“On just the right morning, when things are crisp and clear enough, the sun rises over the lake and lights up the gilded two-story Statue of the Republic in Jackson Park.

“And the Gold Lady — as she’s informally known — proudly faces that rising sun as she’s done since 1918, draped in a tunic, crowned with a laurel and with her arms aloft. She holds an eagle-topped globe in her right hand and a staff bearing the word “Liberty” in her left.

“But the spectacle, though still impressive, has lost its luster in recent years. The gold leaf is growing dull, and some of it has flaked away, exposing the bronze underneath.

“The Chicago Park District is now making plans to repair and regild the Gold Lady starting in May. The $1 million job includes repairing and removing the 24-foot statue’s worn, flaking gold leaf and applying a new layer of the micro-thin substance over the entire work.

“It’s beautiful now … but once the gilding is on, I think people will be stunned by the transformation,’ Andrew Schneider, the park district’s director of historic assets, said.

“Designed by sculptor Daniel Chester French, the sculpture is a scaled-down replica of the 65-foot gilded Statue of the Republic that sat in a basin facing west toward the neo-classical Court of Honor and its high-domed Administration Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Jackson Park.

“‘The 1893 World’s Fair was one of the great fairs of the world,’ Chicago author and historian Rolf Achilles said. ‘It not only brought tens of thousands of people to Chicago, but it really helped put Chicago on the map and brought people to see the new architecture in Chicago.’

“The statue was designed to celebrate the American ideals of liberty and its republic form of governance.

“That was the whole concept,’ Achilles said. ‘The sun was hitting America, and America was aglow at the time. Even if it was a white man’s concept, it was still a concept, and it worked, in part. And that made her a centerpiece of what people went to the fair and took home with them as visual.’

“The restoration comes three months after the agency announced plans to restore a historic open-air pavilion at the southern end of the park.

‘Schneider said the park district is looking at the park’s other neglected features, such as the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge, located just south of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, that has been closed to pedestrians for safety reason by the Chicago Department of Transportation since 2013.

“‘Jackson Park is one of the great, one of the great treasures of our city, and it contains within it many great treasures,” Schneider said. ‘So we’re pleased to show this commitment to the people of the city Chicago.’ (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 3/31/26)

“An argument can be made that it’s pretty cool just to unexpectedly stumble upon The Republic on a walk through the park, but in both size and artistry, it’s meant to be a marker, not an oversight. It should be moved.

“Where? Where it’s no longer half-hidden, but allowed to terminate the vista from the south of the east lagoon, along Wooded Island and the Osaka Garden, to the soon-to-be-re-opened south entrance of the Museum of Science and Industry, which, although substantially rebuilt, still has much of its original grandeur from 1893. Such a relocation would emulate the way the original Republic anchored one end of the 1893 Fair’s Grand Basin. It could be placed on land, or on a small island constructed for the purpose in the lagoon itself.

“Ideally, The Republic would be re-cast to its original height, but Chicago has apparently grown too small for such ambition. We can’t even fix the nearby, historic Clarence Darrow bridge, which has been allowed to sit closed and rotting since 2012, while empty promises of something soon being done go unfulfilled year after year.

“According to Lee Bey, the re-gilding has a price tag of a cool million. Anything more ambitious may sound unattainable, until you consider Science and Industry secured a $10 million grant from the Driehaus Foundation to fund the re-opening of the south entrance facing Columbia Basin. And would it be rude to mention the Obama Presidential Center is coming in around $850 million?

“A repaired and re-opened Darrow Bridge and a recast, re-gilded, relocated Republic would complete the current renewal of Jackson Park. Surely, somewhere, we still have enough civic pride left for that?” (Becker, ArchitectureChicago PLUS, 4/8/26)

Read the full story at Chicago Sun-Times

• Jackson Park’s ‘Gold Lady’ could look like a million again, thanks to a planned restoration; The $1 million job includes repairing and removing the 24-foot statue’s worn and flaking gold leaf and applying a new layer of the micro-thin substance over the entire work, Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 3/31/26
• Should the Republic Stand – Somewhere Else?, Lynn Becker, ArchitectureChicago PLUS, 4/8/26
• Carlos Ramirez-Rosa: After a year of leading Chicago’s parks, here’s what I’ve learned, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Chicago Tribune Opinion, 4/7/26
• Death of the Republic: The fiery end to the golden colossus of the 1893 World’s Fair, Scott, WorldsFairChicago1893.com, 8/28/21