“When is Santa Claus’s Jazz Brunch at the Brookfield Zoo?” by S.M. O’Connor

For the first time this year, the Chicago Zoological Society (C.Z.S.) will be hosting “Santa’s Holiday Jazz Brunch” with the Ann Stewart Jazz trio at the Brookfield Zoo in west suburban Brookfield, Illinois. There will be two brunches held with two seatings each (for a total of four meals) on the third and fourth Sundays in December – Sunday, December 15, 2019 and Sunday, December 22, 2019 – in the Discovery Center. The Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago™ is the sponsor. The C.Z.S. bills the meal as “a delectable all-you-can-eat holiday brunch buffet.” Families can take pictures with Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, and zoo costumed characters.

Figure 1 Credit: Chicago Zoological Society Caption: Santa’s Holiday Jazz brunch with the Ann Stewart Jazz Trio will be held on Sunday, December 15, 2019 and Sunday, December 22, 2019 with two seatings on each day.

Tickets are $44.95 for adults (and teenagers) and $31.95 for children (ages three-to-eleven). Babies (infants and toddlers) under three are free.

The first seating is at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 15, 2019. Click here to purchase tickets (and, if necessary, reserve high chairs or booster seats).

The second seating is at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 15, 2019. Click here to purchase tickets (and, if necessary, reserve high chairs or booster seats).

The third seating is at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 22, 2019. Click here to purchase tickets (and, if necessary, reserve high chairs or booster seats).

The fourth and final seating is at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 22, 2019. Click here to purchase tickets (and, if necessary, reserve high chairs or booster seats).

All ticket sales are final. Tickets are non-transferrable and non-refundable.

The buffet menu includes scrambled eggs, Applewood smoked bacon, pork sausage links, French toast with maple syrup. The Chef’s Omelet Station will feature made-to-order omelets with traditional accompaniments: ham, shredded cheese, bell peppers, mushroom, and tomatoes. There will be a display of European breads, bagels, muffins, croissants, coffee cakes, butter, jams, and cream cheese. Three kinds of seafood will be proffered: chilled peel & eat shrimp with tabasco and cocktail sauce; smoked salmon with lox, cream cheese, capers, and onions; and salmon with roasted pepper sauce on chick pea potage. Traditional Caesar salad with garlic crouton and shredded parmesan and Caesar salad dressing will be available. The Chef’s Carvery Station will feature whole baked honey ham and inside round of beef served with silver dollar rolls, mayonnaise, and mustard. Penne pasta with Alfredo sauce as well as rice pilaf will be options. Garlic mashed potatoes will be an option, as well. The Chef’s Sweet Table will feature miniature slices of cheese cake, miniature brownies, assorted European pastries, an assortment of butter cookies, seasonal fresh fruit, and a berry display. Fresh chilled orange juice will be poured tableside, as will champagne. Others drinks available will be coffee (and decaffeinated coffee), and assorted teas, milk, and chocolate milk.

Please note that a similar event, Breakfast with Santa Featuring The Banjo Buddies is sold out. Those Breakfasts with Santa will be held on the 7^th, 8^th, and 14^th of December. TheAnn & Robert H. LurieChildren’s Hospital of Chicago™ is also the sponsor for the Breakfasts with Santa.

The Chicago Zoological Society is a private, non-profit organization that operates Brookfield Zoo on land owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. Founded in 1920 and chartered in 1921, the Chicago Zoological Society (C.Z.S.) brought to life the vision of Edith Rockefeller McCormick (1872-1932) to give Chicago a zoo without bars modeled on the Tierpark Hagenbeck, known in English as the Hagenbeck Animal Park, a privately-owned zoo in Hamburg founded in 1907 by Carl Hagenback, Jr. (1844-1913). The Brookfield Zoo opened in 1934, during the second year of Chicago’s second World’s Fair, A Century of Progress International Exposition (1933-34).

The C.Z.S. is accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. The Brookfield Zoo met the American Humane Association’s rigorous standards for the care and welfare of animals to become the world’s first zoo to receive Humane Certified™ certification.

The Brookfield Zoo is open every day of the year. It is located between the Stevenson Expressway (I-55) and Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) and is also accessible via the TriState Tollway (I-294). The North Gate Main Entrance address is 8400 West 31^st Street, Brookfield, Illinois 60513. The South Gate Main Entrance address is 3300 Golf Road, Brookfield, Illinois 60513. A train station, the Hollywood (Zoo Stop) on Metra’s B.N.S.F. line, is a few blocks to the south of the South Gate entrance. The phone number is (708) 688-8000. The Website is www.czs.org/Brookfield-ZOO/Home.

$5.00 Per Month IN THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

$50.00 Per Year IN THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

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.