The thing to do when walking to the southern reaches of Grant Park in downtown Chicago on a warm Friday afternoon is take a look at some of the less-famed artworks installed there. That’s what I’d do, anyway.
Such as “Hedgerow” by Chicago sculptor Lucy Slivinski, composed of vehicle exhaust pipes and reflectors and other auto oddments.
It was created in 2006, a nearby sign says, as part of an exhibit called Artists + Automobiles, for which the artists were “asked to use salvaged auto parts as the inspiration and primary material.” Yep.
Further south, and closer to Michigan Ave., is the more conventional equestrian statue of Gen. John A. Logan. He’s remembered by Civil War aficionados, but by not many others, I’d say, even in Illinois, despite the part he played in the war or in establishing Decoration Day.
There’s a John A. Logan Museum in Downstate Illinois. I didn’t know that. Its web site describes him this way: “Who was John A. Logan? General Grant’s favorite officer, one of Illinois’ most powerful Senators, Founder of Memorial Day as a national holiday, and among Mark Twain’s favorite public speakers.
“Or as historian Gary Ecelbarger has said, ‘John A. Logan may be the most noteworthy nineteenth century American to escape notice in the twenty-first century.’ What pushed him from becoming Abraham Lincoln’s bitter rival to campaigning for Lincoln’s reelection? How does an avid racist and author of Illinois’ Black Laws become an advocate for African American Civil Rights and education?
“Visit the General John A. Logan Museum and maybe you will better understand why Frederick Douglas [sic] said, if a man like Black Jack Logan can have a change of heart, then there is hope for everyone.”
His statue is on top of a (probably manmade) hillock. It’s no ordinary equestrian statue, though — it’s a Saint-Gaudens. Any statue by the creator of the Double Eagle is all right by me. Much more about the creation of the statue, which was supposed to be erected at the site of the ’93 World’s Fair but instead came to Grant Park, is at the informative Connecting the Windy City blog. When the statue was originally put there, the site wasn’t an obscure patch of a city park, but very near Central Station, an intercity passenger terminal for the Illinois Central RR, gone now for 40+ years.
Not far from Gen. Logan, I took a look at some of the concrete lampposts in the park, picking up on some details I’d never noticed before. A fair number of them look like this.
Atop the posts are globes, ringed by the zodiac.
Note the Municipal Device.
Once you learn what it is, you see it everywhere in Chicago.