By Save Grant Park
Opponents of building a 100,000-square-foot children’s museum in Grant Park are calling on Mayor Daley, the City Council and the Chicago Children’s Museum to solicit public input on 24 alternative sites recently unveiled by Alderman Brendan Reilly (42nd), as well as seek additional recommendations from the public.
Save Grant Park, a citywide grassroots group, says Reilly’s list contains many viable sites in downtown, but it would be unfair for the City Council to dismiss locations in other parts of the city without giving them full consideration.
Reilly’s list of 24 alternative sites is based on recommendations from citizens across the city. It includes several downtown locations, including expanding the museum’s current home at Navy Pier, as well as Northerly Island and the Museum Campus. Reilly’s list also includes a number of sites outside of downtown Chicago, including Hyde Park, Logan Square, Garfield Park and Bronzeville.
Save Grant Park says that they have already posted the list of alternatives on their website to solicit public feedback and new ideas, and they are asking the museum and Mayor Daley to do the same.
“The Chicago Children’s Museum is aggressively seeking taxpayer subsidies. If they want taxpayer’s money they should also seek taxpayer’s ideas for the new location by aggressively seeking full public input into alternative sites,” said Peggy Figiel, co-founder of Save Grant Park. “Everyone in Chicago deserves to have their voices heard, and every neighborhood deserves full and equal consideration, especially considering the potential for creating sustainable economic development that is at stake.”
Save Grant Park notes that the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is located miles from that city’s downtown in a diverse low-income neighborhood, and it is also the largest and most successful children’s museum in the country, generating nearly $60 million a year in economic development.
“The success of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is undeniable evidence that an institution can thrive in many types of locations,” said Figiel. “The Chicago Children’s Museum needs to follow the successful blueprint of Indianapolis and stop their single minded insistence that downtown Chicago in general, and Grant Park in particular, is the only place where they could be successful.
“In fact, four Supreme Court decisions have made clear that the only location that must be ruled out is Grant Park. It’s time for the museum and its supporters to take the blinders off and give every neighborhood in Chicago a chance to compete for the tremendous economic benefit that a high-quality children’s museum could bring.”
“Montgomery Ward waged a 21-year legal battle to protect Grant Park, and we will continue to fight to preserve 172 years of legal decisions and public policy that have preserved Grant Park as forever open, clear and free.” Figiel added. “Our city’s front yard is irreplaceable, and shouldn’t be privatized, but instead protected for future generations of Chicagoans of all ages and from every corner of the city to enjoy, just as past generations have protected it for us.”
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Children’s Museum of Indianapolis Provides Successful Model
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is located six miles north of downtown Indianapolis in a diverse, low-income neighborhood. Parents Magazine ranked the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis the top museum in the country, with world-class exhibits, 365,000 square feet of exhibit space, and over 1 million visitors a year. The Indianapolis museum generated $24 million in revenue in 2006 and creates nearly $60 million a year in economic development, according to a study by Professor Mark Rosentraub of Cleveland State University.
The Legal Case Against Building in Grant Park
Four Illinois Supreme Court decisions have made clear that Grant Park is specially protected open space. From the first Supreme Court decision in 1897 to the most recent, the law makes clear that Grant Park is public ground “not to be occupied with buildings of any description.”
The law also prohibits Grant Park from being used for “such circuses or exhibitions to which the public would not be admitted for free.”
In addition, in 1909 the Supreme Court ruled specifically on a proposal to build The Field Museum in Grant Park. At that time, supporters of The Field Museum made exactly the same arguments that supporters of the Chicago Children’s Museum are making today. Those arguments were categorically rejected by the court, and they have been rejected by history. Everyone agrees that The Field Museum has been highly successful at its current location. In fact, The Field Museum is recognized as one of the best and most popular museums in the world, and it is visited by more than 2.1 million people each year, including hundreds of thousands of children.
About Save Grant Park
Save Grant Park is a grassroots group with thousands of supporters from across the city who have signed petitions and volunteered their time. Allies of Save Grant Park and opponents of building a children’s museum on Grant Park include Preservation Chicago, which put Grant Park on their Endangered List, Friends of the Parks, Friends of Downtown and Environment Illinois.
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Posted on March 20, 2008