“When are the Free Days at The Field Museum in January and February?”

There are thirty-four upcoming Free Admission Days at The Field Museum of Natural History in January and February. Basic Admission will be free for Illinois residents on Wednesday, January 8, 2020; Wednesday, January 15, 2020; Monday, January 20, 2020; Wednesday, January 22, 2020; Wednesday, January 29, 2020; and the whole of February (Saturday, February 1, 2020 through Saturday, February 29, 2020). This is an excellent opportunity for families with preschool-age children, homeschooling families, and adults with open schedules to explore The Field Museum on days when it will not be crowded. On Free Admission Days, Basic Admission (general admission) tickets are free for Illinois residents who provide valid proof of residency in the state. Please note that Monday, January 20, A.D. 2020 is Martin Luther King, Junior Day, which all schoolchildren have off, so if either parent (or perhaps a grandparent or uncle or aunt) also has the day off, a trip to The Field Museum may be a good way to spend the civic holiday.

FREE DAYS AT THE FIELD MUSEUM IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY OF 2020

Month	Dates
January	Wednesday, January 8, 2020 Wednesday, January 15, 2020 Monday, January 20, 2020 Wednesday, January 22, 2020 Wednesday, January 29, 2020
February	Saturday, February 1, 2020 Sunday, February 2, 2020 Monday, February 3, 2020 Tuesday, February 4, 2020 Wednesday, February 5, 2020 Thursday, February 6, 2020 Friday, February 7, 2020 Saturday, February 8, 2020 Monday, February 9, 2020 Tuesday, February 10, 2020 Wednesday, February 11, 2020 Thursday, February 12, 2020 Friday, February 13, 2020 Saturday, February 14, 2020 (Saint Valentine’s Day) Sunday, February 15, 2020 Monday, February 16, 2020 Tuesday, February 17, 2020 Wednesday, February 18, 2020 Thursday, February 19, 2020 Friday, February 20, 2020 Saturday, February 21, 2020 Sunday, February 22, 2020 Monday, February 23, 2020 Tuesday, February 24, 2020 Wednesday, February 25, 2020 Thursday, February 26, 2020 Friday, February 27, 2020 Saturday, February 28, 2020 Saturday, February 29, 2020

Free basic admission covers admission to general exhibits. This is a good way to bring a family or group of friends to see classic exhibits that periodically get updated but overall have existed in the same form for decades and have been enjoyed by generations of Midwesterners (as well as visitors from distant places). It is also a cheap way to see special exhibits or traveling exhibits and movies that require separate tickets that are available at discounted prices.

Basic Admission on Free Days

Includes all general admission exhibits, such as the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet, Robert R. McCormick Halls of the Ancient Americas, and Inside Ancient Egypt.

Adults	Children (Ages 3-11)	Senior Citizens (65+)	Students with ID
Free	Free	Free	Free

Discounted Discovery Pass

Includes all general admission exhibits, and one ticketed exhibit or one 3D movie.

Adults	Children (Ages 3-11)	Senior Citizens (65+)	Students with ID
$16	$12	$14	$14

Discounted All-Access Price

Includes all general admission exhibits, all ticketed exhibits, and one 3D movie.

Adults	Children (Ages 3-11)	Senior Citizens (65+)	Students with ID
$23	$17	$20	$20

These discounted passes are available in person at The Field Museum. They cannot be purchased online in advance of a visit.

Proof of Residency

No special coupon, ticket, or pass is required to enter The Field Museum during Free Admission Days. Just present a current Illinois Driver’s License, Illinois State ID, or Chicago CityKey Card at the ticket desk to establish proof of residency. If one does not have one of these aforementioned identification cards, one may establish residency with a combination of another photo identification card and an Illinois lease, an Illinois library card, an Illinois student photo identification card, an Illinois utility bill, or an Illinois work identification card or check stub. Check the Events Webpage and The Field Museum of Natural History’s social media accounts for updates about free days and special events happening at The Field Museum.

OTHER SPECIAL OFFERS

Chicago Residents

This offer does not apply on Free Admission Days, but normally Chicago residents can receive $5 or more on Basic Admission.

Military and Teacher Discounts

Active military personnel receive complimentary Basic Admission. Teachers from anywhere in Illinois who teach preschool through 12^th Grade also receive free Basic Admission.

Chicago CityKey Card

A Chicago resident receives free Basic Admission on one trip to The Field Museum during the first year after getting one’s CityKey card. Immediate family members traveling with one also enjoy free Basic Admission on that trip.

CityPASS

One can save 50% or more on premium admission to five of seven top attractions Chicago has to offer by purchasing a CityPASS ticket: The Field Museum, the John G. Shedd Aquarium, Skydeck Chicago in the Sears Tower, the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum or The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry or 360 Chicago Observation Deck in the John Hancock Building.

Go Chicago

One can save up to 55% on admission to twenty-six of Chicago’s attractions (including The Field Museum) through the purchase of a single GoChicago ticket from Go City.

Credit: Go City Card: Caption: This is an ad for the Go Chicago Explorer Pass.

Museums for All

The Field Museum participates in the Museums for All program as a result of which it offers discounted admission to all families who qualify for state food assistance. Show an EBT (Link) or WIC card to receive $3-per-person admission for up to six people. This rate applies during normal business hours every day that The Field Museum is open.

About The Field Museum

Open 364 days a year (every day but Christmas Day) from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the last admission time to The Field Museum is 4:00 p.m. SUE’s “private suite” (formerly the movie theater in Evolving Planet) opened on Friday, December 21, 2018. SUE is the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton yet recovered. Her mounted bones went on display at the Field Museum on May 17, 2000.[1] More than 10,000 people visited The Field Museum that day.

In one of the largest private gifts ever to a Chicago museum, the Tyrannosaurus rex SUE was remounted in a more scientifically accurate way and moved upstairs from Stanley Field Hall to the exhibit The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet, as I wrote about in 2017. Meanwhile, a touchable cast of the biggest dinosaur yet discovered, Patagotitan mayorum, was installed in Stanley Field Hall, as part of The Field Museum’s 125^th anniversary celebrations in 2018, thanks to a $16,500,000 gift from the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Trust. This titanosaur cast, which strecthes across 122 feet of Stanley Field Hall, has been dubbed Máximo. Moving SUE upstairs and remounting her in The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet, the installation of the titanosaur and pterosaurs (flying reptile) casts in Stanley Field Hall, and the traveling exhibit Antarctic Dinosaurs fall under the umbrella of the Griffin Dinosaur Experience. Two years ago, The Field Museum announced the $250,000,000 fundraising campaign “Because Earth. The Campaign for the Field Museum.”

The Field Museum has over 30,000,000 artifacts and specimens. Over 150 scientists, conservators, and collections staff members work there.

The Field Museum is located on the Museum Campus at the northern end of the Chicago Park District’s Burnham Park, due east of Grant Park in downtown Chicago. The address is 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60605. The phone number is (312) 922-9410. The Website U.R.L. is https://www.fieldmuseum.org/.

$5.00 Per Month IN THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

$50.00 Per Year IN THE GARDEN CITY Subscription Plan

[1] William Mullen and Alex Bordens, “Learning from Sue,” Chicago Tribune, 16 May, 2010, Section 1, p. 4

See also William Mullen, “T. Rex Proving to be $8.3 Million Bargain for Field Museum,” Chicago Tribune, 16 May, 2010, Section 1, p. 4

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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.