Ice Skate to Save Grant Park!

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The Chicago Children’s Museum, which is currently located at Navy Pier, is planning to move to Grant Park. While this may be lucrative for the board members of the privately owned, nonprofit musuem—amongst other donations they will receive $15 million from Allstate Insurance—the local residents of the area are none too happy with the move.

The construction of the museum will also violate a legal stipulation that prohibits development in Grant Park so that the lakefront will be “Forever Open, Clear and free.” Alderman Brendan Reilly, speaking on behalf of the constituents of the ward where the new Children’s museum would be located, has publicly condemned the move. Normally aldermen have absolute say over projects in their wards, but the corporate and political interests that favor the new museum are trying to supercede this authority. Mayor Daley vociferously supports the move, and is looking for ways to circumvent the alderman’s power.

Mayor Daley and the board members of the Chicago Children’s museum must hear the protest of the people! The museum is to be built on 100,000 square feet of Grant Park land, right next to the Daley Bicentennial Field House. The kind funders of the new museum have even offered to revamp this field house, free of charge.

Protest the Museum’s move by bringing your family to an ice-skating protest party. There is an ice rink at Daley Bicentennial Plaza that will be no more once the tractors role in. If 100 people join this group, we will bring family, friends, and a hefty supply of signs to protest development of Grant Park. The protest will occur at noon on December 1, the day that the rink opens.

For more information on this issue, visit the following websites:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/architecture/070914/
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=26403