Jackson Park, MSI

Jackson Park, MSI continued...

In 1890, Jackson Park was selected as home for the World's Columbian Exposition, originally intended to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' maiden voyage in 1892; the official opening came the next year, but the delay didn't much matter.

Its gleaming, ornate buildings -- some designed by architects Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan -- created a "White City" to remember. Visitors and critics debated which of its buildings was grandest. Noted French-Irish sculptor August Saint-Gaudens, creator of the fair's commemorative medal, called the Palace of Fine Arts "as divinely proportioned an edifice as ever filled and satisfied the eye of man."

The amusements along the Midway Plaisance -- now a parkway connecting Jackson and Washington Parks -- included a young magician named Harry Houdini, a scandalous dancer named Little Egypt and the debut of the Ferris Wheel, at the Midway and Woodlawn Avenue.

Houdini and Little Egypt (who, at 62 would also dance at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair) are gone, of course; the giant Ferris Wheel (250 feet tall and capable of carrying 2,160 riders), after a brief stop on Clark Street and Wrightwood Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, was junked.

This White City, a lot of it illusion (painted plaster, intended to be temporary), was mostly burned by vandals or demolished. Two buildings survived onsite: a replica of the Convent of La Rabida, which was converted to a children's hospital but burned in 1922 (and now occupies a lakefront building nearby); and the Palace of Fine Arts, its plaster replaced by sturdier stuff in the 1920s and today beloved as the Museum of Science and Industry.

(A third building, a replica of a Norwegian church, today is part of Little Norway, a museum-village in Blue Mound, Wis.; a fourth, the Maine Building -- one of several state-sponsored exhibition spaces -- is back in Maine as a museum in Poland Spring.)

Generations of Chicago children and their parents have been thrilled by the exhibits and attractions within the Museum of Science and Industry. Here, countless city kids have seen chicks hatch before their very eyes. Its signature simulation of a working coal mine is virtually unchanged since its 1933 debut. The U-505, a captured World War II German sub, had been sitting outside and slowly dissolving since 1954; restored and, in 2005, installed in its own building, it's now a centerpiece of a dazzling multi-media experience.

Flight simulators. An Omnimax theater. Two full-size locomotives and the ultimate model railroad. A miniature circus and fairy castle. The Apollo 8 spacecraft that carried astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders in moon orbit.

And new for 2010: a walk-through tornado, part of weather-simulator exhibit that also includes lightning, avalanches and other phenomena. "The grandest thing we have ever done," says museum president David Mosena.

All here -- within this building that, itself, is a wonder.

And right outside, in Jackson Park, are lagoons, walking trails, ball fields, an 18-hole golf course and golf driving range, a marina, a popular beach featuring a Chicago Landmark beach house (1919) -- plus two more reminders of 1893.

Osaka Garden sits on Wooded Island in a Jackson Park lagoon. Created for the fair's Japanese Pavilion, several restorations -- the last major one in 2002 -- have helped to bring back much of its original grace and beauty. And the gleaming, golden statue of "The Republic" is a one-third scale (but nonetheless a monumental 24-foot-high) replica of the Daniel Chester French original that stood in the fair's Grand Basin; this Chicago Landmark rules over a roundabout near the park's center, facing Lake Michigan.

All this is within range of the attractions of surrounding neighborhoods -- more museums, architecture, the University of Chicago and the shopping and restaurants -- that make Hyde Park, Washington Park/Woodlawn and South Shore/Grand Crossing worth exploring and enjoying.

It's not a World's Fair -- that was long ago -- but it's all world-class.

For more information about Jackson Park, MSI, contact the Jackson Park Advisory Council (773.947.9541) or Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce, (773.288.0124).