“When is the Brookfield Zoo Free in 2020?”

The Brookfield Zoo in west suburban Brookfield, Illinois is free on weekends, Tuesdays, and Thursdays between Wednesday, January 1, A.D. 2020 and Saturday, February 29, A.D. 2020. That means the remaining free days are Tuesday, January 14, A.D. 2020; Thursday, January 16, A.D. 2020; Saturday, January 18, A.D. 2020; Sunday, January 19, A.D. 2020; Tuesday, January 21, A.D. 2020; Thursday, January 23, A.D. 2020; Saturday, January 25, A.D. 2020; Sunday, January 26, A.D. 2020; Tuesday, January, 28, A.D. 2020; Thursday, January 30, A.D. 2020; Saturday, February 1, A.D. 2020; Sunday, February 2, A.D. 2020; Tuesday, February 4, A.D. 2020; Thursday, February 6, A.D. 2020; Saturday, February 8, A.D. 2020; Sunday, February 9, A.D. 2020; Tuesday, February 11, A.D. 2020; Thursday, February 13, A.D. 2020; Saturday, February 15, A.D. 2020; Sunday, February 16, A.D. 2020; Tuesday, February 18, A.D. 2020; Thursday, February 20, A.D. 2020; Saturday, February 22, A.D. 2020; Sunday, February 23, A.D. 2020; Tuesday, February 25, A.D. 2020; Thursday, 27, A.D. 2020; and Saturday, February 29, A.D. 2020. This is a great opportunity for families with babies or preschool-aged tots, homeschooling families, and adults with open schedules to see the zoo.

Normally, tickets are for adults are $24.95 ($23.95 if purchased online), for senior citizens (sixty-five-and-over)are $19.95 ($18.95 if purchased online), and for children (three-to-eleven) $17.95 ($16.95 if purchased online). Click here to purchase tickets online.

Note free admission does not include “zoo attractions” meaning Dolphins in Action!, Hamill Family Wild Encounters, the Hamill Family Play Zoo, Butterflies!, and The Carousel, and Motor Safari. However, Butterflies! is not open until Saturday, May 23, A.D. 2020 anyway. This is an opportunity to see those other attractions cheaply. Tickets for Dolphins in Action are $6 for adults, $4 for senior citizens, and $3 for children. The same is true for Hamill Family Wild Encounters and Motor Safari. Tickets for the Hamill Family Play Zoo are $4 for adults, $3.50 for senior citizens, and $3 for children. The same is true for The Carousel.

The Chicago Zoological Society (C.Z.S.) is a private, non-profit organization that operates the Brookfield Zoo on land owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. Founded in 1920 and chartered in 1921, the 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.

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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.