“Some of the city’s best architecture is found not just around Chicago’s parks, but in them. Yet for decades, the Chicago Park District allowed many of its structures to fall into embarrassing disrepair. But is the park district starting to get its act together and do right by its architectural treasures? Two current projects give me some hope.
“This summer, the park district resumed its restoration of the nearly 130-year-old Garfield Park music bandstand after a yearlong delay. And it also began the $1 million anticipated fix-up of the Gold Lady herself, Jackson Park’s gilded 24-foot tall Statue of the Republic.
“The work at the Garfield Park bandstand is particularly worthy of attention. With its marble base and copper roof, the structure in Garfield Park on Music Court Drive, just east of Hamlin Avenue, is as unique and lovely a structure as you’ll see in this town.
“It’s been undergoing rehab work for more than a year. The original $2.2 million scope of work included restoring the bandstand’s marble base, mosaic panels and electrical system.
“The park district stopped the project last year when workers discovered ‘hundreds of tiny pinholes in the copper roof,’ according to a park district spokesperson, that could make the mosaic dome underneath vulnerable to water damage. But the project resumed this week. The copper roof — original to the building — will be replaced with one that matches what’s there now.
“‘Representative decorative copper elements, including the central finial, ridge scrolls and gabled dormers, were removed [last month] and delivered to a metalworking contractor that specializes in traditional metalworking techniques and historic ornamental fabrication,’ park district spokesperson Irene Tostado said. ‘Elements will be replicated exactly with a high degree of accuracy, craftsmanship and fidelity to the original historic design.’
“The bandstand, designed by Joseph Lyman Silsbee, was built in 1897. In its day, musicians would perform inside the Middle Eastern Revival structure, playing to crowds gathered around the circular Museum Court Drive and surrounding parkland.
“‘The fact that [the bandstand is] so very ornamental and so lovely just kind of ties into the whole philosophy that everything that would be designed in these parks during that period would have that level of thought and expense and effort,’ historian Julia Bachrach, author of ‘The City in a Garden: A History of Chicago’s Parks,’ told me last year.
“The scaffolding that has arisen around the Statue of the Republic at 6401 S. Richards Drive in Jackson Park signals the start of a complex process to repair and re-gild the historic but faded 1918 Daniel Chester French sculpture.
“The job will entail taking off all of the sculpture’s gold leaf skin, then repairing and laser-cleaning the work before applying an epoxy primer, a base layer, a polymer base and an adhesive. After that, the main event: hand-applying 12,000 to 15,000 pieces of 2-millimeter-thick gold leaf.
“The Gold Lady is a pared-down replica of the original 65-foot golden gilded Statue of the Republic that stood in Jackson Park during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
“Parks and architecture have always been important to Chicago. And while the park district still has miles to go when it comes to restoring and rehabbing its key places and spaces, what’s happening in Garfield and Jackson parks are good signs. Keep it up.” (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 7/26/26)
Read the full story at Chicago Sun-Times
- A Victorian bandstand gets ready for an encore while Jackson Park’s golden lady gets new clothes; Is the Chicago Park District starting to get its act together and do right by its architectural treasures? Two projects give our architecture critic some hope, Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 7/26/26
- Garfield Park bandstand restoration underway, Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 6/30/25
- Jackson Park’s Gold Lady set for $1 million restoration, Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 3/31/26
- The City in a Garden: A History of Chicago’s Parks; Julia S. Bachrach, Center for American Places, 2012