The Newberry Library

Chicago, IL

The Chicago Skyline is on the walls at Chicago Station (named after the street not the city).

The Newberry Library

Today we took the free public tour of The Newberry Library.  Walter L. Newberry, a businessman and civic leader in Chicago who died in 1868, left a provision in his will calling for the creation of a “free public library.” He died on a boat heading to France to get treatment for an unknown disease that he died from.  His body was placed in a barrel of rum to preserve it until it could be shipped back to Chicago.  He gravesite is in Chicago. The library houses books, pamphlets, ephemera, and other documents focusing on American History and Culture, American Indian and Indigenous Studies, Chicago and the Midwest, Genealogy and local History, Maps, Travel, Exploration, and many other areas.  The library is free and you can get a card to visit and explore anything they have just by signing up for a card.  You can touch first editions of books, early baseball cards, signatures by historic figures, and many other things.  Every 6 weeks or so they change out their galleries highlighting different things from their collection.  Right now they are highlighting popup books and things related to wheels (I know this sounds weird but it sounded weird to me until I had a better understanding of their collection).

"N" for Newberry

The Wheels Exhibit 

Pop-Ups Exhibit

This is an example of an "Armature Addition".  This flower book was modified with 2 popups recreated so you can pop them up for yourself.

Naughty Naughty!

Here is the original under glass.

They made a popup that you could take home and assemble yourself.

Here is the assembled popup after Donna finished putting it together.  It folds into a pretty small square.

Mogha Dishu Restaurant

For lunch we swung by Mogha Dishu, a Somailan Restaurant.  The food was great and all of the people there were really nice.  We had a nice man explain the hot sauce situation to us.  He could tell we were a little out of our element.  I didn't take a lot of photos because we were already not blending in.  Yelp has some pretty good photos to give you an idea of the place.  It wasn't fancy but the food was great.

That was it for today.  If you missed Incredible Art at The Institute check it out.