Dark: Aliens Vs. Monsters. At the door, General Admission Tickets are $25 ($15 for Adler Planetarium Members). Please note the event may sell out, in which case there will not be tickets at the door.

Doane Observatory tour tickets are $8. These tickets are available in limited quantities and sell out quickly. A tour of Doane Observatory takes around fifteen minutes. They always take place after sunset and are subject to cancellation due to weather conditions. If cloud cover does not permit use of the telescope, the Doane Observatory staff may substitute a different program.

Please note some exhibits on the second floor will be closed tonight due to the construction of a new exhibit. The new exhibit will open in the late fall or winter of this year.

Adler After Dark night events occur the third Thursday of every month. There is a different theme every month.

This time of year, 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. 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 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 Placeare 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.

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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.