Chicago to Unveil Giant Marilyn Monroe Statue

Daily Mail: That pose, that dress, those erm, assets...

The 26-foot tall statue towering above tourists in the middle of Chicago could only be one person - Marilyn Monroe. But that hasn't stopped workers, desperate to keep her identity a secret until tomorrow, placing a rather unsightly cloth bag over the poor girl's head, albeit it one in red, white and blue.

The statue, by artist Seward Johnson, replicates the actress's famous subway scene in 1955 film The Seven Year Itch and will be unveiled on Chicago's Pioneer Court today.

In the scene, Monroe stands over a subway grate as a breeze from a train passing below blows her skirt over her panties. It was shot in New York but as the Windy City, Chicago seems like the second best location for such an art work.

It will be on show through the Spring of 2012.

The stainless steel and aluminium sculpture, which weighs a whopping 34,000lbs, has raised more than a few eyebrows. Not least because visitors to the plaza are at once confronted with Monroe's pert bottom in gleaming white panties and her perfect pins bedecked in white, open-toe kitten heels.

Men have been spotted gawping while their wives get cross and attempt to shield their eyes and lots of people have stopped to take a quick snap of the giantess before she goes public tomorrow. Not all are happy of course. Abraham Ritchie wrote on Art Chicago Blog the statue was a 'creepy schlock from a fifth-rate sculptor that blights a first-rate public art collection.'

But the Zeller Realty Group, which owns the plaza and now its statue, wants Marilyn to make people think.
'(Paul Zeller) likes to bring in things that cause a conversation,' said a spokesman from the company. 'They might be controversial, but he likes art that makes people think.'

And if that fails at least her skirt will be a good place to shelter from the rain.

Chicago Promoting Transformer Tourism

USAToday: The Windy City may get blown to bits in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Michael Bay's summer blockbuster about a battle between rival alien robots, but local tourism promoters are hoping that devotees of the year's top-grossing film will want to see the real-life version of its sci-fi battleground.

Then-mayor Richard M. Daley was so eager to host Transformers last summer, notes USA TODAY's Bryan Alexander, that he personally assured filmmakers they would have all the resources they needed — to destroy the city. The production generated more than $20 million in local spending, and actor Josh Duhamel recalled thousands of fans watching the downtown filming in lawn chairs. "Explosions would go off, and people would start cheering," he said.

Through a partnership between the location-based social networking site Foursquare and the city's tourism office, Explore Chicago, visitors can earn a Foursquare badge by checking in at such key Transformers locations as the Tribune Tower, the Old Chicago Post Office, Hotel 71 and Trump International Hotel and Tower.

Both Hotel 71 and Trump International are touting their own promotions, as well. Movie buffs can toast the film's Autobot good guys with Transformers-themed cocktails at Trump Chicago's Rebar, and Hotel 71 - showcased as the heart of the Decepticon battle site - offers a $199 per night package that includes a room, two tickets to Transformers and a $20 food and beverage credit.

Explore Chicago doesn't have any stats on whether Transporters' celluloid mayhem has translated to new visitors, but its "On Location" Foursquare badges promote other high-profile movies filmed there: The Blues Brothers, The Dark Knight, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, High Fidelity and "Chick Flicks in Chicago" (including The Lake House, While You Were Sleeping, When Harry Met Sally and The Break-Up).

Now, I don't know an Autobot from an automat - and would much rather check in at Chicago's "speakeasyesque" Green Mill Cocktail Lounge (the Uptown jazz bar where High Fidelity's John Cusack reminisced about an old flame) than ogle a building that had been smashed on screen. But let's hear from Transformers-crazed readers: Does viewing a destroyed Second City make you want to see the real thing?

Adler Planetarium Offers 'Deep Space Adventure'

Chicago Sun Times: When the aliens approach planet Earth, what will they hear first?

In the Adler Planetarium’s imagining, it’s Chuck Berry and Beethoven.

“Deep Space Adventure,” the planetarium’s original show in its newly reconfigured theater, features an alien called “The Searcher,” voiced by actor Billy Crudup, who travels the universe looking for the planet he once called home.

“You and I are united in curiosity and our urge to search,” says the unseen creature, who sounds like a kinder HAL9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

The Deep Space experience debuts Friday in what Adler officials say is the world’s most technologically advanced theater.

The show, which lasts about 30 minutes, was two and a half years in the making, said Paul Knappenberger Jr., Adler’s president. Nearly every person on staff had some role in its creation.

While “The Searcher” is pure fiction — from the minds of Adler officials and Nick Sagan, son of Carl Sagan — the Milky Way he travels through and the supernovae, exploding star through a black hole and “galactic smash-up” he experiences are accurate renditions of the universe based on data from supercomputers at NASA and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Also accurate is the rendering of Chicago, which “The Searcher” visits.

When the Adler opened in 1930 as the first planetarium in the Western hemisphere, the theater was designed to give city folk a scientifically based taste of the cosmos, Knappenberger said.

“It could re-create a dark night sky so people could see constellations and planets and the moon as if they were out in the countryside,” he said.

The new show and digital theater also re-create the sky, though from a dramatically different perspective — space.

“When you’re in space, you’re in space,” he said. “The blackness of space is projected really well.”

Navy Pier's Proposed $155 Million Revamp

Chicago Business: A new $155-million plan to revamp Navy Pier calls for adding a boutique hotel at the pier's east end and revitalizing the facility's retail area.

The plan also includes potential expansion of the Chicago Children's Museum and of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater by adding a 950-seat house, more than doubling the theater's current capacity.

Navy Pier managers are still working out deals with the museum and the theater.

Board members of Navy Pier Inc., the non-profit entity that will take over Navy Pier operations Friday, unveiled the plan Thursday, along with executives from the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which currently owns and operates the pier.

In July, the pier board will begin an international competition — with prize money — seeking top design talent. The team, to include architects, landscape architects and urban designers, will be finalized in six months, according to Navy Pier General Manager Marilynn Gardner.

Crystal Garden, the 1-acre indoor palm court located in the Family Pavilion area, will receive a major makeover to become a child-friendly indoor park. The pier's lighting scheme will be enhanced, the Ferris wheel will be improved, public art and “interactive water features” like fountains will be added and the East End Park, which juts out into the water, will be enhanced to become a “world-class park,” according to Steve Haemmerle, executive-vice president of Navy Pier Inc.

Pier executives said they hope to double the Children's Museum to 100,000 square feet, but the nearby presence of the IMAX theater complicates expansion. The new Navy Pier plan focuses on improving nightlife and non-summer attractions to draw more visitors to the state's busiest tourist attraction. Currently, 6 million of the 8.7 million annual visitors come between May and October.

The plan aims to create “a more sophisticated, more adult nighttime persona” for the pier, possibly including “four or five new white-tablecloth restaurants” and a jazz club, said Jim Reilly, trustee of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority.

One amenity that won't be added, Mr. Reilly says, is a casino. "A casino is just totally inconsistent with the character of the pier," he said, calling the idea "a non-starter" and claiming it would not fit well with Navy Pier's atmosphere.

Executives stressed that this plan is “aspirational” and financial figures and details are subject to change. No hotel developer has yet been identified, nor have specific new restaurants or retail operations been determined.

The $155-million investment involves public funds and does not include private investment, including the money that would come from the Children's Museum and the Shakespeare Theater, as well as from commercial partners like a hotel developer. MPEA will contribute $50 million.

Mr. Reilly said MPEA hopes to increase its contribution beyond $50 million “but it won't be anywhere near” the total estimated cost. Pier executives said the MPEA contribution will be augmented by aggressive fundraising and selling naming rights to various public spaces.

Remarking on 2010's 8 million visitors, Mr. Reilly said, “That's more than all the sports teams combined, and look at all the sponsorship money they get.” Private sponsorship at the pier is “an untapped market,” he said.

The new 13-member Navy Pier board, helmed by retired Boeing Co. executive Sarah Nava Garvey, was established in January, when the MPEA split operations of the pier and McCormick Place, which it also runs. The MPEA announced it will lease the pier at no cost to Navy Pier Inc. The lease is slated to run for 15 years, with renewal options.

Also July 1, McCormick Place will transition to private management. Philadelphia-based facility operator SMG Management Inc., which also operates Soldier Field, will take over management duties from MPEA.

The transition is part of a state-mandated overhaul of the convention business that aims to make Chicago more competitive with rival convention destinations such as Orlando and Las Vegas.

The new framework is also a response to an Urban Land Institute report last fall that recommended Navy Pier reconfigure its leadership structure and create a new strategic plan that would modernize and reinvigorate the Pier.

Tourism Bureau Says Chicago is "Second to None"

Chicago Sun Times: Chicago’s tourism boosters Tuesday will introduce a $6 million campaign, one that has some swagger in it, to draw more visitors to the city.

The Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau will begin marketing the city with a new slogan, “Chicago: Second to None,” reopen sales offices overseas that state government used to operate and establish a commission to attract professional and amateur sports events.

Money for the campaign comes from a legislative gift the bureau received last year, a doubling of the tax rate on taxi and bus operators that serve the Chicago airports. Most of the money was earmarked for the bureau’s use in promoting McCormick Place and local attractions.

The tax hike was part of a bill that upended longstanding labor practices at McCormick Place. But a federal judge has ruled the bill’s labor provisions illegal, setting back efforts to attract conventions based on lower costs at McCormick Place.

Bruce Rauner, chairman of the convention bureau, said the agency isn’t letting the decision hinder efforts to promote Chicago. “We’ll make sure that the image of McCormick Place is restored and enhanced,” he said, calling the convention hall both a “low-cost, high-quality destination” for meeting planners.

The campaign will be launched Tuesday at the convention bureau’s annual membership meeting. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), an architect of the labor reform package, are due to speak on the tourism industry’s importance.

Warren Wilkinson, senior vice president at the bureau, called the campaign “purposeful, strategic marketing” designed to tout Chicago’s virtues with confidence and attitude. The new slogan tweaks Chicago’s image as the Second City and replaces “Make no little plans,” a saying attributed to architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham.

One ad calls Chicago “the city that ranks No. 1 in No. 1 rankings,” and another says it lacks only “a museum of museums.”

The bureau is a nonprofit organization that draws its budget from tourism taxes and membership dues. Wilkinson said its overall budget is increasing to $18 million for its coming fiscal year, up from about $15 million.

Bureau spokeswoman Meghan Risch said it will open tourism offices in the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland, replacing state offices closed because of budget cuts. Others are under consideration, she said.

The agency is looking for an executive director to run the new sports commission, which will look for indoor and outdoor events. Chicago hoteliers especially want bookings for the bleak midwinter. A Super Bowl may be out of reach because Chicago has no domed football stadium.

The campaign includes improvements to the ChooseChicago.com web site starting in November, Risch said.

'Taste of Chicago' Begins Quietly

Chicago Tribune: The thousands of visitors to the first day of Taste of Chicago on Friday found the famed fare that their taste buds have come to expect — roasted corn, falafel, pierogi and fried catfish. But what stood out to many was how different the city's biggest festival is this year.

For instance, instead of hearing such marquee acts as Elvis Costello, as in years past, those arriving later Friday caught Los Horoscopos de Durango, and other lesser-known bands that drew smaller crowds.

On Columbus Drive, the street appeared noticeably less cluttered, and cleaner. Instead of high-energy rap and rock concerts, there were kids and parents watching a female acrobat performing high-altitude stunts as part of a newly introduced "Midnight Circus."

All those and other changes were part of what the Chicago Park District hopes will be a more relaxed Taste this year, after taking over the 10-day event for the first time from the Mayor's Office of Special Events.

As the crowds began trickling in Friday morning, the early results appeared promising. "People are happier, not as hot and sweaty," marveled Roselle Monsalud of Tinley Park, while she and her 12-year-old daughter shared a plate piled high with homemade potato chips. "We don't usually come to the Taste; we avoid the crowds."

Following a recent series of Near North Side beatings and robberies that led to anxieties about safety downtown, city officials also employed another fundamental change: more cops. Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said earlier this week that there would be more plainclothes officers in and around the Taste this year, working at train stations and other areas with high pedestrian traffic.

In addition, police officials positioned uniformed officers and private security guards around the festival to promote a quieter experience than in years past, when some Taste events ended with violence erupting on nearby streets.

That change was apparent, though not unnerving for those who appreciated that the festival launched in 1980 was returning to its roots, away from large-scale entertainment events and back to family-oriented activities.

"We got here right at 11 o'clock, and there were more police walking around than regular people," Dave Eddy, of Valparaiso, Ind., said appreciatively. "It seems like there is more police presence this year."

Summer nights at the Taste will go by without many big-name musical acts, instead merging entertainment from four of the city's smaller festivals. To some, that is a bittersweet change to swallow.

Uche Omoniyi remembers the excitement of seeing Stevie Wonder in concert at the 2008 Taste. "I remember the fireworks too," said Omoniyi, recalling the happy nights sitting on the lawn in Grant Park amid throngs of other Taste-goers. "There would be a million people here."

Omoniyi, who lives on the South Side, has also been a faithful patron of the city's Gospel Festival, usually held a few weeks before the Taste in June. Omoniyi said he will miss the event, which was incorporated into the Taste this year.

But, he added begrudgingly, "I'm glad they kept it free."

1-800-Chicago NOT a Tourism Hotline

NBC Chicago: Dialing 1-800-Chicago won't direct to anything Chicago-centric.

Callers to that number, and scores of other 1-800 numbers like it, will be greeted with a recording of sultry music and a woman's voice offering to connect callers with "the area's sexiest students, housewives and working girls" for $2.99 per minute.

The 800 number is one of many amassed by a Philadelphia company called PrimeTel Communications to redirect callers to phone-sex services, the Associated Press discovered. The Chicago number is among several directed to phone-sex lines operated by National A-1, a company that shares an office building with PrimeTel.

PrimeTel has gained control of nearly a quarter of all the 1-800 numbers in the U.S. and Canada during the past 13 years, the AP reports. The company quietly grabs the numbers as soon as previous users cancel them.

The 1-800-Chicago number (800-244-2246) appeared on a flier for a mayor's conference from 2004 that took place in Chicago, but a spokeswoman from the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture office said those old materials contained a typo, and that the number was never used for the tourism office. The spokeswoman said the city instead once used 1-877-Chicago and stopped using it last year.

PrimeTel administered more 1-800 numbers than any other company as of March, and many of the 1.7 million numbers appear to be used for redirecting callers to a phone-sex service. The company also apparently scooped up the toll-free inmate information line at the Cook County Jail after the Chicago jail canceled it.

It is not known how many have accidentally or purposely called 1-800-Chicago or how many either hang up or supply their credit card number for the service. The AP found that similar erotic messages are heard when dialing the initial digits of 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac and 1-800-Worship.

Using the 800 numbers to promote such services isn't illegal. The message at 800-Chicago urges callers under 18 to hang up immediately, and people aren't charged just for calling.

Complaints have been filed against PrimeTel, though, alleging the company violates Federal Communications Commission rules that say, "routing multiple toll-free numbers to a single toll-free subscriber" is usually considered hoarding.

The FCC has not taken formal action against PrimeTel or National A-1 but has taken a renewed interest in them.