Monday, April 9, 2012

National Veteran's Art Museum at 18th and Indiana to Move

We've been to the recreation center at 18th and Indiana many times, but have never been to the portion dedicated to the National Veterans Art Museum. Guess we will have to head there soon before they move out according to ABC7:
After calling the South Loop home for 16 years, the National Veterans Art Museum has to move out.

The space at 18th and Indiana, owned by the Chicago Park District, will become a much-needed neighborhood recreation center now that the museum's lease is up.

"Our lease was scheduled to up at the end of April this year, but we needed a little bit more time to identify a new home and so the Park District was kind enough to extend it to the end of August of this year," Levi Moore, executive director, said.
For more background on the museum take a look at this video:

It sounds like the split was amicable, but the article doesn't really say what will become of the "much-needed" space. Anyone have any updates?

Anyway, it would be nice if the museum could stay in the neighborhood. We will see.

8 comments:

Bekki said...

Where will the museum be moving to?

Anonymous said...

Hope this means that the dreadfully damaged patio at Cafe Society (which was ruined by the museum folks) will finally be fixed!

Anonymous said...

who cares, we need chipolte

Anonymous said...

wait the patio was beat up by the mueseum? how?

Anonymous said...

Well best of luck to the Artists in their new location (TBD).

As to the patio question, probably several factors of design, drainage amongst the tree roots, and installation quality issue with the compaction.

It did not helped when they used to park cars in that area, nor really performed any repairs to the brick patio.

Patio is supposed to be redone as part of the planned work for the
2nd and 3rd Floor.

Anonymous said...

We saw the CPD Plans for the rest of the building at:

http://www.park550advisorycouncil.com/page47.php

Anonymous said...

The museum folks and city workers parked heavy (very heavy) trucks on the already unstable patio on a routine basis a few years back which resulted in the current, extremely unsafe, patio that exists today. I'm shocked that the cafe owner is granted a license to operate with outdoor seating at that spot. Makes no sense to allow patrons to tarverse that area. Major accident waiting to happen.

Anonymous said...

To me, this is THE best news of all. It will be fantastic if that patio is fixed and we FINALLY have a nice outdoor space in the sloop. So shocked that we don't have more outdoor cafe spaces in the sloop (not just a few tables/chairs on a sidewalk). Most hoods are packed with massive outdoor garden cafes and beer gardens. We need more!