Friends of the Parks

For Immediate Release

Contact: Erma Tranter

trantere@fotp.org

April 9, 2008

Testimony Presented to the Chicago Park District on the Chicago Children’s Museum

The board letter in your packet is in error on Friends of the Parks’ position on the Chicago Children’s Museum. On February 8, 2007 we testified that “Friends of the Parks supports the concept of the Children’s Museum in Grant Park”. Museums can legally be located in Chicago’s parks. However, we stated the final architectural design would have to comply with Chicago’s legal requirements; the Lake Michigan and Chicago Lakefront Protection Ordinance and the A. Montgomery Ward Court Decisions.

Friends of the Parks has reviewed the latest architectural design for the Children’s Museum and determined that the building does not meet the applicable restrictions on above-ground buildings in Grant Park.

We believe that the plan to construct the Chicago Children’s Museum in Grant Park violates the 172 year-old “forever open, clear and free” protection established in 1836 by Sanitary Canal commissioners and upheld by the courts in the 20^th century.

The Chicago Children’s Museum is designed with a two-story, 3,800 sq. ft. building at the upper level of Randolph Street which violates the two legal covenants:

1. Lake Michigan and Chicago Lakefront Protection Ordinance (LPO)

Policy 5 of the Lakefront Protection Ordinance states: “Maintain and improve the formal character and open water vista of Grant Park with no new above-ground structure permitted”.

2. A. Montgomery Ward Court Decisions

Grant Park is governed by the A. Montgomery Ward court decisions including the Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling that Grant Park is to remain “Forever Open, Clear and Free of any Buildings”.

While we deeply respect the efforts of the Children’s Museum to find a way to meet these legal restrictions, it appears that it simply may not be architecturally achievable with the broader needs of the museum. The current fieldhouse structure that the museum proposes to supplant and replace is, in fact, wholly below ground.

Perhaps there are other more appropriate locations for the museum that would both meet its needs that would involve another park or greater loop location.

We ask you to uphold Chicago’s most sacred legal precedents for Grant Park and vote to oppose the Children’s Museum in Grant Park.

To see the guiding Principles of Friends of the Parks which define the park, neighborhood and open space policies that our organization encourages, supports and promotes go to issues/principles of FOTP.