Search This Blog

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Sleep in A Submarine, Ride in a Zephyr


The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago started out life as part of the buildings that Chicago built for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. The acknowledged reason for the fair was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus coming to the New World, but the city was also trying to demonstrate that it had emerged relatively unscathed from the Great Chicago Fire some twenty years later, a veritable phoenix. Perhaps that is why the non-flammable construction materials that were used were chosen. Live and learn.
The fair ran for six months and the reported attendance was about equivalent to 1/2 the population of the United States. Impressive, although there was probably an element of grand-standing mixed in with the truly amazing accomplishments. The fair highlighted state-of-the-art electricity, which seems a fitting beginning for a museum devoted to celebrating science and industry.

One of the popular exhibits at the museum is a German submarine, the famous Nazi U-Boat captured off the coast of New Jersey near the end of World War II. It has a fully restored interior and is housed in a subterranean room of it's own. Inside, it reminds me of the movie filmed inside such a submarine, 'Das Boot', which made me feel claustrophobic in a wide open theater. The inside is very small, but with compactness there is artistry as well.
If I were picked to be the museum's roommate, I would like to spend some time in the sub, perhaps even sleep in this masterfully built submarine to get a real sense of what it would be like to be living there. My family thinks it will be too closed in, so maybe I'll nap there :-) They suggest the Zephyr as a better bunking arrangement, but the month inside the museum would afford lots of sleeping options, not just these two.

No comments:

Post a Comment