Tag Archives: zoos

Lincoln Park Zoo ’22

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Back in 1984, I took a trip to Chicago from Nashville for the Labor Day weekend. That was the first place I ever went after getting a full-time job. I stayed with my friend Rich, whose apartment was in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, where one could live comfortably just out of college.

That’s how long ago it was. Lincoln Park was then emerging from decades as — not full-blown slum, but maybe the St. Charles Place-States Avenue-Virginia Avenue of Chicago, so rents were still relatively affordable. Those days are long over.

During that visit, Rich suggested we go to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which we did. I’ve visited periodically over the decades since then, and always like it. Zoos can be much more than places to take your kids, though they are that too.Lincoln Park Zoo

The animals, of course, are the prime attraction. Such as the great apes. This one’s a little hard to spot.Lincoln Park Zoo

Another of his troop was indoors. He was easier to see. Well, if you were up front.Lincoln Park Zoo Lincoln Park Zoo

Some Père David’s deer. Native to China, they just barely escaped extinction by being bred in European zoos.Lincoln Park Zoo

Flamingos. Lots of flamingos. Some sources say the collective is a flamboyance of flamingos, others say a stand.Lincoln Park Zoo

I also like some of the zoo buildings, such the Kovler Lion House, outside and in.Lincoln Park Zoo Lincoln Park Zoo

No lions were to be seen that morning, however. Guess they were taking cat naps out of sight.

A concession stand.Lincoln Park Zoo

But it’s got style.

The Abbott Oceanarium

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Years ago I attended the “groundbreaking” for the Shedd Aquarium’s Oceanarium, officially the Abbott Oceanarium these days, as an editor of a real estate magazine. Usually groundbreaking ceremonies involve guys in suits and hardhats moving a little dirt with gold-colored shovels. It’s an established ritual in the development business.

Occasionally developers take a different approach. One time in Nashville, a developer planned to raze an older building on West End Ave. — a fairly large commercial street — and so painted one of the large wooden doors on the old structure bright red, and then knocked it in with a wrecking ball. The really odd thing about that was that actual demolition didn’t start for a few more days, and in the interim the red door was put back together haphazardly. Maybe the owners didn’t want bums looking for shelter there.

At the Shedd, we stood outside — it was cold, so it must have been late 1989 or early 1990 — as a crane hoisted a square-cut boulder into the air at the edge of Lake Michigan. It was a big thing, the sort of rock used to build breakwaters. The ceremony consisted of dropping the rock into the lake, right where the Shedd planned its expansion.

This is what that the exterior of the Oceanarium looks like now, jutting into Lake Michigan.
The facility’s upper level includes a sizable amphitheater that looks over a large pond and then through the windows out into the lake (with the Adler Planetarium visible not far away). During a show, the window are shuttered.

Abbott OceanariumAbbott OceanariumWe saw a show. The Shedd staff didn’t say so openly, of course, but the subtext of the event was, “We’re not like Seaworld. Not at all. Don’t even think it.” The dolphins and beluga whales thus interacted with their trainers, and the animals seemed glad to be there. It wasn’t a particularly exciting show, though.

There’s also a tank for otters and another one for penguins.
Abbott Oceanarium PenguinsWe also spent a while watch the belugas in their tank, who were joined by Shedd staff. A lot of other people watched, too.
Abbott Oceanarium belugasAbbott Oceanarium belugasAbbott Oceanarium beluga tank diversAbbott Oceanarium belugasMore fun to watch that the organized show, I think.

Audubon Zoo, 1989

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One of the places you can visit riding the St. Charles Streetcar Line in New Orleans, if you’ve a mind to, is Audubon Park. That’s what we did May 1989, even though it was (of course) hot and sticky that day. The park is home to the Audubon Zoo. Just the thing when you’ve had enough, for the moment, of the human-oriented diversions of the French Quarter.

These days there are about 2,000 animals in residence. It probably wasn’t much different then, spread out on 58 acres between St. Charles and the Mississippi, with a good many open-air exhibits. I don’t specifically remember Monkey Hill, but the story about that rise — built by the WPA — is that it was used to show local children what a hill looked like.

That wouldn’t have made much of an impression on me, considering that I came a place with hills. One time my friend Tom and I took a visitor from the East Coast to a substantial hill in Austin, and walked up it, just for the purpose of curing her of the notion that “Texas is flat.”

We took an amble through the zoo, seeing the likes of ostriches.

Audubon Zoo 1989-1And rhinos. Or is that a hippo out of the water? I can’t quite tell just looking at the picture. Not visible here, but I’m pretty sure we saw a number of gators lurking around these waters.

Audubon Zoo 1989-2Then there was this fellow.

Audubon Zoo gorilla 1989As far as I can tell, that’s not Casey the gorilla, who seems to be locally known but who didn’t arrive at the zoo until long after we’d been there.

The Lincoln Park Zoo

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Easter Saturday was a pleasant day in Lincoln Park in Chicago. The view south from the Lincoln Park Conservatory at about 2:30 pm.

Chicago, April 4, 2015This is how old our children are. Us: Want to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo on Saturday? Them: Nah, we’d rather stay home.

So they did, while Yuriko and I went to the city, enjoying lunch at the always delicious Ann Sather Swedish restaurant on Belmont (serving cinnamon buns imbued with ambrosia), a short visit at the DePaul Art Museum — only open since 2011, so we’d never seen it — a walk to Lincoln Park, a stop at its conservatory, and then some time at the zoo. Except for the restaurant, all free attractions.

At the other end of the lawn pictured above is a statue. Of course I had to take a picture of that.

Schiller 2015It’s Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. Why is he here? Y asked. There used to be a lot of Germans here. After World War II? No, after 1848. Also a bad time in Germany. They wanted out — and came to places like Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and… central Texas. The statue is a copy of one near Schiller’s birthplace in Marbach, Germany, by Ernst Bilhauer Rau. It’s been in this spot in Chicago for nearly 130 years.

I’ve been visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo occasionally since 1984, when my friend Rich took me there during my Labor Day weekend flyup to Chicago from Nashville. This time around, many of the animals weren’t outside — still too cool for them, or maybe it was their day off — but we saw some of the primates, the sea lions, and a few felines.

I was astonished then, and I am now, that there’s no admission. That probably adds to the crowds, especially on a pleasant weekend in spring, but the zoo holds its crowds well. It isn’t like Disneyland — you don’t have to wait an hour in line to see a lion.

Lincoln Park Zoo Lion, 2015Leo here would periodically park himself on top of this rock. He had an audience.

Lincoln Park Zoo, April 4, 2015Mostly he would lie there (being a cat, after all), but sometimes he’d open his mouth, and he also roared a bit. It didn’t quite sound like the roars you hear in movies.