Kudos to Sun-Times architecture writer Lee Bey’s perceptive critique of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry’s damaging proposal to alter the building’s north facade. But if I could offer my own respectful critique of the critique: It didn’t go far enough.
The museum’s current proposals to significantly alter both the building’s north and south elevations display gross disrespect for a masterpiece of classical composition that generations of architectural commentators have deemed to be nearly perfect in composition, proportions and detail.
Created as the Palace of Fine Arts for Chicago’s legendary World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, it is the sole intact major building surviving from this epoch in the city’s history. This fact alone is reason enough to protectively respect its integrity. But the original architect, Charles B. Atwood, gave it even more. At the time of completion and for decades afterward, it came to be regarded as perfection in its adaptation of Classical architecture — a challenging genre in which all parts must precisely relate to the whole.
Even when the building’s temporary skin of hard plaster was to be removed and replaced with permanent limestone for its 1930s conversion into the Museum of Science and Industry, the renovation drawings firmly stated that all details were to be reproduced exactly to preserve its precisely composed architectural integrity.
The current museum proposal to remove or cut gap-toothed holes into the boldly scaled classical grand staircases and the glassing-in of both monumental entry porticos hardly reflect the respect given to this architectural masterpiece over the last 133 years and the motives behind making it a protected city landmark.
Perhaps the only hope is for the guardian angels of great architecture to somehow make these damaging proposals disappear.
Tim Samuelson, cultural historian emeritus — city of Chicago
Let Chicagoans sit again
Bravo to Sam Kovnar and Eddie Lehwald of the Northwest Neighborhood Alliance for facilitating some return to sanity and hospitality in reinstalling seating at city bus stops (“This group is building benches at bus stops that don’t have one. Will the city let them stay?“).
Can we go further and return much-needed benches to parks, walkways and along city streets?
Is Chicago such a city on the go that pedestrians are not allowed to stop anywhere?
People-watching from her perch on a city bench was one of my grandmother’s favorite pastimes. Benches also provide much-needed rest when running errands on foot or going on long walks.
Contrary to the argument that they increase loitering, benches can actually deter crime by creating natural eyes and ears on the streets.
As for attracting those without a bed, do we close libraries because the unhoused may choose to spend time there? Where is our humanity in causing those who need a rest to sit on the sidewalk? Let Chicagoans sit again!
Ruth Solomon Tupper, West Rogers Park
Why your vote matters
We are Americans, and we vote! Lest you think your vote doesn’t matter, here are four reasons why it does:
It allows you to express your opinions and values and choose elected leaders who will make decisions on your behalf and whom you can hold accountable.
It supports strong schools. Voting helps choose leaders who decide school funding, classroom resources, after-school programs and the quality of education students receive.
It improves neighborhoods. Your vote shapes local housing, public transit, healthcare and community safety.
It lets you choose the judges who make decisions that can protect your rights, affect your families, and shape whether systems make people’s lives better or worse.
So make a plan to vote, either by mail, at an early voting site or in person on Election Day.
Voting is the foundation on which our very democracy was built. To vote is a privilege and a right. Do not squander it!
Diane Edmundson, League of Women Voters of Cook County
Make restaurant careers more accessible
As Chicago works to bring the James Beard Awards back, we should consider how the city can lead the industry in expanding access to restaurant careers.
The industry must recognize that people with disabilities are a valuable part of the industry’s workforce and a solution to the restaurants’ turnover crisis. More pathways must be created to connect them with employers.
Some Chicago-area businesses are already taking steps in that direction. For example, our industry partners are offering internships to participants completing Aspire’s Food Services Employment Training Program, which prepares people with disabilities for front- and back-of-house restaurant roles.
Expanding access to restaurant careers can help employers build more stable teams, create meaningful employment opportunities and demonstrate to the rest of the country what the future of a strong culinary community can look like.
Serena Alaily, La Grange
The AI education paradox
If AI-powered cheating accelerates America’s educational decline, gullible administrators will share the blame. The University of Chicago, my alma mater, recently gave students and faculty free access to Anthropic’s Claude software. It is thus working not to educate students but to help them bypass education.
AI poses an unprecedented threat to education. Its purpose, evident in the term “artificial intelligence” itself, is to think so users don’t have to. But thinking is the point of education. Education is the product of the mental struggle for which AI offers itself as a substitute.
Schools build the knowledge, skills and habits of mind that help people solve complex problems and participate intelligently in society. These are built over time, through practice and feedback that gradually change students’ brains. Learning occurs through, and is inseparable from, the investment of time and effort.
AI encourages students to skip learning: Upload your assignment, and the computer will do it for you. Never have students faced a more tempting but self-defeating escape from the woes of homework and grades, or a more addictive and mind-eroding drug. Schools should shelter them from it, not promote it.
The University of Chicago has always been a home for students who love to learn. Students talk about books and wear shirts extolling the Life of the Mind. It is a former Big Ten school that once bulldozed its football field and replaced it with a library. It now throws the bulldozer into reverse.
Ryan McCarl, attorney