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New York Times
21-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
An Illinois Building Was a Bird Killer. A Simple Change Made a World of Difference.
An Illinois Building Was a Bird Killer. A Simple Change Made a World of Difference. The morning promised to be deadly. High above Chicago, in the predawn dark, flew an airborne river of migratory birds. It was peak spring migration traffic, in late April, and the tiny travelers were arriving at one of the most perilous points along their journey. These birds, inhabitants of forests and grasslands, do not perceive glass as solid and get confused by its reflections. Bright city lights seem to attract them, luring them into glassy canyons. The gleaming buildings of Chicago, curving along the shore of Lake Michigan, are especially lethal. A call went out to volunteers across the city: Be ready to hit the streets early to rescue the injured and document the dead. But at the building that has long been the city's most notorious bird killer, a sprawling lakefront conference venue that claimed almost a thousand birds on a single day in October 2023, new protections were in place. The vast glass windows and doors of the building, called Lakeside Center at McCormick Place, are overlaid with a pattern of close, opaque dots. Applied last summer to help birds perceive the glass, the treatment's early results are nothing short of remarkable. During fall migration, deaths were down by about 95 percent when compared with the two previous autumns. Now monitoring is underway during the first spring migration since the dots, with implications for glassy structures far beyond Chicago. Across North America, with Toronto an early leader, a growing number of bird-friendly policies and decisions by individual building managers are helping make cities safer for birds. On that recent morning, David Willard, an ornithologist at the Field Museum, set off on a lakefront path toward McCormick Place. Known as the Bird Man to workers there, Dr. Willard has been tallying the building's avian victims for almost 50 years. It wasn't yet 6 a.m., and he wondered aloud about what he would find. As he walked, white-throated sparrows flitted around shrubs, a Baltimore oriole called from a tree and a green heron flew by. The park seemed full of returning birds. If there were to be casualties at McCormick despite the treatment, Dr. Willard said, it would be on a morning like this one. 'This is a good test,' he said. The Deadliest Known Building Researchers have estimated that hundreds of millions of birds die hitting buildings every year in the United States. These strikes are believed to be one of the factors behind an almost 30 percent drop in North American birds since 1970. Chicago is one of the most dangerous cities in the country for migrating birds, according to research by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. And no building was known to be more lethal than McCormick Place's Lakeside Center. Dr. Willard has been cataloging the dead there since 1978, when he was the Field Museum's collection manager for birds. He had heard that migrators sometimes ran into McCormick and, one morning before work, he decided to check it out. Below the glass were two dead birds. 'I sometimes wonder if I hadn't found anything, whether I would have ever gone back,' Dr. Willard said. He started daily monitoring during migrations in 1982. From that year through 2024, he and colleagues have documented 41,789 birds killed by the glass at McCormick. Over the years, as the death toll mounted, advocates pushed for changes. McCormick managers said they tried a series of interventions: In the 1980s, strips of netting; in the '90s, bird-of-prey calls and silhouettes. They commissioned a nine-acre park of native prairie and woodlands on the roof of a lower parking deck, hoping it would draw birds away from the glass. Closing curtains during events, though, was a step too far. 'For us, our priority was making sure that our customers were satisfied,' said Larita Clark, chief executive of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the municipal corporation that owns McCormick Place. 'They rent space like this from us because of the view of the lake.' Hundreds of birds continued to die each year during spring and fall migrations. Often, it was a few each morning, but sometimes dozens in a day. Then, on Oct. 5, 2023, Dr. Willard climbed the lakefront steps to the building's walkway on his routine inspection to find it littered with dead and injured birds. Shocked by the sheer volume, struggling to save the living while gathering the dead, he called a colleague for help. 'They were continuing to crash as we were picking them up,' Dr. Willard recalled. The casualties were mostly warblers, but also thrushes, sparrows and others. On the way back to the museum, they carried plastic bags bulging with roughly 975 dead birds. 'What Can We Do?' As news of the episode ricocheted around the world, public outrage was unlike anything the managers at McCormick had seen. Calls and emails poured in. The American Bird Conservancy took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune with a headline reading: 'One Night. One Building. 1,000 Birds Dead.' Ms. Clark said she reached out to the Field Museum, federal wildlife officials and bird advocacy groups with a question: 'What can we do so that this will never happen again?' Some of the earliest research on how to make glass safer for birds was conducted by Daniel Klem Jr., an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. He found that falcon silhouettes were not effective. Birds did not register them as predators and simply flew into the adjacent glass. Instead, to effectively deter birds, the glass needed a pattern over its entire surface. A distance of no more than two inches would prevent even tiny hummingbirds from trying to dart through, he said. Eventually Ms. Clark and her team decided on the dots. The treatment cost $1.2 million, paid for by the state of Illinois. Ms. Clark chose the pattern herself, and it was installed in a hectic three-month period last summer to be in place for fall migration. Visitors don't seem to even notice the dots from the inside, she said. She knows of no pushback. But one problem area remains: a transparent pedestrian bridge that was not treated. It's a tiny area compared with the two football fields of dotted glass, but it now claims an outsize number of the victims. Of 45 bird deaths at McCormick last fall, 27 had struck the bridge. Managers at McCormick are still deciding whether to treat it. 'We're waiting on some data,' said Pat Allen, who oversees operations at the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority. 'We've got to justify what we're spending.' Two Different Scenes On the recent spring morning at McCormick, the sky still orange with sunrise, one bird lay dead under treated glass: a gray catbird. But Dr. Willard and I watched as dozens more flew toward the windows and, as they got close, seemed to put on the brakes, pulling up or veering away. 'My feeling is that in the past those would have probably hit and, at least some portion of them, died,' Dr. Willard said. Walking around the mammoth building, there were no more casualties beneath the treated windows. But at the untreated glass of the pedestrian bridge, it was another story. Four birds lay on the pavement, almost in a row, and Dr. Willard knelt to pick each one up. The dead went into a plastic bag. One, a white-throated sparrow, came around in his hands, trying to flutter away, and he carefully placed it in a paper bag to be released closer to the lake. Farther along, we came upon three more dead birds and another stunned one, all casualties of the untreated glass on the bridge. Two were bright yellow warblers called common yellowthroats, perhaps on their way back from Central America or the Caribbean. It was evidence that the bridge needs the film dots, too, Dr. Willard said. Word of the treatment's effectiveness is already traveling throughout the city and beyond. 'It started last fall when some of the results were coming out,' said Paul Groleau, vice president of Feather Friendly, the company that manufactured the window dots. 'I had people emailing me directly saying, 'We want what McCormick Place put on the building.'' Conservationists are using the building's success as they continue a longtime campaign to implement a bird-friendly design ordinance in Chicago. 'I think that may win the day for us in City Hall,' said Annette Prince, director of Chicago Bird Collision Monitors. 'This is not just a maybe fix, this is going to make a significant difference in bird mortality, and McCormick Place is the poster child.'
Chicago Tribune
15-05-2025
- Science
- Chicago Tribune
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Sue the T. rex's journey to the Field Museum
Our city — the one of 'Big Shoulders' — has always sought out the massive. Chicago has been home to the tallest building (when it was known as Sears Tower), the largest convention center (McCormick Place) in North America, and even one of the world's largest wastewater treatment plants (Stickney Water Reclamation Plant which, OK, is in Cicero, just outside the city limits). The opportunity to increase the city's stature once again materialized in October 1997. That's when the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton became available at an auction hosted by Sotheby's. But bringing the fossil lovingly named after its discoverer to Chicago wouldn't have been possible without the combination of Sue Hendrickson and a flat tire. As the Field Museum celebrates 25 years since the debut of Sue, here's a look back at how the T. rex made its way from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Chicago. The vehicle of a dinosaur-hunting crew planning to leave a site in western South Dakota at the end of an expedition was found to have a flat tire. While others went into town to make the repair, Sue Hendrickson, a member of that crew, decided to have a look in an area the expedition had not searched. It was a good choice. While examining a cliff's side, she discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen — the largest, most complete and best preserved T. rex found to that date. The dinosaur skeleton — which was estimated to be 90% complete — became known as Sue not because of its sex (undetermined) but after its finder. Peter Larson, whose Black Hills Institute of Geological Research Inc., excavated the tyrannosaur, paid Maurice Williams, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe on whose land the fossil was found, $5,000. The fossil was seized by federal authorities who claimed it was illegally removed from Williams' ranch, which was held in trust by the government. The Black Hills Institute was charged with violation of the U.S. Antiquities Act, theft of U.S. governmental property and theft of Native American tribal property. Long before Sue's discovery, Peter Larson and his brother Neal had built Black Hills Institute on a reputation for highly skilled fossil preparations and exhibit mountings, selling them to a variety of private collectors and public museums, including the Field Museum. When Hendrickson found Sue on Williams' land, the Larson brothers thought the extraordinary fossil would make a dream come true. They were going to build a nonprofit museum in Hill City, their hometown, drawing tourists from nearby Mount Rushmore. Instead, the legal battles Sue sparked nearly bankrupted them. The U.S. attorney's office in South Dakota, setting out to prove that the Larsons had illegally taken Sue and other fossils from federal lands, spent years and millions of dollars investigating the institute, raiding the company and carting off fossils and business records on several occasions. In the resulting six-week trial, however, out of 146 felony charges, the jury convicted Peter Larson on two charges of failing to declare several thousand dollars he had carried with him on two business trips outside the U.S. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Sue's fossil bones technically were a constituent of the soil, part of the land, and belonged to the landowner, Williams. The Supreme Court let that decision stand. Peter Larson, whose success as a private fossil-hunter had raised the hackles of many academic paleontologists, was sent to prison on federal charges that many South Dakotans came to regard as an abuse of prosecutorial power 'I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy,' Larson later told the Tribune. 'This was so hard on my wife, worse for her than for me. On every visiting day she traveled hundreds of miles and was there for me. But the whole ordeal drained her, and when I got out (on Dec. 8, 1998), she decided she didn't want to be married anymore. That was the hardest thing, to lose her.' A judge awarded ownership of Sue to Williams, and the government, acting as his trustee, decided the best way to serve his interests was to auction the skeleton. The bidding for Sue started at $500,000 and rose by $100,000 increments, quickly breaking into the millions as bidders on the floor and on phones competed for what auctioneer Redden called 'a world treasure.' The crowd in the sales room gasped as the bidding broke through $5 million and kept climbing. At the $7 million mark, most of the would-be buyers dropped out and tension mounted in the room as the time between bids lengthened. Finally, after several warnings, auctioneer David Redden knocked Sue down at $7.6 million — for a total of $8.36 million. The auction took little more than eight minutes. In the end, bidding came down to the Field Museum, the J.I. Kislack Foundation of Miami, the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Dallas Museum of Natural History. Redden said a private buyer was also in the final bidding but refused to identify him. Later, McCarter said he was never confident that Field would come away the winner. 'I was very nervous' as the bidding progressed, he said. He declined to reveal how high the museum had been willing to go to buy Sue. At the time, it was the highest price paid for a fossil (until a stegosaurus nicknamed 'Apex' grabbed that title in 2024). Williams received $7.6 million of the money the museum paid for Sue. But Williams never planned to visit the fossil that once was buried on his land. 'Everybody is knowledgeable about the amount of money (Sue) brought into our family,' Williams, father of four grown children, said in a 2000 telephone interview with the Tribune. 'What we got out of the thing, we're handling it pretty well. Some of the children have used it for education and whatever. 'People here don't talk anymore about that thing.' The Black Hills Institute claimed it had a trademark on the name Sue and that the name couldn't be used without permission. 'The trademark we have on Sue is exactly the same as … Mickey Mouse,' said Marion Zenker, marketing coordinator for the private fossil-hunting institute. 'Walt Disney didn't own the mouse, but he still owned the name.' On April 15, 1998, the dinosaur formerly known as Sue then became formally be known as Sue. The news came as a disappointment to the thousands of kids who entered a contest to give the dinosaur a new name after legal disputes over licensing of the name Sue erupted. But museum officials conceded that lawyers advised that the contest-winning name — 'Dakota' — had the potential to cause legal problems as well, given that it was already used for several products. Hendrickson — who did not have a high school diploma — received her first university credentials in the form of an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Illinois Chicago. The professional fossil hunter and self-taught archaeologist and paleontologist with a namesake T. rex at the Field Museum came to paleontology by way of an early career diving for sunken treasure and collecting fish specimens in the Caribbean. She was a voracious reader as a child in Munster, and decided against a formal university education after talking things over with the head of marine biology at the University of Washington. Hendrickson had always been a hard worker, her mother said, and hoped that her success and the recognition she received serves as inspiration for other people who pursue their ambitions without the benefit of a college degree. Sue — whose chocolate-brown skeleton took 12 people 30,000 hours to remove from rock — debuted in Stanley Field Hall (the lobby inside the Field Museum). 'Sue has a number of features never before observed in the other T. rex skeletons,' Tribune reporter William Mullen wrote. 'The new information underscores what scientists for the last several years have been postulating: that dinosaurs are closely related to birds.' 'Evolving Planet' opened, thanks to a donation by Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel. The $17 million permanent exhibit used video, interactive displays, paintings and lots and lots of fossils to chronicle the evolution of life on Earth over 4 billion years. Sue's new smaller but much more dramatic digs on the museum's second floor opened. The new home also incorporated changes in the presentation of the skeleton — including a much fuller chest thanks to the mounting of formerly separated gastralia, or 'belly ribs' — which were all carefully detailed on accompanying labels that help tell a bigger story. 'We wanted to use Sue as a vehicle to inform the public that science is never done,' said museum CEO Richard Lariviere. 'You're always understanding.' Thanks for reading! Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
CBS News
13-05-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
Draft lottery leaves Chicago Bulls at No. 12
Back in 2008, the Chicago Bulls had a slim 1.7% chance of winning the NBA Draft lottery, and lucked into picking Derrick Rose at No. 1 overall. Facing the exact same long odds this year, with the lottery once again taking place in the Bulls' backyard at McCormick Place, President of Basketball Operations Artūras Karnišovas was hoping lightning would strike twice — with the Bulls slotted 12th in the sweepstakes for likely No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg of Duke. But lightning did not strike twice. The Bulls are staying at No. 12. The Dallas Mavericks won the draft lottery, giving them the No. 1 pick. The NBA Draft is set for Wednesday June 25.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The 2025 Restaurant Show: A retailer's guide
'The show isn't just about keeping up—it's about finding smarter, more sustainable ways to move forward in a rapidly evolving food landscape,' said Stacy Hodge, the Restaurant Show's senior director of programming. The Restaurant Show You can find original article here Supermarketnews. Subscribe to our free daily Supermarketnews newsletter. At a time when supermarkets are well-positioned to cater to inflation-weary shoppers with restaurant-quality prepared foods that offer value, the upcoming National Restaurant Association Show provides an opportunity for food retailers to immerse themselves in the latest trends, state-of-the-art technology, and efficiency-enhancing innovations that are reshaping the foodservice industry. 'The show isn't just about keeping up—it's about finding smarter, more sustainable ways to move forward in a rapidly evolving food landscape,' said Stacy Hodge, the Restaurant Show's senior director of programming. The Restaurant Show is the largest foodservice event in the Western Hemisphere. It will run May 17-20 at McCormick Place in Chicago and is produced by Informa, the British company that owns Supermarket News, Nation's Restaurant News, and a host of other foodservice events and publications. Supermarkets looking for inspiration with prepared foods, grab-and-go, and/or fresh meal solutions can explore more than 2,200 exhibitors across 900 product categories, showcasing everything from fresh ingredients and new flavors to equipment, technology, and packaging. A showcase of new exhibitors A reimagined Emerging Brands Pavilion will feature first-time exhibitors that have been in operation for three years or less. The Global Food Expo will include international flavors and ingredients, while the Organic & Natural Pavilion will highlight clean-label and plant-based foods. The show's Beverage Room will have plenty on tap, including specialty hand-crafted beverages and cannabis-infused drinks, functional libations, alcohol-alternatives, as well as experts presenting business strategies to boost sales. The show floor will also be abuzz with live culinary and beverage demonstrations showcasing flavor trends, preparation techniques, and product applications. 'One of the biggest advantages for food retailers at the Show is the ability to see and experience products firsthand. It's not just about hearing what's new—it's about tasting, testing, and making direct supplier connections in a way that's hard to replicate anywhere else,' said Hodge. 'For supermarkets expanding their foodservice programs, this means the chance to compare different prepared food solutions, evaluate equipment in action, and explore packaging options that fit their operational needs.' 'Efficiency, adaptability, and meeting changing consumer demands' The TECH Pavilion will feature automated cooking systems, ventless ovens, self-service kiosks, and AI-powered kitchen tools designed to make food prep easier and more consistent.
Chicago Tribune
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
What to do in Chicago: C2E2, J Balvin and a very different kind of bingo
J Balvin: All those 'Colores,' and now 'Rayo.' Expect a set list jam-packed with hits as the Colombian reggaeton phenom brings his 'Back to the Future'-inspired North American tour to the United Center. 8 p.m. April 13 at United Center, 1901 W. Madison St.; tickets from $41 at Sheng Wang: The Taiwan-born, Houston-bred, Berkeley-educated stand-up offers his low-key brand of observational comedy. Sheng Wang's seemingly meandering sets often mask just how masterfully he writes. 7 p.m. April 12 at the Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St.; tickets from $49.50 at C2E2: Finished your costumes yet? — or maybe you just go to gawk? Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo gets underway at McCormick Place, featuring cast reunions of 'The Lord of the Rings' and the Chicago North Shore classic 'The Breakfast Club.' Celebrity nostalgia not your thing? You still have plenty to see amid the aisles and aisles of comic books and pop culture ephemera. April 11-13 at McCormick Place, 2301 S. Martin Luther King Drive; tickets from $70 at 'Bingo Loco': Ready for a bingo rave? The event promises that it 'is not your grandma's bingo,' instead offering a match punctuated by dance-offs, lip-sync battles, confetti showers and more. Past prizes have included a cruise, household appliances and a giant inflatable flamingo. 8 p.m. April 11, April 25, May 10 and May 23 at Morgan MFG, 401 N. Morgan St.; tickets $35 (ages 21+) at 'The Book of Grace': The Steppenwolf's production of Suzan-Lori Parks's 2010 play, updated and focused on a Black family whose patriarch patrols the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, 'feels very of the moment, especially to the degree it probes the dangers of instability and panic,' according to a Tribune review. See it for the lead actors' 'blistering performances.' Through May 18 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.; tickets from $20 at Ani DiFranco: The feminist folk-rock-crossover musician is touring on the eve of the release of her 23rd album, this one promising a different sound crafted in part by producer BJ Burton. Listen to the title single, 'Unprecedented,' for a taste of what's coming. 8 p.m. April 11 at Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St.; tickets from $45 (ages 17+) at Parsons Dance: The New York-based contemporary dance company returns to Chicago for the first time in 30 years. The group performs a range of works — old and new — by such choreographers as David Parsons, Trey McIntyre, Monica Bill Barnes, Robert Battle and Paul Taylor. 7:30 p.m. April 12 at The Auditorium, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive; tickets from $30 at 'Golf Watch Party': So you can't make it to the Masters; neither did Tiger Woods. Head to Wrigleyville instead to watch the tournament on the big screen at Gallagher Way. Putting greens and other golf activities will be available. 2-6 p.m. April 13 at Gallagher Way, 3635 N. Clark St.; more details on the free event at Handmade shopping: Consider these two opportunities to indulge in a little day drinking while perusing homemade goods crafted by Chicago artists and makers. On Saturday, the 20-year-old Handmade Market (noon-4 p.m. April 12 at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave.; free, offers affordable jewelry, paper crafts and clothing made by Chicago artists. On Sunday, Hyde Park Handmade Artisan Bazaar hosts South Side craft and food vendors. While you're there, check out the workshops and DJ Sean Alvarez of We Love Soul (11 a.m.-3 p.m. April 13 at The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave.; free,
