Millenium Park celebrated its fifth birthday this week with a series of free outdoor events hosted at the park, headlined by SHELebration! A Tribute To Shel Silverstein. More than eight thousand people attended the Monday evening event honoring the Chicago poet and author, famous for his books of children’s poems such as “A Light in the Attic.”
The anniversary event featured Bobby Bare and Bobby Bare Jr., with the Bare Family Band, joined by guitarist Chip Young and drummer Patrick Hallahan of My Morning Jacket, among others. The musicians performed a mixture of Silverstein’s poems along with some of the poet’s songs.
“He wrote ‘A Boy Named Sue’ for Johnny Cash. He’s had many songs, and many people don’t realize he had ambition to be a songwriter,” said Brian Keigher, an event programmer for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs,
The Shel Silverstein family also gave the band a never-before-seen poem called “Birthday, ” in honor of the park’s anniversary.
“The event was one of the feathers in the cap,” Keigher said. “SHELebration! was a special, one-off tribute to Shel Silverstein, (Millennium Park administrators) were trying to do something special with the Family Fun Festival, which is happening all summer long. They gave me the keys, or the green light so to speak, to put together SHELebration! as part of birthday week.”
Keigher has also organized the On Stage at Noon picnic series, where the park provides music or audio during lunch hour.
Programming at Millenium Park, 201 E. Randolph St., has increased significantly since it opened, said Ralph Flores, artistic director of the park.
When the park debuted in 2005, it hosted 42 concerts and events. This year the park has accommodated 614 events, many of which are free and open to the public, he said.
Flores said he finds the park to be truly representative of Chicago and its inhabitants.
“It really symbolizes the front yard of the city,” he said. “It draws people of all levels of income, all denominations, all ethnicities.”
The park, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, has seen more than 16 million visitors since its inception, said media relations Amy O’Connor. The denizens of Millennium Park come for the Cloud Gate sculpture, the Lurie Garden and the Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion, home to the Grant Park Music Festival and other free concert events.
Flores said the directors strive to be inclusive to Chicago artists, and to stay focused on giving them a platform on which they can present their work, while continuing to expand programming.
“(Millennium Park) is kind of an iconic image all over the world in terms of what is presented for the city, with Cloud Gate and tourism, it’s kind of one of the most recognizable symbols,” he said. “It used to be Michigan Avenue but now it’s Millennium Park as the destination.”
