Millennium Park turns 20 on Tuesday. But the 24.5-acre expanse became the king of Chicago city parks almost as soon as it opened in 2004 — four years late and with a price tag of $490 million, more than triple the original estimated cost. About $220 million of that came from private donations.
At a black-tie cocktail party before the park opened, former Chicago Park District CEO Forrest Claypool, speaking with the late WTTW-Channel 11 host John Callaway, dismissed the tardiness and cost overruns.
“The park is so beautiful that in 15 years nobody will remember any of that,” Claypool said.
“Fifteen years? Hell, try 15 minutes!” was Callaway’s ebullient response.
With its distinctive artistic components and public spaces, the park has become one of the nation’s 10 most popular tourist attractions, drawing more than 20 million visitors a year.
You can see a daily love letter written in the smudge prints of noses, hands and lips on the stainless-steel surface of Cloud Gate, the massive sculpture that anchors the park and is better known by its nickname: The Bean.
The Great Lawn leading to the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the Lurie Garden and the Crown Fountain have become world-class spots to play, meditate, listen to world-class music, pull a diamond ring from a pocket while on bended knee or just eat a sandwich — all with accompanying selfies.
The park’s creators — from millionaire benefactors to union ironworkers — speak with pride and reverence of an undertaking that might never be duplicated.
“The goal was to create a public space in a new way for a new millennium and to do that with art,” said Donna LaPietra, president of the Millennium Park Foundation, which has worked with the city of Chicago as a steward of the park since 1998. “And it succeeded to such an extent that, just like we changed the course of the Chicago River more than 100 years ago, well, Millennium Park changed the flow of people.
“Nobody came south of the Chicago River, south of the Mag Mile, and the park changed that,” LaPietra said. “It changed the economy and property values, and it caught the interest of other city leaders, who looked at the park and said, ‘How’d you do that?’ ”
For decades before the park was built, the site was an Illinois Central Railroad yard that was a downtown eyesore on prime lakefront land.
The park was conceived in 1997. In 1998, plans were announced, and construction began.
ORIGIN MYTH UNRAVELED
One story has it that Mayor Richard M. Daley looked out from his dentist’s window a few stories above Michigan Avenue and had a “eureka moment” about replacing the blotted landscape with green space. But that’s just a myth, according to Claypool.
“The notion that Rich Daley, who was known as the ‘Green Mayor’ and for his attention to detail, was like, ‘Oh, look there!’ and somehow hadn’t realized there was an ugly 24-acre hole downtown, is a bit ridiculous,” Claypool said.
The real “Sword in the Stone” moment happened when Randy Mehrberg, the Chicago Park District’s general counsel, dusted off a 19th century land title and discovered that the railroad’s deal for the site was contingent on the land being used for railroad operations. The charade of keeping a single track and a single boxcar there didn’t qualify. A court challenge resulted in a settlement that gave the city the right to build a park.
As the plans evolved, well-heeled donors were tapped to fund ambitious art projects that included elements of technology and construction that forged new ground.
After many twists and setbacks, it all culminated in a world-class park that rests on stilts atop a parking garage and a train station. It’s been called the world’s largest green roof.
Trying to take it in all at once can be hard. So here we’ll focus on the one element of the park that, when you look at it, it looks right back at you: the video faces displayed on the Crown Fountain.
They’re hard to miss. Each fountain is five stories tall. They serve as giant television screens that display the images of 1,000 Chicagoans — 500 faces on each fountain.
There is no publicly available list of the faces on the fountains. No Facebook group, either.
Anonymity was baked into the project by its creator, Spanish artist and sculptor Jaume Plensa, who was inspired by Chicago’s diversity, the gargoyles that dot his hometown of Barcelona and the staying power of the faces carved centuries ago into the fountains of ancient Rome.
The Crown Fountain’s faces were meant to be seen up close — without ears or much hair in the frame.
They’re elongated so their mouths line up with the built-in spouts to make it look like they’re spitting water at all who gather below.
The only complete list of the names behind the faces exists in a binder full of waivers that were required of each person who took part. It’s kept in a file cabinet at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, whose faculty and staff were tapped to find and film the faces that would appear on the fountain.
“It’s incredible to imagine that I did this piece 20 years ago,” Plensa said in an interview. “Obviously, everybody was really concerned about all the engineering projects.”
There were the 22,000 10-pound glass blocks that needed to be custom built and assembled into two 50-foot towers that would encase massive LED screens, state-of-the-art at the time, and a pumping system, filtration system and shallow reflecting pool — all controlled in three dedicated subterranean rooms and created at a cost of about $17 million.
FACES ARE ‘THE SOUL’
“But I still remember all the time I was saying, ‘OK, guys we are talking all the time about the body, but we cannot forget the soul, and the soul are the faces,’ ” Plensa said.
Art Institute faculty members Alan Labb and John Manning got to work buying high-end art camera equipment and a secondhand barber’s chair that could easily be raised and lowered as the models, young and old, slid into it to be filmed.
It was up to Mery Palarea-Lobos, who’d recently gotten a master’s degree in arts administration, to contact nearly 200 community groups and civic organizations from a list provided by the city and get them to send people to have their faces recorded for the fountain. Palarea-Lobos found herself struggling to perfect her sales pitch, which amounted to: Come sit in front of a video camera for 15 minutes, make funny faces, and we’ll provide free transportation, snacks and a T-shirt.
“It was difficult for people to envision what we were trying to do,” she said. “It didn’t sound like a serious project. But, after the first few groups, we started to build momentum.”
A group of Chinese people came in. Their grandkids acted as translators. A group of Filipino women came. One called ahead to ask how much makeup they should wear and whether they should get their hair done.
“They were so excited about it,” Palarea-Lobos said.
Said Labb: “People came dressed to the nines, head to toe, often in traditional garb and jewelry worn in their home countries.”
Palarea-Lobos reached out to 200 groups, asking them to send people to have their faces recorded. About one-third did.
“There were 800 or so faces in that group, then I was handed a list of about 300 VIPs who were folks associated with the Crown family and people who were friends and acquaintances of Mayor Daley,” Palarea-Lobos said.
Each was told: Smile, relax your face, close your eyes, and pretend you’re blowing out a candle.
Today, when each face appears on the towers, it remains there for about five minutes in the summer, a bit less in cold-weather months because the water feature is turned off, and the spouting faces are edited out.
The order in which they appear is random. The faces are meant to capture a moment in the city’s history.
Those who were included can ask at any time to have their faces removed from the fountain. But only three have, all of them before the fountain went live, Labb said.
There are no plans to add new faces to the fountain. But that doesn’t mean people haven’t tried — among them fundraisers wanting to auction off the privilege and backers of politicians seeking attention to help win elections.
CAN’T BUY A SPOT ON FOUNTAIN
“We always, because of the integrity of the park and its focus on arts, denied those requests,” said Scott Stewart, who was executive director of the Millennium Park Foundation from 2016 to 2022. “We’d consult with the artist and city, but the response was always no.
“When I’d hear, ‘Money is no object,’ I was never prepared for those conversations. But they were always entertaining. I never understood how that would get you votes anyways. How many people would catch that? It would be one face they wanted to be in the mix, and I’d say no, and they’d say, ‘How about just one picture, one time, in the mix?’ And it would still be a no.”
The very high-profile political candidate whose people pushed the hardest? Stewart wouldn’t name names but said: “He has a building in Chicago.”
The fountain’s circuitry isn’t connected to the internet. That’s to prevent hacking and unintended images from making their way onto its giant screens.
The fountains need surprisingly little cleaning due to the water flowing over its surface for much of the year. The insides, though, can develop a bit of algae that can dull images of faces projected on the glass. Once every few years, a company cleans the inside of the glass towers.
Ahead of the 20th anniversary celebration, Plensa said he has a message for Chicago: “My only dream is that people continue to enjoy the piece without any prejudice, just like it is, a place of freedom. My piece should not be an homage to architecture but an homage to people who are really making a city. And I decided on the number 1,000 because, I guess, it was a really nice number.”
THE FACES IN THE FOUNTAIN
The Chicago Sun-Times tracked down some of the people whose faces have been smiling and spitting water on gleeful children for 20 years, and the relatives of one man who’s since died.
HOMER BRYANT
Homer Bryant is the founder of the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center, whose students have included Michelle Obama, her two daughters and Lady Gaga.
“Oh, man, that day, I remember it,” Bryant said. “It was amazing. We didn’t know what we were getting into.”
He remembers being asked whether he and some of his students might be interested in being on the fountain and his response: “I said, ‘Why not? We’ll be there.’
“To me, it was a field trip with a few of the kids, and, next thing you know, we’re part of history,” said Bryant, 74, who lives in the Loop and is originally from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“We didn’t realize it would be 20 years later, and we’d still be on the fountain,” he said, noting that the young students he brought with him now have their own careers, their own families.
He said he’s never seen himself on the fountain.
Maybe even more surprisingly, he said the story of how his face came to be part of the fountain is only second on the list of stories he might tell at a cocktail party: “I was also a dancer in the movie ‘The Wiz’ with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. I’m one of the guys who helps to lift Diana off a table above our heads.”
PRISCILLA DIXON
Priscilla Dixon worked with Homer Bryant at the dance school.
“I was executive director there that summer,” said Dixon, a high school history teacher and former attorney who lives on the South Side. “My kids were in the program, and all three of my children are on the fountain as well.
“I’ve got a quirky sense of humor, and once I found out you were going to be spitting as part of the fountain, I said, ‘Oh, yes, let’s do it. This sounds like fun.’ ”
Has she seen herself up on the fountain’s screens?
“I’ve seen two of my kids,” she said. “But I’ve never seen me. I’ve only seen pictures of me.”
“All in all, I guess it’s been positive to have my face on the fountain, but Denzel Washington didn’t call and ask me to star in a movie with him, so it wasn’t that positive, but it’s been positive,” she said with a laugh. “It’s something that I think is fun, but it doesn’t impact me one way or another. It used to be my go-to icebreaker because it’s something pleasant. It didn’t have any sharp edges.”
She said she’s never really thought about how, in the decades to come, more and more faces on the fountain will, in a way, become memorials as those who participated in the project die.
“My face could be up there after I’m gone, or, if I was to move, hopefully somewhere where the winters are milder, and I’d still be a part of Chicago in some small way,” she said. “If my kids ever came to see my face on the fountain after I’m gone, I’d hope it would be a joyous experience, with the sound of kids playing.
“I remember when we visited the fountains as a family, and my daughter was tiny, and she was wearing loose braids. She’d put her head under the fountain and fling her hair around and spray her brothers.”
DONALD STALEY
Donald Staley was 84 when he died in 2016 from brain cancer. His death notice urged people to go see him on the fountain. He was part of a group from Rotary One who lent their mugs to history. He considered that his 15 minutes of fame.
“He was so honored and proud,” said his niece Denise Werner, who lives not far from where her uncle lived in Lake View and who helped care for him as he was dying. “He was a storyteller and joke teller, and he just loved talking about it.”
Staley grew up in Joliet, served in the Air Force, became an upholstery fabric salesman and loved hosting friends at his lakeside condo to watch the Chicago Air & Water Show.
As Werner was preparing her uncle’s death notice before he died, she asked whether it would be OK to mention his longtime partner, who previously had died. He agreed that was a good idea.
“That was a big deal because my uncle was gay, but he was of that generation that never really came out,” Werner said. “I don’t know how many LGBTQ members are on the fountain, but he was one of them, representing that generation that maybe never really came out. And, to me, it adds weight to it.
“Did Rotary One know he was gay or the School of the Art Institute? No. He wasn’t outward, but the fact that he allowed me to add his partner to his obituary, that’s pretty powerful,” Werner said. “He did tell me once, ‘There’s something I want to tell you’ and then he told me he was gay, and I was, like, ‘Oh, Uncle Don, we already knew.’ And he just had tears in his eye and was, like, ‘OK, well I just wanted you to know.’ We grew up in a family that was very accepting.”
Werner said her uncle’s image on the fountain serves as a memorial of sorts.
“When I’m at Millennium Park, I always keep an eye out for his face,” she said. “He just got a big kick out of it and knew it would always be there.”
GLORIA MORNINGSTAR
“When I went to be filmed for the fountain, I was very excited because I’d just had new veneers done on my teeth, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll have to tell my dentist: Your work will be on the Crown Fountain,’ ” said Morningstar, 80, who lives in Harvey and is retired from her longtime job as director of employment for the Chicago Metropolitan YMCA.
It’s a trip for her to think about her face on the fountain of her adopted city. When Morningstar was a young woman, she moved to Chicago from a small town in South Dakota for the summer and decided to stay because she loved the fact that Chicago had paved roads. Her hometown had mostly dirt roads.
“I said, ‘Wow! The streets are paved! I’m staying!’ ” said Morningstar, who has roots in the Native American Lakota tribe.
She said she still has the black T-shirt she was given for being part of the fountain project. On the front, in white letters, it bears the question: What could a fountain be?
“My brother [once] was in from Las Vegas, and I said, ‘Let’s go down and see me’ but we didn’t see my face,’ ” she said. “It could take a long time to sit there and see yourself.”
But it’s there. Really.
“WTTW-Channel 11 did a program all about the city’s lakefront a few years ago, and they got to Millennium Park, and there I was on the fountain,” Morningstar said. “And I was at a Gold Coast art fair once and came across an oil painting of the Crown Fountain, and there’s my face on it. I’m telling you, when I look back, I should have bought that painting. It’s been haunting me for years.”
LINH PHAM GUTIERREZ
“Twenty years — it makes you remember where you were at that time of your life and where you are now,” said Linh Pham Gutierrez, 46, who is Vietnamese American and lives in the west suburbs.
Back then, she hadn’t married yet and didn’t yet have a child. She was the youth program director for the Chinese Mutual Aid Association in Uptown when she took on the task of rounding up about 15 kids and seniors and driving everyone downtown in a large van to have their faces filmed for the Crown Fountain.
“We’ve all gone through so many changes in our lives,” said Pham Gutierrez, who now works for the Alzheimer’s Association. “Some of the kids I went with have kids now.”
She said she has seen her face on the fountain twice.
Her husband Rudy Gutierrez hasn’t ever seen it, even though he kept an eye out for it between classes when he attended nearby Roosevelt University, and occasionally will gaze out the window of the building with a view of the park where he works.
Pham Gutierrez said she’ll use her claim to fame now and then as a conversation starter, but her husband brings it up more than she does.
“I live vicariously through her famous face,” he said. “I don’t have much to talk about myself.”
TUYEN TRAN and JESSICA PAN
Tuyen Tran and Jessica Pan were middle school kids in the youth program that Pham Gutierrez ran. They were part of the rowdy bunch that hopped in the giant van, which the kids nicknamed “Big Bertha,” to head south to get their faces on the fountain.
“As a kid, it’s always cool to leave the neighborhood, but I didn’t understand our faces would be up on one of the major attractions of Chicago for years to come,” said Tran, who was born in Vietnam. “I have not seen my face on the fountain in person, but I found a photo of my face on the fountain online. And I think my face is on the fountain in one of the Jason Bourne movies, like in the background of a scene, so that’s pretty cool.
“It’s a nice little Chicago fact,” said Tran, 35, a real estate agent who has one son and recently moved to the North Shore.
On learning of the many people who’ve sought to get their faces on the fountain over the past two decades, Tran said: “Wait, so can I sell my spot? No? Well, I guess I should feel more important then.”
Tran’s parents owned a restaurant on Argyle Street.
Pan was best friends with Tran and grew up in the same apartment building in Uptown. For her, having her face on the fountain is more than a fun fact.
“I consider it my claim to fame,” she said with a laugh, noting that she hasn’t seen it in person but gets sent pictures by friends who have.
Hearing that the images on the fountain are set and won’t be changed, Pan, an IT project manager, said: “That’s awesome. I love that. I think it just really captures that moment in time. It’s good to know that we were part of that, and they really went out of their way to get diverse faces and ages from the city.”
Pan was delighted to learn about some of the other people whose faces are seen on the fountain.
“I have wondered who the other people are on the fountain, where they’re from and what their story is, where they are now, and I looked online once, but there was never any of that detail anywhere.”
BRETT SWINNEY and CAROLINE SWINNEY
“I was a sassy little college student,” said Brett Swinney, whose mother Caroline Swinney worked as an assistant to former Mayor Richard M. Daley. “I didn’t even understand what we were doing when my mom came in and woke me up early on a Saturday, and I just wanted to stay in bed. But she was, like, ‘Oh, no. This is going to be really cool.’
“It’s interesting to reflect on it. I was starting my career in the arts. It’s a fun fact at parties from time to time.”
“I remember thinking the camera rig in front of me felt so space-aged as I was being given directions: Smile. Don’t smile. Pucker.
“The experience gave me a sense that public art is more than murals and sculptures and planted a seed for the rest of my career,” said Swinney, who now works for the city Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events on public art.
“But I have actually never seen my face on the fountain. I always was, like, ‘Oh, wait. Am I too ugly?’ Because I’ve seen my mom’s face,” he said with a laugh, likening his face to the cartoon frog that breaks into song and dance only when people’s heads are turned. “Seeing people interact with the fountain on summer days, especially if I’m having a rough day at my desk, I might walk over, and seeing that engagement is really beautiful.”
“I was good friends with Ed Uhlir, who was the director of planning at the Chicago Park District,” said Caroline Swinney, who has a background in the arts. “He’s since passed away, but we’d worked on previous projects for the city, and he was the master planner for Millennium Park. And I’d read in the paper about this fountain and how they were looking for faces, and I called Ed and said, ‘Ed, I want to be one of those faces. How do I get in?’
“I knew it was going to be momentous, but I didn’t realize how momentous until later. I just knew that Millennium Park was so futuristic and out there, and I wanted to be a part of it because of that.”
She said she’s never seen her face on the fountain. But friends and relatives have. Her son found an image of her on the fountain online and printed and framed it as a birthday gift last year.
“I chat about it often, and every person I tell is in shock because no one really knows anybody on those fountains. I brought it up at a luncheon with some friends recently, and they were, like, ‘Really? Oh, my God!’ ""
COLE FRANKEL
Cole Frankel, 33, was a kid at the time. His father Roark Frankel was an executive with U.S. Equities, the company that managed many elements of the park’s construction.
“I remember going in when I was, like, 12 with my dad, my mom, my sister and my brother,” said Frankel, a paralegal who lives in Ravenswood. “And I thought it was really cool, like ‘Oh, wow, my dad has this cool job. And, as a result, I get to do this cool thing that not a lot of people get to do.’ But I guess I also sort of didn’t have a choice because it was something my dad told us we were doing.
“But looking back on it now, it makes me happy because I’ve seen a lot of kids playing in the water in the summer, and it makes me happy to be a part of it.”
“I don’t remember ever seeing my face on the fountain, but a lot of times family friends will reach out to my parents and be, like, ‘Tell Cole I saw his face today on the fountain,’ ” he said. “I’d kind of forgotten about it until now. I guess I may mention it occasionally, but I usually don’t bring it up to people. It feels a little bit like, just a touch, like bragging.”
His father Roark Frankel, who oversees the planning and construction of the Obama Presidential Center, recalled that he brought his family in at a time when project managers were struggling to find people to lend their faces to the fountain.
“If we’d just done people who worked on the job, it would have been hard to get the demographics we wanted,” he said.
