Month: July 2018

Chances are, if you’re a Chicagoan, you’ve visited Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo is located at 2001 N. Clark St. in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The zoo was founded in 1868 and marks it’s 150th anniversary this year! It is one of the oldest zoos in the U.S. and one of the free admission zoos. It comprises 35 acres of land and houses approximately 1,100 animals.

Lincoln Park zoo is home to many types and species of animals, such as tigers, cougars, bears, polar bears, penguins and other birds, gorillas and other monkeys and reptiles. The zoo also contains a burr oak tree that dates back to 1830 (before the City of Chicago was founded in 1833). The first animals to live at the zoo in 1868 were four swans that were a gift from New York City. Many other animals soon followed.

Some of the zoo’s major exhibits are: Farm-in-the-Zoo, Kovler Sea Lion Pool, Kovler Lion House, Helen Brach Primate House, McCormick Bird House, Nature Boardwalk, Pritzker Family Children’s Zoo, Regenstein African Journey, Regenstein Center for African Apes and Regenstein Small Mammal Reptile House.

Lincoln Park Zoo also has a beautiful flower conservatory and nature center and you can also rent paddle boats to use on the Lincoln Park Lagoon. There also plenty of restaurants/cafes for refreshments. I always enjoy visiting Lincoln Park Zoo and know you will too. No Summer is complete without a visit to the zoo!

For more information on Lincoln Park Zoo visit their website at:

www.lpzoo.org

• Please Note – All photos (with the exception of the last one) are from Wikipedia. The last photo is of my Mom and myself in front of the flower conservatory. It was taken by my Dad.

 

 

 

The Eastland Disaster happened in Chicago on July 24, 1915. So, next Tuesday will mark 103 years since the disaster occurred. The Eastland was a passenger tour boat. On the day of the accident, the ship was headed to Michigan City Indiana transporting about 2,500 passengers/employees from Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Cicero IL to a picnic. The employees were very excited about the trip, because they didn’t get vacations. Many of them were Czech immigrants. The ship was filled to capacity.

Unfortunately the Eastland never made it to the picnic area. In fact, it never left the port in Chicago. The Eastland overturned in the port at the bank of the Chicago river between Clark and LaSalle Streets. It’s believed it was due to the weight of the passengers and the fact that many of them suddenly shifted to one area on the upper deck of the ship. 844 passengers and 4 crew members died in this tragedy, many of whom were trapped inside the lower decks and crushed by heavy furniture. The Eastland Disaster ranks as one of the worst maritime disasters in American history.

Thalia Hall is a live music venue located in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago at 1807 S. Allport Street (at the corner of Allport and 18th Street). It is a legendary landmark built/commissioned in 1892 by saloonkeeper John Dusek and designed by architects Faber and Pagels. It hosts live performance events such as concerts and shows, as well as community activities. The building also houses retail and restaurant space.

It was built in the Romanesque Revival style and was designated a Chicago Landmark on October 25, 1989. The building was named for Thalia (Greek muse of comedy and poetry). The building was modeled after the Old Opera House in Prague, Czechoslovakia (where most of the Czech population in Pilsen had emigrated from). It was completed and opened to the public around the time of the opening of the World’s Columbian Exhibition. It is a very large commercial building. It cost $145,000 to build. That was alot for the 1800s (when most such buildings cost $50,000).

Thalia Hall became both a community gathering place and center for the arts. Community Centers (or Halls as they were called) were an important fixture in immigrant communities. It was a way for them to connect with people of their own nationalities in a big city that could be quite unfriendly at times. The residents had mostly manual labor jobs in factories, but enjoyed the arts, such as music and theater on the weekends and after work as recreation. Halls were also a place where labor union organizers often gathered to fight for labor issues such as an 8 hour workday, Sundays off and for saloons to be open on Sundays. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was once a saloonkeeper at Thalia Hall!

I was able to see Thalia Hall in person during a bus tour of Pilsen. When I saw it a wave of emotion came over me, because I was able to see this beautiful and historically significant building preserved so accurately and beautifully. It was a place I only read about in history, but since it has been preserved so well, I can see it as it looked in 1892 (when it was built)! ……………..Amazing, and the same is true of Pilsen itself!

*Note – The first two photos are my own. The rest are from Google.

 

 

Harold Washington Library Center is the central/main library for the Chicago Public Library System. It is located at 400 S. State Street. It is a very large building that contains about 972,000 square feet of space. The structure was completed in October 1991. It was built by architects Hammond, Beeby and Babka and was designed in the Postmodern and Beaux Art styles. The library was cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest public library in the world.

The building is named after Harold Washington, the first African-American Mayor of Chicago. Mayor Washington supported and championed the building of the new library when he was elected in 1983. Unfortunately, Harold Washington passed away before the library was completed. Mayor Washington passed away in 1987 and the library was completed in 1991. Mayor Richard Daley named the library after Mayor Washington to commemorate his many accomplishments during his tenure (especially in his dedication to education and reading) and to recognize that he was highly instrumental in getting the library built.

The library is laid out as follows:

• Lower level: Cindy Pritzker Auditorium, Multi-Purpose Room and Exhibit Hall.
• Central lobby:  two stories tall and includes the circulation and information desks; Popular Library and a YouMedia space for teens.
• Second floor:  Children’s library.
• Third floor: computers for public use, periodicals, interlibrary loan and general information services departments along with a maker space. The Maker Lab includes multiple 3d printers, CNC machines and Laser Cutters.
• Fourth floor: business, general sciences, and technology items.
• Fifth floor: government publications, Chicago municipal references, maps, and center for the blind, visually impaired and physically disabled.
• Sixth floor: social sciences and history resources.
• Seventh floor: literature and language resources.
• Eighth floor: visual and performing arts resources, music practice rooms, and audio/visual rooms.
• Ninth floor holds the winter garden, which can be used as a reading room, or be rented for social functions, also on this floor are exhibit halls, Special Collections, and the Harold Washington Archives and Collections.
• The tenth floor is not open to the public. It houses library offices and technical services.

Other highlights of the library center include the City of Chicago’s Public Art collection, which consists of over 50 works of art spread throughout every floor of the building. Also, the Special Collections section on the 9th floor contains archival collections of photographs, manuscripts, books and art items about Chicago history and culture, the life of Harold Washington and the Civil War.

If you’ve never (or rarely) been to the Harold Washington Library Center, I recommend taking the escalators and elevators to every floor of the building and exploring the many resources and treasures that are available (beyond just books)!