(By our Chicago Correspondent)
A mighty drama stands written in the stars. There, if anywhere, is told the vast and thrilling and mysterious story of the universe.
“It is a drama of law, of infinite and minute and wondrous adjustments, of infinite and never ending beauty, that, working upon the mind of man, its beholder leads him ever upward and onward toward the higher levels both of the intellect and the soul.”
Such, approximately, was the thought in the mind of Max Adler, former vice-president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and a distinguished citizen of Chicago, when planning a gift for the city of his love, he sought to serve her higher and more spiritual needs.
Mr. Adler’s gift, to cost $500,000 and announced today by Edward J. Kelly, president of the South Park Board, will give Chicago the first planetarium to be erected in the United States.
On Island No. 1, of that fairyland of islands and lagoons which is to make of Chicago’s lake front a second Lido, and just east of the Field Museum, a monumental building is to be erected in which to house the planetarium.
The architects who are to plan this building and supervise its construction will shortly be selected as the result of a competition now drawing to a close.
The order for the manufacture of the gigantic toy which is soon to be placed in Chicago’s perennial Christmas stocking has been placed with the world’s most famous manufacturer of astronomical instruments, Carl Zeiss of Jena, Germany. Delivery is to be made in the Fall of 1929.
In the meantime, Mr. Adler will, in July, join Leo Wormser, who left today for Germany and other European countries, and together they will visit the several great planetariums now in existence, notably those of Dusseldorf, Berlin, Hanover and Jeno.
Construction of the building is to begin this Fall. The structure is to be 200 feet wide and 70 feet high and is to be topped with a dome 100 feet in diameter.
“I have from the beginning been deeply interested in the development of Chicago’s lake front,” Mr. Adler said today, “and I have long been eager to contribute a suitable and beautiful gift to that development.
“In choosing for this purpose a planetarium I have wished, especially to emphasize the truth that all mankind, both rich and poor, both powerful and weak, constitute part of one and the same universe, and that, under the great celestial firmament, there is no division or cleavage but rather an interdependece and unity.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
