“Halloween Fest Opens Today at Museum of Science & Industry”

“Boo Fest” is a two-week-long, family-friendly Halloween-themed special event at the Museum of Science and Industry (M.S.I.) that opens today, Friday, October 15, A.D. 2021 and runs through Sunday, October 31, A.D. 2021 (Halloween). [Please note, though, that Friday, October 29, A.D. 2021 is exclusively for Members.] “Boo Fest” is covered by Museum Entry (general admission) tickets, but some events under the “Boo Fest” umbrella do require the purchase of separate tickets. Please note the Coal Mine and U-505 On-Board Tour remain closed. One can walk around the U-505, but not through her.

Visitors are welcome to wear costumes. Please note that everyone ages two-and-over must wear a cloth face covering. Costume elements and makeup cannot interfere with the face covering. Visitors in costume should leave their prop weapons (such as a pirate’s cutlas) at home. Museum Park Café, located in Beaver Park, between the Henry Crown Space Center and the East Pavilion, is decorated for Halloween.

For “Boo fest,” the exhibit ToyMaker 3000 becomes “Haunted ToyMaker.” Visitors will see the toy factory manned by a skeleton crew. This exhibit is recommended for visitors ages eight-and-over.

There are two Live Science Experiences: the “Pumpkin Drop” and “Frankenslime.” With “Pumpkin Drop,” visitors watch pumpkins drop from the Balcony in the Central Pavilion for a demonstration about energy. With the “Frankenslime” demonstration, the M.S.I. invites visitors to “Watch us bring this creepy chemistry concoction to life!”

Visitors can dissect a cow eyeball in the Education Lab on the Balcony Level in the Central Pavilion. One must purchase an additional ticket. Tickets are $12 for adults and $9 for Children (ages three-to-eleven), or $11 for Adult Members and $8 for Child Members. This twenty-minute-long experience involves the use of a scalpel. Consequently, visitors to the Education Lab for this event under sixteen must be accompanied by a Lab-ticketed chaperone who is eighteen-or-older.

There are two Halloween-themed motion ride simulators. “Haunted Mine” takes riders through a mine in the old West. [Note this takes place entirely in a simulator, not the Coal Mine.] “Superstition” features ghosts, vampires, goblins, and other monsters with horror movie TV hostess Elvia as the guide. The purchase of an additional tickets is required.

Over the weekend of Halloween, kids can trick-or-treat at the M.S.I. Kids can bring bags and search for trick-or-treat stops throughout the Museum from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Figure 1 Credit: Heidi Peters, Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is a photo from the exhibit *Ships Gallery* decorated with Halloween decorations for “Boo Fest” in 2020.

Figure 2 Credit: J.B. Spector, Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is a photo of a cow eyeball dissection from “Boo Fest” on October 17, A.D. 2020.

Figure 3 Credit: J.B. Spector, Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is a picture of a boy looking at a telescope as part of a S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) educational event at the Museum of Science and Industry in 2019. The M.S.I. had another such event , dubbed “Science Works,” on Saturday, October 9, A.D. 2021.

Figure 4 Credit: Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is a photo from a S.T.E.M. career showcase at the Museum of Science and Industry on October 4, A.D. 2013.

Figure 9: J.B. Spector, Museum of Science and Industry Caption: This is the north façade of the Museum of Science and Industry, as seen on July 24, A.D. 2017.

Currently, the M.S.I. is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Museum of Science and Industry was formerly open every day of the year with the single exception of Christmas Day/the First Day of Christmas. [This year, that is Saturday, December 25, A.D. 2021.] Nowadays, it is also closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 25, A.D. 2021). Further, currently the Museum of Science and Industry is closed on Mondays. Friday, October 29, A.D. 2021 is a Members Day, meaning it will be open for Members only, from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The food court and the coffee shop on the Lower Level (ground floor) in the Central Pavilion’s Lower Court, are closed. The Museum Kitchen will open in 2022. Meanwhile, a new restaurant, the aforementioned Museum Parke Café, with outdoor seating in Beaver Park, on the Lower Level, is open from 10:30 a.m. until one hour before the M.S.I. closes. Finnigan’s Sandwich Shoppe, off Yesterday’s Main Street, on the Main Level, in the Central Pavilion, is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10:30 a.m. until one hour before the M.S.I. closes. Visitors who bring their own lunches can eat them in a tent outside the South Portico (behind the Coal Mine) of the Central Pavilion, in a designated area outside the Ships Gallery, and in the Lower Court.

The address of the M.S.I. is 5700 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60637. The Website is https://www.msichicago.org/ and the phone number is (773) 684-1414.

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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.