When are the Remaining Free Days at the Museum of Science & Industry in 2022?

There are fourteen Illinois Free Days remaining at the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry (M.S.I.) in 2022: ten in September, two in October, and two in November. The remaining Illinois Free Days in 2022 are September 6^th and 7^th, 12^th through the 15^th, 19^th and 20^th, 26^th and 27^th; October 4-5; and November 1^st and 8^th. This schedule is subject to change. Please keep in mind even when Museum Entry (general admission) tickets are free it is still necessary to acquire Museum Entry tickets. There is a limit of six minors (under eighteen) per parent (or another adult chaperone). Pricing is applied at checkout. Obviously, the usual Chicago residency discounts are not applicable on Illinois Free Days.[1] Certain people can always have the Museum Entry ticket fee waived.[2]

Remaining 2022 Illinois Free Days at the Museum of Science and Industry

Month	Date
September	Tuesday, September 6, A.D. 2022 Wednesday, September 7, A.D. 2022 Monday, September 12, A.D. 2022 Tuesday, September 13, A.D. 2022 Wednesday, September 14, A.D. 2022 Thursday, September 15, A.D. 2022 Monday, September 19, A.D. 2022 Tuesday, September 20, A.D. 2220 Monday, September 26, A.D. 2022 Tuesday, September 27, A.D. 2022
October	Tuesday, October 4, A.D. 2022 Wednesday, October 5, A.D. 2022
November	Tuesday, November 1, A.D. 2022 (All Saints Day) Tuesday, November 8, A.D. 2022

Keep in mind that when Museum Entry tickets are free for Illinois residents, tickets for special events, special exhibits, or to see a movie in the Giant Dome Theater are not free. This is a chance, though, for individuals, couples, and families who would find it cost prohibitive to have those experiences, go through those special exhibits (which are often touring exhibits that parade from one major museum to another in the biggest cities around the world), or see those movies without having the added expense of having to pay for Museum Entry. These free days in September, October, and November are especially good news for families with small children not yet in school and for homeschooling families. LEGO® fans are in luck, too, because the traveling exhibit The Art of the Brick has been extended through mid-January.

The Art of the Brick features over 100 of Nathan Sawaya’s artworks comprised of millions of LEGO® bricks, made its Chicago debut at the M.S.I. on Friday, February 10, A.D. 2022). [This exhibit was not created by The LEGO® Group. However, The LEGO® Group has recognized Mr. Sawaya as both a LEGO® Master Builder and a LEGO® Certified Professional.] The exhibit was originally scheduled to run through yesterday, Monday, September 5, A.D. 2022 (Labor Day). However, by popular demand the M.S.I. extended The Art of the Brick through Monday, January 16, A.D. 2023.

Figure 1 Credit: The Art of the Brick Caption: This is artist Nathan Sawaya working in one of his studios on July 17, A.D. 2010.

As of now, tickets for The Art of the Brick are $14 for adults and $11 for children (between the ages of three-and-eleven); tickets for the Coal Mine tour are $12 for adults and $9 for children (3-11); tickets for Dissect an Eye are $12 for adults and $9 for children; tickets for FabLab workshops are $12 for adults and $9 for children; and tickets for the U-505 Onboard Tour are $18 for adults and $14 for children. If one parks in the underground garage, it will cost $22 per vehicle.

Please note that as of now neither the M.S.I. nor any other major museum in Chicago is participating in Smithsonian Magazine’s Museum Day this year. I will be posting a separate article about which museums will be free on Museum Day, which is coming up next week.

Masks are no longer required to walk around the Museum of Science and Industry. However, visitors must don masks in certain confined spaces, including while taking the onboard tour of the U-505, the tour of the Coal Mine, participating in Dissect an Eye at MSI, and participating in workshops at the Wanger Family Fab Lab.

The Museum of Science and Industry is located in Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. Currently, the Museum of Science and Industry is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 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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ENDNOTES

[1] Currently, Chicago residents enjoy $5 off per adult and $3 off per child on Museum Entry.

[2] Active-duty U.S. military personnel and veterans, Illinois P.O.W.s, Chicago police officers, Chicago firefighters, and Illinois teachers (preschool-through 12^th Grade) can click on this link and fill out the Free Museum Entry Request form. Alternatively, they can show their military or occupational identification cards when getting tickets onsite.

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.