“Exhibit ‘Dinos Everywhere!’ Opens at Brookfield Zoo”

The temporary exhibit Dinosaurs Everywhere!, which features life-sized animatronic dinosaurs, has opened at Brookfield Zoo in west suburban Brookfield, Illinois and will run through Sunday, November 1, A.D. 2020 (All Saints Day). After being closed to the public for three-and-a-half months, the Chicago Zoological Society (C.Z.S.) re-opened the Brookfield Zooto Members on Wednesday, July 1, A.D. 2020 and to the general public on Wednesday, July 8, A.D. 2020. Zoo Admission tickets cover Dinosaurs Everywhere! Developed by Jurassic Park advisor Don Lessum, Dinosaurs Everywhere! (or Dinos Everywhere) is on loan from Dino Don, Inc. and The Wildlife Conservation Society. Three years ago, the Brookfield Zoo hosted the temporary exhibit Dinos & Dragons. As I mentioned in “What is a Mold-A-Rama?” the Brookfield Zoo permanently has on display a life-sized sculpture of a Trachodon Louis Paul Jones Studios produced for Sinclair Oil Corporation’s Sinclair Dinoland exhibit at New York City’s second World’s Fair, EXPO New York (1964-65).

Dinos Everywhere features over forty animatronic dinosaurs. This includes an Argentinosaurus that measures over 110 feet long and three stories high that is standing on the Brookfield Zoo’s West Mall. [Fans of this animatronic Argentinosaurus should enjoy Maximo at The Field Museum of Natural History and vice versa.] This is an interactive exhibit. Visitors can snap photographs of themselves (“selfies”) in front of animatronic behemoths, including a Tyrannosaurus rex, Stegosaurus, pteranondon, or pentaceratops; download the BZ Rewards app; and upload selfies to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to be entered to win prizes. They can answer dinosaur-related trivia questions for an opportunity to win a prize. Click here to submit answers on the Sweepstakes Webpage. Prizes include giant plush dinosuars.

Figure 1 Credit: Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This map shows where life-sized dinosaur animatrons are situated on the grounds of Brookfield Zoo.

Figure 2 Credit: Jim Schultz/Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This animatronic dinosaur is an *Ankylosaurus*.

Figure 3 Credit: Jim Schultz/Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This animatronic dinosaur is an *Argentinosaurus*.

Figure 4 Credit: Jim Schultz/Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This animatronic dinosaur is a *Datousaurus*.

Figure 5 Credit: Jim Schultz/Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This animatronic dinosaur is a *Deinonychus*.

Figure 6 Credit: Jim Schultz/Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This animatronic dinosaur is a *Rapetosaurus.*

Figure 7 Credit: Jim Schultz/Chicago Zoological Society Caption: This animatronic dinosaur is a *Tyrannosaurus rex*.

COVID-19 Precautions

“Brookfield Zoo has been closed for nearly four months and we are eagerly looking forward to welcoming guests back to reconnect with animals and nature,” stated Stuart Strahl, President and Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.) of the C.Z.S. “We have been following guidelines set forth by local, state, and federal government and health agencies to ensure the well-being of our zoo guests, staff, volunteers, and the animals.”

All visitors to the Brookfield Zoo, including Members, must purchase timed-entry tickets in advance. No tickets are being sold on-site. Zoo Admission tickets are being sold in twenty-minute increments. For example, the first Zoo Admission for the day is 9:30 a.m. and the second is 9:50 a.m. There is a limit on the number of people who may purchase Zoo Admission tickets within a time frame such as 9:30. By limiting the visitor capacity for the 216-acre zoological park, the C.Z.S. can ensure there are not so many people on the zoo grounds at any given time that they are unable to practice social distancing. There are paw-shaped signs painted on the pavement to remind visitors to practice social distancing of six feet.

One needs to reserve parking online prior to one’s visit. Indicate whether one plans to park at the Main Gate (North Gate) parking lot or the South Gate parking lot. All tickets are non-refundable. No rainchecks will be made.

Staff members and volunteers have their temperatures checked before they begin work shifts. They have received safety and sanitation training, and they are wearing face coverings, regularly wash their hands, and practice social distancing of six feet. Further, employees are spraying down washrooms, benches, and other high-contact surfaces with hospital-grade disinfectants on a set schedule.

All guests ages two-and-over must wear face coverings when entering the zoo grounds and whenever they are unable to practice social distancing from other guests and staff or volunteers. This includes when a party of guests is making a food or merchandise purchase. Hand sanitizer stations have been installed throughout the zoo grounds.

Actual paper maps of the zoo ground are not being distributed at the Main Gate and South Gate. Instead, parents (and other adults) may download the map from the Chicago Zoological Society’s Website or take a high-resolution picture of the maps posted at the entrances and refer back to the pictures as they explore the zoo grounds.

In addition to being able to see Dinosaurs Everywhere!, one can see animals in their outdoor habitats, including the newly arrived African lion brothers Brutus and Titus. Seasonal food carts, food stands, and souvenir stands will be in operation. To limit person-to-person contact, visitors must use credit or debit cards to purchase food, beverages, and merchandise. In a press release, the C.Z.S. flatly stated, “Brookfield Zoo is a cashless park.”

However, be prepared for indoor spaces and attractions to be closed. The exhibits Seven Seas (home to the “Dolphins in Action” show), Tropic World, and Butterflies, are closed. The same is true of the Hamill Family Play Zoo. The Carousel and the playground are closed. These restaurants are closed: BZ Red Hots, Café del Sol, Cup & Cone, Peacock Café & Grill, and Wild Burger. The Motor Safari is not running.

Brookfield Zoo Admission Ticket Prices

Category	Price
Adults[1]	$24.95
Children (3-11)	$17.95
Senior Citizens (65+)	$19.95
Parking	$15

The C.Z.S.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 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 (A.Z.A.). 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.

Under normal circumstances, the Brookfield Zoo is open every day of the year. It is open from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

The Brookfield Zoo 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. Check www.CZS.org/KnowBeforeYouGo for status updates.

[1] Active-duty military service personnel, reservists, veterans, and retired military personnel receive free admission, but this does not extend to their families, and one must still pay for parking. On the Website, follow directions for a complimentary admission pass with a barcode. Be prepared to show one’s military identification card at the admission booth.

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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.