Children's Museum Escapes Navy Pier

By Matt Wood in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 28, 2006 1:51PM

We're all about museum news this week at Chicagoist. Now Mayor Daley has announced that the Chicago Children's Museum will be moving from Navy Pier to a corner of Grant Park. The new building will be funded in part by a $15 million gift from Allstate. Officials hope to break ground at the northeast corner of Monroe and Columbus by 2007.

Parts of the new building will be underground to respect lakefront protection ordinances. It had intially been planned as a replacement of the fieldhouse in Bicentennial Plaza. But nearby residents were unhappy with that plan, and organized opposition led by Ald. Burt "I'll Protest Anything" Natarus. Wherever it ends up, this is good news to Chicagoist, who would never have gotten to see the old museum because we avoid Navy Pier and its throngs of tourists dawdling amid the sickly sweet smell of roasting candy almonds like the plague.