Enjoy Chicago Museums

Like Lazarus, the museum of broadcast communications rose from the dead last Friday June 11, when Illinois governor Pat Quinn announced a $6 million grant to "expand" the Museum. Expand was the word used but resuscitate would have been more appropriate, as the museum has sat half-finished, empty and moribund for years at the corner of State and Kinzie. Indeed the abandoned building, very stark in contrast to the very high-rent district in which it sat, has been the subject of lawsuits, forclosure actions, and had finally been put up for sale by a board desperately trying to get money any place they could. The gift was promised in 2005; construction ground to a halt in 2006. Lawsuits for unpaid construction bills followed.

Dr. Paul H. Knappenberger Jr., president of the Adler planetarium, confirmed that the Adler has thrown its hat into the ring and is one of 21 museums throughout America that NASA is considering as a home to one of the three about-to-be-retired space shuttles.

There are 4 shuttles  currently in the fleet: Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour, and Enterprise (the fifth: Challenger, exploded On January 28, 1986. It disintegrated 73 seconds after launch due to the failure of the right SRB, killing all seven astronauts on board).  The Discovery has already been promised to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space museum, where it would replace the Enterprise, currently on exhibit. NASA is offering the other two to any institution that can pay 28.8 million for decommissioning and transport. NASA is keen on putting them where the American public will be able to see them. Thus a big city like Chicago, the biggest in the Midwest, probably has a shot at one.

A new permanent exhibit opened Thursday October 8 at the museum of science and industry, one in which you are the star. "You! The Experience" is the new human body exploration at the museum, replacing many well-remembered old exhibit elements that were showing their age.

Highlighting life and health, the exhibit is a highly interactive exploration of the human body, using your own body as the subject of many of the exhibit. The new exhibit is chocked full of technology, technology that appeals not only to kids but adults who visit. Its broken into numerous categories: your mind, your appetite, your heart, your future as well as your beginning. The exhibits are oriented toward you and using yourself to illustrate the concept: for example, the heart is a 13 by 8 foot projection in a dark room that will beat in time to your own heart (older visitors will remember the iconic beating heart, a giant walk-through heart on the upper level for years, that this exhibit replaces).

On Friday June 19, the Art Institute laid off 22 staff members, or 3% of its full-time staff (doing the math, there's approximately 733 full-time staff members at the Art Institute). Erin Hohan, their spokeswoman, made all the usual pronouncements that an institution such as this makes at such a  time: " "Of course we did everything we could to not go to this point," Hogan said. "All departments have for months been reducing their operating budgets."¹

Crain's Chicago Business reports that the cuts were taken in response to a decline in the value of its endowement. It goes on to say that " Non-profits, universities and foundations have been hit with budget issues as the recession deflates funding streams."²